public journalism and professional reflexivity. journalism

Preprint version: Ahva, Laura (2013). Public journalism and professional reflexivity. Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism 14: 6, 790-806.

TITLE:

Public Journalism and Professional Reflexivity

ABSTRACT: The self-understanding of journalists is framed by shared norms, values, and a sense of belonging

to a professional group. In this article, the journalistic profession is discussed from the viewpoint of

journalists’ own work experiences in public journalism projects. The article examines the way in

which public journalism projects in three different newspapers in Finland have acted as a ground

for professional reflexivity for journalists. The present study suggests that public journalism, as a

participatory news practice, challenges some of the core dimensions of classical professionalism.

In the Finnish context, journalists generally regard public journalism as a moderately positive but

slightly problematic set of ideas. Journalists re-articulate their role as a helper, accessible

collaborator, discussion moderator or ‘connector’, and as a commercial representative of the

paper. Thus, despite its stability, the journalist’s professional self-image is a construct that can be

re-articulated, and public journalism is evoking much of this redefinition.

KEYWORDS:

civic journalism, professionalism, public journalism, reflexivity, self-understanding


Introduction

In journalism studies, professionalism has acted as a lens through which journalism practice,

journalists’ self-understanding, and the shared value system of journalism can be studied and

understood (Aldridge & Evetts, 2003). Professionalism therefore forms the basis on which

journalists can confidently make news decisions or define and maintain the collective boundaries of

journalism (Zelizer, 2004: 33). The professional core of journalism can be understood as a

collection of shared but continuously contested values that define how proper journalists should act

or at what they should aim. Journalism’s professional core is being shaped by various external

influences: economic, socio-cultural, technological and political trends (Kunelius & Ruusunoksa,

2008). Moreover, there are also internal influences within the professional culture of journalism that

deliberately aim to shape and challenge the classical values. Public or civic journalism can be

understood as an internal trend of this kind.

Public journalism is a reform movement and a way to re-understand some of the convictions that

journalism holds to, in its search for news, around assumptions about politics, power, people,

public opinion, and democracy (Rosen, 1999: 27). For example, traditional ethical codes of the

profession deal almost exclusively with separation and not with connection, which is a key

dimension in public journalism (Rosen, 1997: 80–81). Public journalism is thus a normative yet

experimental set of journalistic ideals and practices, which emphasise the importance of citizen

involvement in the journalistic process and in public discussion. The peak of the movement was

between 1990 and 2003 in the USA, but some of its participatory practices are still viable,

especially in the non-American context (Haas, 2007; Romano, 2010) and therefore international

interpretations of public journalism have become especially interesting. Public journalism has been

studied as a reform movement (Woodstock, 2002), a philosophy (Haas & Steiner, 2003), an

organizational news practice (Lambeth, 1998; Romano, 2010b), and a set of values that challenge

traditional professionalism (Friedland, 2003).

This article acknowledges all of the abovementioned ways of conceiving public journalism, but it

will contribute to the last aspect in particular, based on the belief that public journalism can be best

understood from the viewpoint of professional reflexivity (cf. Ettema & Glasser, 1998: 153, 183).

Professional reflexivity refers to journalists’ capacity for self-awareness; their ability to recognize

influences and changes in their environment, alter the course of their actions, and re-negotiate

their professional self-images as a result. This article will also answer to the need for international

interpretations of public journalism. It will illustrate the professional self-understanding of Finnish


newspaper journalists involved in public journalism projects. The Nordic context offers an

interesting point of comparison to the public journalism experiences in the American context.

In Nordic mainstream journalism, an atmosphere of ‘corporate professionalism’ as seen in the

increased discussion about corporate ownership, commercial goals, and the role of entertainment

in journalism is developing (Nygren, 2008; Jyrkiäinen, 2008: 56 58). In Finland, the economic

imperatives of the previously prosperous newspaper industry have intensified and thus the context

of Finnish public journalism is defined by increased media competition. At the same time, however,

the old tradition of democracy supporting ‘public service professionalism’ – embedded in the notion

of the welfare society and the strong tradition of newspaper readership – is still part of the

conceptual repertoire with which Finnish newspaper journalists make sense of their profession

(Kunelius & Ruusunoksa, 2008). ‘Public service professionalism’ here refers to the ethos according

to which journalists in Finland once regarded themselves as professional transmitters of socially

responsible and objective information to ‘everybody’, especially after the decline of the party press

system in the 1970s (Pietilä, 2008: 154–155; Salokangas, 1999: 98). In this view, journalism was

regarded as an occupation that should play a role in the process of widening the rights of citizens

in the welfare state via information delivery (Pietilä, 2008:166). Currently, however, the overall

media framework in Finland is moving away from the consensus-oriented and state-regulated

system towards a more individual-oriented, liberal media model, and this transition obviously is

having an impact on the profession.

