‘It’s like a family!’ - The Unity and Community of Journalists On connections between newsrooms and how journalists share a community of practice. Working Paper for The EASA Media Anthropology Network's 55th e-Seminar www.media-anthropology.net Line Hassall Thomsen, Aarhus University, Denmark.
[email protected] Abstract To journalists at traditional broadcast media these are times of insecurity and opportunity, rapid change and ever-growing competition. In the face of growing pressure, the unity and community of journalists employed at traditional broadcast media is increasingly strengthened. This paper explores the strong practice-community bonds existing between journalists employed at competing traditional broadcast media. Drawing on a two-year period of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the newsrooms of BBC News, ITV News, TV Avisen and TV2 Nyhederne, the paper presents an anthropological approach to studying journalists at work. During fieldwork, the study found journalists at competing newscasters to be working in very similar ways, while expressing a strong relational bond. In order to explore this bond, it is examined what is core and what is periphery to the journalists within the newsroom. One of the key findings is that each newsroom is very much connected to competing newsrooms by way of everyday practice-communities, both real and imagined. Keywords: Journalism, practice communities, competition, professionalism, shared ideals, newsroom studies, ethnography. Recently, after over thirty years working for Danish public service broadcaster DR, a well-known journalist and presenter was let off his job. He was one of over 650 staff members from DR who was made redundant due to economic problems at the broadcaster.