Asking and answering the hard questions

Abstract

This book is about journalistic authority, understood as ‘the central element that makes journalism work’ (p. 5). It aims to increase understanding of how and why this authority persists at a time when there are fewer jobs for journalists and news quality is sliding, but public communication is more democratic and participatory. To do this, it offers a ‘relational theory’ of journalistic authority anchored in a sociology of news framework. The foundations of journalism’s claim to authority are examined via a survey of the specific norms and practices of news work. This journalist-centric perspective is then extended and enriched by analysis of the wider social practices through which news work is legitimated. Audiences, sources, technologies and media critics are conceptualised as the co-creators of journalistic authority. The theory is then synthesised into an analytical tool (p. 183) to encourage research on the current state of journalistic authority in national contexts beyond the US media system, which is the book’s (narrow) focal point. The conclusion discusses the politics of digital journalistic authority.