Empirically this paper is based on a qualitative analysis of 40 journalist interviews from three

Finnish newspapers: one local, one regional and one national. The interviewees have been asked

to reflect upon their experiences from and evaluations of public journalism inspired coverage in

2002 2006. Framing this research is a simple question: How do Finnish journalists view their

professional self-image in relation to public journalism projects?

I will first discuss professionalism in journalism and show how public journalism has been seen as

a challenge to classical professionalism. I will then have a closer look at the three Finnish

newspapers and their public journalism projects. On the basis of research interviews I will then

analyze how journalists conceptualize professional values and public journalism, and how this has

compelled them to reflect upon the professional role of the journalist. In the conclusion, I will return

to the questions of professional reflexivity and the Finnish professional culture as an interesting

context for the current forms of public journalism.

Professionalism in journalism


There are at least three layers of understanding professionalism. The first layer refers to skill-

based social status: individuals are regarded as representatives of their profession (cf. Splichal &

Sparks, 1994: 34–36). The second layer can be called a classical sociological understanding of

professionalism, which is based on the idea of occupation differentiation and the need to consider

what it is that makes some occupations professions and others not (Evetts, 2006: 134). The third

angle from which professionalism can be considered is discursive. This refers to the way in which

professional ideology is constructed in the shared discourse of the members of the occupation. For

example, Soloski (1997: 139) maintains that it is unproductive to debate over the distinctions

between professions and non-professions, but considers it more fruitful to examine what it means

for certain groups to define their roles as professions. Aldridge & Evetts (2003: 548–9) note that a

discursive understanding of professionalism is a mechanism that helps the members of a

profession to relate to and understand the changes that are taking place within the profession. In

other words, a discursive understanding of professionalism entails more reflexivity than the other

three layers.

Current studies on journalism and professionalism have focused on how journalistic ideology takes

shape in professional discourse. Of particular interest have been the standards that appear as the

core values of professional journalism: autonomy, public service, objectivity, immediacy, and the

democratic justification of journalism (Deuze, 2005; Hanitzsch, 2007). Autonomy refers to the

freedom to shape one’s own work without being controlled by internal or external forces (Örnebring,

2010: 572). According to the idea of public service, journalism is, in essence, responsible for its

operation to the public as citizens and therefore rests on the idea of ‘people’s right to know’ (Kunelius,

1998: 214). Objectivity, in turn, means that journalists should strive for objectivity in the process of news

making: in checking facts and writing in an impartial style (Kovach & Rosenstiel, 2001: 13, 27). In

practice, objectivity translates into goals labeled as unbiased reporting, neutrality, fairness, and

balance. Immediacy as a professional value arises from the fact that journalism is essentially about

producing the news in a timely fashion (Deuze, 2005). The most fundamental dimension of professional

journalism is the democratic justification of journalism. For instance, Carey (2007:13) explains that

without the institution or spirit of democracy, journalists are reduced to propagandists or entertainers.

Journalism as a profession is thus based on these shared values that are upheld as well as challenged

in discourse. As a result, a body of journalists in democratic societies has a fairly consistent

understanding on how a professional journalist ought to act (Shoemaker & Reese, 1996: 93). In

this article, I will describe how Finnish newspaper reporters and editors view professionalism and

its ideological values through the prism of public journalism; how they take public journalism as

part – or not as part – of their professional discourse.


Relationship between professionalism and public journalism The link between professionalism and public journalism is two-fold. Firstly, public journalism is

linked to the old sociological debate of whether journalism is a proper profession or not. Journalists

lack the institutionalized route of professionalization with degrees or permissions. Some see that

this lack of institutional professionalism has been a partial reason for welcoming public journalism,

which provides the idea of social responsibility as a central part of journalism’s legitimacy to exist

as a profession (Zelizer, 1999: 55). Secondly, public journalism is situated in a position of a

challenger in relation to traditional journalistic professionalism, as is seen in its attempt to re-

imagine the boundaries of objectivity and autonomy, for example.

In this article, public journalism is considered as a professional challenge for mainstream

newspapers (as opposed to practices in alternative or citizen media). Public journalism is seen as

a form of professional journalism that aims to foster participation, public deliberation, diversity, and

connectedness. It considers readers as citizens and takes them into journalistic focus. Moreover,

public journalism conceives citizens as actors in the public sphere, and it justifies its arguments

from the perspective of democracy (for a wider discussion of this definition, see Ahva, 2010: 48–

54; see also Rosen 1999; Haas 2007).

