ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we examine how humanitarian journalists understand the contested concept of ‘humanitarianism’ and how this shapes their work. We find that they adopt an ‘ambiguous-humanitarianism’, characterised by relatively broad and inconsistent understandings of the concept. We argue that maintaining such conceptual ambiguity is strategically valuable to humanitarian journalists because it allows them more creative room to experiment with novel, hybrid practices. It also enables them to cover a relative broad range of issues related to extreme human suffering, to provide the broader, political context to such crises and to reflect the perspective of a wide range of actors – whilst still retaining the professional identity of ‘humanitarians’.