The charged relationship of public journalism and traditional professionalism is best exemplified by

the wave of criticism that public journalism has created among journalists and scholars. Firstly, the

critics see public journalism as a way to give up journalistic autonomy in the name of the public;

that is, to let the public have a say on how the news agenda is formed and the news is handled

(Buckner & Gartner, 1998: 229). Secondly, the critics believe that the notion of objectivity as a

professional core value has been stretched too far by public journalism: a journalist cannot be

impartial and active at the same time (Merrill et al, 2001:122). The third area of criticism deals with

democracy. The framework of representative and election-based democracy endures as a

paradigm for practicing journalists, and therefore the participatory and deliberative ideals of public

journalism advocates have evoked criticism. The critics claim that these democratic ideals tend to

create inequality in practice, for instance in terms of who gets to be included in the deliberating

community and who does not (Merrill et al, 2001; Haas, 2007: 38).

The above-summarized criticism is a sign of the impact that the public journalism movement has

had on the professional as well as academic discussion. Criticism also points out the need for

research. Particularly interesting is the rich material that public journalism initiatives can provide for

studying professional values in journalism and the professionals’ understanding of themselves.

Public journalism has touched upon the core dimensions of professionalism in a way that has


made it impossible to dismiss all of its claims as either too mundane or too extravagant. Therefore,

public journalism has invited professional reflexivity and re-articulation.

Journalist interviews from three newspapers For this study, I chose three newspapers that represent different levels of the Finnish media field:

one national, one regional, and one local paper. Moreover, I chose mainstream newsrooms that in

one way or another developed and applied the public journalism approach to their reporting during

the period from 2002 to 20061. This time frame was chosen, because it represents the period in

which the research-initiated ideas of public journalism were domesticated into newsroom practices

in Finland. Public journalism inspired the three newspapers in slightly different ways, but common

denominators can be found (Ruusunoksa, 2006).

Helsingin Sanomat (HS) is a nation-wide newspaper, with a regional emphasis on the metropolitan

area. During the Finnish parliamentary elections of 2003, HS based its pre-election reporting on a

‘citizens’ agenda’ rather than on the perceived agenda of the political elite. The project aimed to

bring the paper closer to the ‘regular people’. The idea was developed by the chief of the politics

department who had been inspired by the idea of public journalism and sought examples of

election coverage from American and Nordic experiments. The paper organised a survey of the

public at large, in which voters were asked about the most important questions they would like to

have discussed in the election. The key themes turned out to include health care, care of the

elderly, and unemployment, for example. Ten themes were then covered in a series of articles

written as a team. HS’ approach followed the American election projects based on the ‘voters’

agenda’ (cf. Potter) fairly systematically. After the first project, the politics department carried out

another differently organized election project during the European Parliament election in 2004 that

included co-operation with a national commercial television network. Pre-election coverage

included four discussion events organized in the indoor agora of the newspaper’s building.

Candidates and political experts were featured in the events, which were open for the audience to

attend and pose questions. Seventeen journalists’ who were involved in either of the election

projects in HS were interviewed for the present project.

Already in the 1990s, in a regional paper called Aamulehti (AL), the first steps towards public

journalism were initiated and led by university researchers. These experiments centred on the

reader–newspaper relationship; for instance, it looked at specialized suburb reporting, citizen focus

groups, and other ‘conversational methods’ (Kunelius, 2001). Today, this approach has merged

with the broad notion of reader orientation and has led to a more market-driven version of public


journalism. AL has developed a series of citizen-based reporting methods fitted for a large regional

newspaper. Firstly, it continuously organizes public discussion sessions that gather together

decision-makers and the general public. Secondly, the paper has also published ‘encounter stories’

where members of the public are taken to interview the ministers of the government and discuss

with them. The third distinctly citizen-based method is the so-called news van, which tours the

region in order to elicit the views and opinions of the public. For this paper I have interviewed

fourteen AL journalists who have been involved either in a municipal election project of 2004 that

included news van stories and public discussion events, or who have been involved in two series

(2002, 2004) that utilized the idea of citizen and decision-maker encounters.

The local newspaper Itä-Häme (IH) has been the first Finnish news organisation to establish a

permanent post for a ‘civic reporter’. The public journalism approach of the local paper sprang from

the newspaper’s own desire to change its working routines in 2001. The change was initiated by a

commissioned content analysis, which indicated that most of the news stories were presenting only

a single voice, usually that of the local authorities. One of the reactions to this result was the

creation of a post for a specialized reporter who would take care of a regular and relevant use of

citizen sources. The civic reporter’s stories have not followed a strict pattern, but they can be

categorized into six different story types: everyday life stories, current topics, presentation of local

people and neighbourhoods, encounter stories, ‘mobilizing’ stories, and readers’ questions. At IH I

interviewed nine journalists (including the civic reporter) in order to get an idea of how the

journalists in the local paper interpreted the impact of public journalism.

The three cases represent rather well the way in which public journalism has been applied in the

Finnish mainstream newspapers: the approaches typically have been restricted or appropriated in

a sense that public journalism has not been fully embraced. The approaches have been project-

like or assigned to a selected group of journalists, not the entire organization. Among other factors,

the fast pace of news work and limited financial resources undoubtedly have hindered the scope of

the change.

Methodologically, this paper is based on qualitative research. The empirical data consist of

interviews carried out individually (AL and IH) and in groups (HS). A semi-structured interview plan

guided the interview situations, but room was left for flexibility, as there was variation in the cases.

The interviewees were eager to talk about their work and the interview situations usually lasted up

to two hours. In semi-structured interviews it is often difficult to balance between the themes of the

interview and the interviewee’s experiences. It is important, however, to understand the interview

as an active process (Holstein & Gubrium, 1995) and a jointly produced discourse, and not to see

variation across interviews as error but as significant data for analysis – presuming that the


researcher is clear about the context of the interview (Mishler, 1986: 153; 157). I transcribed all of

the interviews including my own questions in order to get a detailed description of the interview

situations and to better see the interviews as shared communicative situations. The framework that

I as an interviewer brought to the situation was that of public journalism. Not all of the respondents

had framed their initiatives explicitly as public journalism, but no-one denied the concept of public

journalism or citizen-oriented journalism (phrases that I used) as applicable to their newsrooms.

The interviews can be, however, described as moments of invited reflexivity. Journalists’ personal

experiences provided the basis for the interviews, but it was the research situation that encouraged

extensive reflexivity; it gave people a framework and language by which to describe their

experiences.

The method for analysis was qualitative content analysis, which draws on the traditions of the

social sciences as well as the humanities. As a methodology, qualitative content analysis is in fact

a broad amalgamation of approaches with various camps stressing the importance of slightly

different dimensions such as discourse, narrative structures, and frames (Devereux, 2003: 192–

195). Within this tradition I have chosen an open and interpretative approach, as the goal of the

research was to analyze reflexivity and the subtle nuances in discourse that are not definable with

certainty in advance of conducting the study (Priest, 2009: 109). The interviews were analyzed with

the help of Atlas.ti software. The data was first thematized according to four themes and the

findings in this article are based on the analysis of two of them: public journalism definitions and

notes about the role of the journalist. After the initial thematization, more room was given for the

data to talk back and themes were more freely coded into smaller clusters, which were then further

examined.

Professional values evoked by public journalism

The interviews indicated that professionalism is highly contextual in nature. Each newsroom culture

with its particular context determined slightly differently which dimensions of professionalism were

voiced. Clearly, an active understanding of professionalism is formed in discourse when the

underlying professional culture of journalism meets the organization’s culture (see Evetts, 2003).

This is indicated, for example, by the fact that talking about professionalism as a set of values or

an abstract ideology was not equally easy for all journalists. Whereas journalists from the national

paper discussed conceptual dimensions such as objectivity or trustworthiness with ease,

journalists in the local newspaper typically did not articulate professionalism as an abstract

construct. The discussion at IH focused primarily on work routines and skills. There are differences

in the degrees to which newsroom cultures cultivate professional vocabularies and concepts for

speaking about journalism.


The different contexts produced different interpretations and emphases about the relationship

between public journalism and professionalism. At HS, the most discussed value was autonomy, at

AL it was public service, and at IH it was the watchdog position, drawing on the democratic

justification of journalism. These were the strongest dimensions of professionalism that were

evoked, and they have been partially redefined by public journalism in the three newspapers.

Following these differences, the way in which public journalism was considered to be affecting

professionalism was also a bit differently framed in each paper. At HS, public journalism was

framed as a reminder of what good journalism can be2. Via the public journalism projects the

journalists had been reminded of worthy practices, such as lively storytelling or teamwork methods,

and worthy values, especially the importance of maintaining autonomy from any external forces in

journalistic decisions. HS journalists were rather ambivalent about the positive impact that public

journalism could bring to professional journalism.

In the regional paper, AL, the relationship between public journalism and professionalism was

more than a reminder: public journalism was seen as a slow mental change that required the

journalists to step out of their comfort zone. In comparison to HS, the journalists in AL were more

positive towards public journalism and its impact on professionalism, which was further indicated

by the fact that public service – remembering journalism’s fundamental responsibility to the public

was the most prevalent professional dimension that was referred to in the context of public

journalism. The effect of public journalism in AL could be summarized as the need to dissolve the

borders between the journalists and their public, but the journalists voiced clear doubts about the

merging of marketing goals and journalistic work.

In the local newspaper, IH, public journalism influenced professionalism through practice and

experimentation rather than through abstract value discussions. At IH, the practical changes in

work routines seemed to precede the change in values. The impact that public journalism had on

professionalism was considered to be positive. It seems that the changes implied by public

journalism were easier to accept and interpret when there was a colleague in the newsroom who

routinely did her work according to public journalism ideals rather than if public journalism had

taken the form of a project. The fact that the classical watchdog role was the most prevalent

professional dimension in the local paper is interesting; this role was broadened by the public

journalism approach. Local journalists thought that the watchdog role could be strengthened by

citizens’ critical questions, for example. Citizens were thus seen as allies or co-workers for

journalists in their attempts to scrutinize the conduct of local officials and democratic organs.


Defining public journalism and its risks On top of activating and redefining certain professional values, public journalism approaches

invited the journalists to consider the practical meaning of public journalism in their organizations.

The term public journalism was familiar to all of the journalists, but uncertainty was expressed

about the ‘correct’ definition or understanding of the idea. Journalists had become familiar with the

term in different contexts: newsroom discussions, seminars, trade magazine articles, and their own

studies. This variance of sources indicates that the concept belongs to the broad vocabulary of

professional journalism in Finland but it also points out why a specific understanding of public

journalism is so incoherent.

There were, however, four concurring dimensions that showed in the journalists’ conceptions of

public journalism. First, journalists thought that in public journalism information needs to be

relevant for the people as citizens; it needs to be useful, understandable and easy to digest. In this

sense, public journalism entailed the idea of service: there was a consensus about the fact that

newspapers need to serve their readers as citizens so that they can be involved in society. This

kind of understanding underlined the importance of covering topics in a way that translates political

jargon into everyday language.

The second dimension dealt with the representation of citizens in the stories. Journalists here

suggested that public journalism is essentially about giving space to the voice of citizens, taking

care that the ‘genuine’ voices, opinions, and experiences are covered. This logic involves the use

of regular people as sources in public journalism, which in turn requires shifting the ‘radar of

journalism’ from the traditional elite sources to sources from everyday life.

The third dimension of public journalism was more demanding in terms of citizen participation than

were the previous two. According to journalists here, journalism was seen to be public journalism if

the covered topics originate from the readers. In public journalism, the public has more power over

what the newspaper covers than in conventional journalism. For many journalists, providing space

for citizens’ views was enough, but some indicated that public journalism is not genuinely ‘public’ if

journalists decide the agenda themselves and then only incorporate ‘the citizen angle’ in the

stories.

The fourth dimension of public journalism embodied the idea that journalists need to enable citizen

participation and activity. The idea of participation was two-fold. First, public journalism entails

citizen participation in relation to the process of news making. The journalists thus clearly

emphasized the participation of nonprofessionals in the production of content and media decision-


making (Carpentier, 2011: 193–194). Second, public journalism should empower citizens to

participate in public debate and society. Consensus on this second type of participation –

participation ‘through’ the media (ibid.) – was, however, uncertain. Hence, public journalism was

foremost seen as a participatory news making process that journalists do together with citizens,

and to a lesser degree as an empowering participatory initiative.

Journalists were also asked about the problems or risks related to public journalism. All of the

journalists mentioned some risks, which indicates that even if public journalism was accepted,

journalists did not consider it as an unambiguously positive trend. From the viewpoint of

professional values, two significant themes surfaced: the fear of losing autonomy, and the difficulty

in linking public journalism with newsworthiness.

According to the interviewees, public journalism was, to some extent, seen to undermine the

independence of journalists as professionals by giving in to public opinion. This was clearly

expressed when journalists discussed citizens’ ability to affect the content of newspapers. If

journalism reports merely the issues that interest the public and not the issues that are important

for them (Hujanen, 2009), there is a risk of covering the ‘wrong’ issues. There was also a fear of

being used by certain groups of people, if only ‘the ones who shout the loudest get their voices

heard’, as one AL journalist put it.

Another set of problems dealt with news values. The journalists felt that sometimes the values of

public journalism ran counter to news values. Some journalists suggested that the public

journalism approach hardly ever produces a piece of hard news, which is seen as the ideal goal of

newspaper journalism. This indicates that the internalized division between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ news

affected journalists’ interpretation of public journalism. The notion of hard news was connected to

the ‘official viewpoint’ and soft news with ‘the everyday’ aspect. Thus, some journalists ceded that

news can be spiced with citizens’ comments but they are not necessary; in fact, they may even

erode the legitimacy of news. Despite the above-described risks, journalists generally regarded

public journalism as a moderately positive but slightly problematic set of ideas.

Signs of ‘public professionalism’ The majority of the interviewed Finnish journalists saw public journalism as a natural part of

traditional professionalism. When journalists frame public journalism as part of traditional

professionalism, they usually see it as something that ‘good journalism should be anyway’ – a

common argument also in the American context (Woodstock, 2002: 46–47). In my interviews, this

argument was stated in order to either criticize or support public journalism. According to critics,


there was no need to rename good quality journalism as public journalism, and therefore, public

journalism and its effects on professionalism should be critically evaluated, even resisted. But

when public journalism was seen to be part of the familiar professional ideology in a supporting

sense, the argument suggested that public journalism emphasizes certain classical values but a

little differently. Therefore, this inclusive discourse did not require much reflexivity or professional

rethinking in terms of journalists’ self-image. However, seeing public journalism as an extension to

professionalism is an important starting point, since an adaptive attitude is a precondition for any

new ideas to be taken under consideration in the first place. In addition, there were clear occasions

in which this adaptive undertone was shaken and a more active professional reflexivity emerged.

Previous studies (Gade et al, 1998) have shown that in the context of public journalism, journalists

have accepted the idea that there is more than one legitimate approach to professional journalism.

How did public journalism, then, push journalists into a re-articulation of their own identities as

journalists (cf. Carpentier, 2005: 214)? Due to the somewhat restricted nature of the public

journalism approaches, this process of re-articulating was only temporary or partial for some. It can

nevertheless be regarded as important because it arose from practical news work and was

sparked by internal trends of the profession. I will now discuss four themes that dealt with the effect

of public journalism on professional self-image: helping, connecting, interacting, and being ‘public’.

These can be taken as signs of ’public professionalism’.

Helping and supporting citizens

The first case of re-articulation was apparent when journalists saw themselves as collaborators or

helpers. Public journalism influenced the journalists’ professional self-image so that they positioned

themselves on the same side as the public. Here journalists did not consider themselves as

reporters that should, from an arm’s-length distance, perform their public service to a receiving

mass. Even if the idea of serving the public in the traditional, informative manner remained and the

idea of the public as a reading audience existed, according to the re-articulation, journalists also

‘helped’ and ‘supported’ the public as citizens, and even ‘defended’ them. For example, in news

making situations where ordinary people met decision-makers, the role of the journalist was clearly

to help people formulate their questions and encourage them.

We can’t just throw random citizens into the minister’s office and hope that they perform

nicely. Because they won’t. It is not their professional skill to be involved in a political

debate like that. (Journalist, AL)


Here political debate was seen as a professional skill of journalists, who therefore needed to lend

some of their skills to the citizen. It is interesting that (political) journalism traditionally values

juxtaposition and conflict, and therefore, citizens and decision-makers are positioned as

opponents. The ideals of public journalism, then, bring along the idea of helping. It is the journalist

that first positions citizens in the tough spot and then comes to their aid by assisting them.

The metaphor of helping refers to the fact that journalists as professionals are still needed: the

amateur-citizens cannot make it on their own in public discussion. Thus, the idea of helping can be

seen – a bit paradoxically perhaps – as a way to retain some of the authority and competence that

used to originate from remaining distant or autonomous. Thus, the professional journalist is still

needed to perform public service, but serving the public now requires assistance rather than

distance.

Opening up to the public The second cluster of re-articulations was the need to interact with the public. According to this

discourse, journalism as a professional mode of conduct needs to open up in order to make

journalism more relevant, interesting, and inclusive for the public. Usual terms linked to this

discourse were ‘meeting people’, ‘taking readers along’, or ‘being accessible’.

The need to reconnect was first justified by the newspaper content: journalists ought to be more

receptive in sensing the issues that are important for readers. By being more open to citizens’

comments and participation, journalists received a ‘reality check’. For instance, there was a distinct

need to interact with voters before making a story about candidates in an election in order to know

the questions that needed to be asked. An AL journalist explained, ‘We cannot pretend that we

know everything.’

Secondly, individual journalists need to be more accessible. From the interviews, there emerged

an understanding that there used to be something wrong with journalistic professionals. In the past,

journalists positioned themselves too distant from everyday life and were too bound to the desk

and telephone.

It’s weird that people would rather send a message to the paper’s text message column

than contact us directly. There’s something… There has to be something wrong with us.

But I really don’t know why people think like that. I have come across people saying or

thinking that we know everything already, and therefore, there is no need to contact us.

(Journalist, IH)


There was a physical dimension to this discourse, too. Especially at IH and AL, journalists

discussed the importance of an easily accessible newsroom location. Public journalism projects

thus clearly encouraged the kind of re-articulation of professionalism that deals with removing the

‘professional shell’ and avoiding ‘barricading oneself to the newsroom’.

Journalist as a connector Seeing the newspaper as a site for public discussion is a classical professional dimension, which is

extended in public journalism towards deliberation. In public journalism, the virtue of discussion is

not merely seen in the forms that it may take after the publication of the news stories; in public

journalism, moderating and reporting discussions are also seen as part of the journalist’s

professional capabilities. Provoking and fostering public deliberation prior to reporting is valued,

and discussion becomes an important method of information gathering and a way of making a

story. Consequently, a recurring metaphor that appeared in the interviews was of getting different

participants ‘around the same table’.

Now these people, our readers, regular people and decision-makers are around the

same table. The journalists used to if they acted according to the classical tradition

phone these people separately and then formed a synthesis of the views. Now all

these people are present at the same time. (Journalist, AL)

The possibility for open discussion was thus created in the three newspapers, but the journalist as

a discussion moderator was seen to hold the strings, and an element of control remained.

Journalists noted that it was a demanding task to try to find connections and create true dialogue

between participants. In this regard, the journalist was seen as a connector between different

parties that would not have otherwise connected.

The idea of journalists as connectors seemed to clearly broaden the professional role for many

interviewed journalists. However, even if connectedness was underlined, deliberation – as a

dialogical process for finding solutions – was almost absent from the journalists’ accounts. This

was related to the practical difficulties of creating true connections between discussion participants,

but also to the lack of theoretically informed definitions of public journalism in the newsrooms.

Visibility and publicity


According to its title, public journalism affects professionalism in a way that the profession is

considered as more public. According to journalists, there were two sides to the issue. On the one

hand, the profession was seen as public in terms of being there for the public. This way of

interpreting what ‘public professionalism’ means was indeed a broad way of re-articulating the

journalistic profession and it embodied all of the signs that have already been discussed: helping,

interacting, and connecting. On the other hand, however, the profession was considered as public

in a narrow sense of the word: being public was equated with publicity and promotion. There was a

common discourse in journalists’ interviews that touched upon themes such as ‘visibility’,

‘performing’, or ‘productization’.

Carpentier (2005) points out that in journalism there has always been a link between being

professional and being employed in a media organization. According to my findings, the studied

public journalism projects created increased pressures for journalists to identify themselves as

representatives of their organizations’ brands. Especially in the context of discussion events, the

journalists as event hosts, interviewers, or reporters felt the pressure to align themselves

personally with the values that the papers represented. They did not enjoy having to ‘sit beneath

the huge newspaper logos’ or become equated with the newspaper’s brand. Some journalists felt

that journalistic work had become mixed with marketing and promotion or that journalism had

become ‘performing’ due to the public and broadcasted nature of the events. Journalists

understood the logic of branding but felt annoyed that they were forced to participate in it.

For example, the publicity discourse at IH focused on the role of the civic reporter as ‘the face of

the paper’. The journalists discussed with slight irony that the civic reporter had been ‘productized’

or ‘commodified’. The civic reporter herself was also ambivalent about this aspect of her work:

In the beginning, I was maybe even a bit too agreeable to appear in the advertisements.

But on the other hand, I do understand it up to a point because of the readers. It really

has an effect on how easy it is for them to contact me. (Civic reporter, IH)

Publicity was thus sometimes seen as a means of achieving ‘deeper’ goals, but when publicity in

itself was manifested as the end product, it evoked critical remarks about the meaningfulness of

public journalism and its effects on professionalism. Journalists clearly drew a line between being a

journalist and being a publicist. It is evident, therefore, that public journalism projects created

critical reflexivity, especially with regard to commerciality as an all-encompassing trend.

All in all, the re-articulations discussed in this section point out that on top of drawing from already

existing professional values, public journalism has invited the journalists to reconsider broader


societal shifts around journalistic culture: shifts from autonomy to assistance, from enclosed

occupation to a collaborative environment, from information delivery to network building, and from

secured economic standing to competitive branding. In this sense, public journalism has

anticipated some of the trends and shifts that have now become more explicit in online

participatory journalism and its effects on professionalism (e.g. Singer et al, 2011).

Conclusions

In this article, public journalism has been studied as an internal professional trend that has invited

professional reflexivity about the shared values of journalism. In fact, the ability for any reform

movement to make an impact is linked to its ability to encourage professional reflexivity: an

evaluation of work practices as well as internal values and the external trends that shape these

practices. As a result of such reflexivity, practices and professional identities may evolve.

In the case of Finnish newspapers, public journalism has been seen as an intervention that

deviates from traditional journalistic practices. It has created a discursive atmosphere that

encourages journalists to discuss certain elements of journalism that are usually taken for granted.

However, one can conclude that public journalism has only partially brought about professional

reflexivity and hence change.

First, the respective forays into public journalism clearly revealed the most central professional

values in each newsroom: autonomy, public service, and the watchdog position. The values of

public service and of being a watchdog of the powerful were reshaped and broadened by public

journalism towards assistance and co-operation with the public. But autonomy – in some ways

antithetical to public journalism – was seen as value to be defended and preserved; a value in

which the public could not really play an important role. Thus professional ideology has provided a

shared resource that has made the explication of broadened values possible, but at the same time

it has also invited defensiveness.

Secondly, public journalism has been defined in ways that elicited different degrees of reflexivity.

The ‘light’ understanding of public journalism has typically included the ideas of providing relevant

information for the public and making sure that the voices of ‘regular people’ were presented. The

‘deeper’ version of public journalism has entailed that newspaper coverage should also be based

on topics that originate from citizens, and the news making process should feature citizen

participation. The ‘light’ version of the idea absorbs public journalism into classical professionalism,

whereas the ‘deep’ understanding requires more reflexivity in order to be accepted as a

professionally sound idea.


Therefore it can be noted that, thirdly, even if the discursive undertone created by public journalism

has been typically rather adaptive and ‘light’, there have been signs of ‘public professionalism’ that

indicate a deeper change in the professionals’ self-image. These signs deal almost exclusively with

the relationship of journalists and their public. ‘Public professionalism’ thus requires journalists to

position themselves on the same side with citizens, interact with them, and connect them to one

another. All these elements should indeed be seen as signs of ‘public professionalism’ and not as

direct indications of such professionalism’s existence. These signs suggest that despite its

permanence and stability journalists’ professional self-image is a construct that can be re-

articulated. This reflexivity also mirrors broader trends in society and around journalism, such as

collaboration and participation. However, it has remained debatable whether ‘public

professionalism’ should also mean visibility and marketing, and to what degree. Indeed, the most

criticism was created by the promotional aspects of public journalism.

All in all, the Finnish professional culture that is embedded in the democratic-corporatist media

model (Hallin & Mancini 2004) has offered an interesting setting for public journalism. In many

respects, it may be argued that public journalism fits more easily with the Nordic professional

culture than with the professional culture in the USA. For example, the historically strong and

broadly accepted value of public service among Finnish journalists has made it possible to

consider public journalism as an extension of this value. Public service now seems to require more

than just information delivery and ‘letting people know’. Moreover, the tradition of corporatism and

the culture of consensus in top-level decision making may have also yielded to public journalism

ideals in Finland because professionals in the democratic-corporatist system have not been as

critical towards the ideas of deliberation and solution orientation as in the liberal media systems

(Haas 2003). In this light, however, it is interesting that deliberation and solution orientation –

indeed central tenets of the original movement – have not formed an integral part of public

journalism definitions in the studied Finnish newspapers. These ideals were neither actively

applied nor explicitly contested.

This can be further explained by the fact that during the past 20 years or so, in democratic-

corporatist countries, there has been a shift towards critical investigation, analysis, and

dissemination, i.e. practices and ideals that have traditionally been stronger in the sphere of the

liberal media system (Hallin & Mancini, 2004: 170–178; Haas, 2003: 96). Moreover, global techno-

economic trends have also shaped journalism in Finland towards practices that bracket out the

structures of collective representation (such as corporatism) and underline individual experiences

and targeted journalism. Public journalism in Finland has thus been able to address the historically

strong normative-democratic tradition with its ‘public service professionalism’ and the current shift


towards the market-oriented liberal model with its ‘corporate professionalism’ (see Nerone &

Barnhurst, 2003). In Finland public journalism has been appropriated to this professional transition,

but it has not lost its potential to create professional reflexivity.


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End notes

1 This article is based on a larger dissertation research. See Ahva (2010: 143–149) for a more detailed description of the background and data. 2 In my interviews (2003–2004) public journalism appeared as a reminder, but it is fair to say that the idea has later affected HS as an organisation and its work practices more broadly. For example, elements of public journalism have been later apparent in projects dealing with local elections and city planning.

public journalism and professional reflexivity. journalism

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