Not like us?: The professional boundaries of American and British journalism in the digital age Courtney N. Johnson A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2016 Reading Committee: Patricia Moy, Chair Randal Beam Matthew Powers Nancy Rivenburgh Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Communication ©Copyright 2016 Courtney Nicole Johnson University of Washington Abstract Not like us?: The professional boundaries of American and British journalism in the digital age Courtney N. Johnson Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Dr. Patricia Moy, Christy Cressey Professor of Communication Communication Journalists increasingly face challenges to their professional autonomy. The internet allows anyone with a computer or mobile device to post content online, making it easy for individuals with little or no journalistic training and no formal news outlet affiliation to engage in reporting. Whether this content creation constitutes “journalism,” however, is often contested by those traditional journalists affiliated with mainstream media outlets (Carlson, 2012; Ruggiero, 2004; Singer, 2007). Mainstream journalists now feel challenged by online actors who consider themselves journalists, or at least consider the work they do to be journalistic in nature. Given the recent challenges posed to journalism by the internet, and guided by past research on social identity theory and boundary work, this dissertation examines the relationship between evolving journalistic professional identity and mainstream journalists’ treatment of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, and Glenn Greenwald. Using a content analysis and two textual analyses, this study illustrates how definitions of journalism are changing in the digital age and how journalists working for traditional news organizations draw boundaries around their profession and attempt to differentiate themselves from new forms of journalism enabled by the internet. Results indicate that journalists moved to protect their professional boundaries in ways predicted by social identity theory: Journalists enhanced their profession identity by subsuming the innovative aspects of WikiLeaks’ and Greenwald’s work under the rubric of traditional journalism, and used the other (less professionally desirable) aspects of WikiLeaks and Greenwald’s behavior to place them outside the boundaries of real journalism. Analyses also show that American journalism has a stronger set of professional boundaries than British journalism, which makes them less open to new forms of journalism made possible by the affordances of the internet. Table of Contents List of Tables .................................................................................................................................. 1 List of Figures ................................................................................................................................. 2 Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................... 3 Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................... 5 Chapter 2: Literature review ......................................................................................................... 20 Chapter 3: Overview of cases ....................................................................................................... 42 Chapter 4: Methods ....................................................................................................................... 78 Chapter 5: Content Analysis of News Coverage of the Manning and Snowden Disclosures ...... 93 Chapter 6: American and British Metajournalistic Discourse Surrounding Wikileaks and Julian Assange ....................................................................................................................................... 124 Chapter 7: American and British Metajournalistic Discourse Surrounding Glenn Greenwald .. 203 Chapter 8: Discussion and Conclusion ....................................................................................... 269 References ................................................................................................................................... 285 Appendix ..................................................................................................................................... 322 List of Tables Table 3.1 Total Articles Included in Manning Disclosures Content Analysis ............................. 92 Table 3.2 Total Articles Included in Snowden Disclosures Content Analysis ............................. 92 Table 5.1. Manning Coverage: Top 10 Topic Categories, Ranked by Newspaper .................... 115 Table 5.2. Manning Coverage: Depictions of Assange in Headlines & Articles ....................... 116 Table 5.3. Manning Coverage: Depictions of WikiLeaks in Headlines & Articles ................... 116 Table 5.4 Manning Coverage: Articles Including Descriptions of Julian Assange’s Physical Appearance or Personality .......................................................................................................... 117 Table 5.5. Manning Coverage: Top 10 Types of Sources Cited by Newspaper ......................... 118 Table 5.6. Manning Disclosures: How Current US Government Officials Characterized WikiLeaks and Assange .............................................................................................................. 119 Table 5.7. Manning Disclosures: How Current UK Government Officials Characterized WikiLeaks and Assange .............................................................................................................. 119 Table 5.8. Manning Disclosures: How All Sources Characterized WikiLeaks and Assange ..... 120 Table 5.9. Top 10 Snowden Disclosures Topic Categories, Ranked by Newspaper Table 5.10. Depictions of Glenn Greenwald in Headlines & Articles ........................................ 122 Table 5.11. Snowden Coverage: Top 10 Types of Sources Cited by Newspaper ...................... 123 1 List of Figures Figure 6.1. Comparison of US and UK journalistic boundaries, vis-à-vis WikiLeaks and Assange ..................................................................................................................................................... 202 Figure 7.1. Comparison of US and UK journalistic boundaries, vis-à-vis Greenwald ............... 268 2 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my advisor, Patricia, for her guidance and mentoring. I would also like to thank my dissertation committee members—Randy, Nancy, and Matt—for their insights and feedback throughout this project. Thank you to Mark Smith for serving as my GSR for the defense, and to John Wilkerson for being the GSR for my exams and proposal. I want to thank my family for their support—my mom, Nana, the Russells, and the Lees. Most of all, I would like to thank my wonderful husband, John. This dissertation would not have been possible without his love and support. He always believed I could complete this journey, even when I myself thought I couldn’t, and his confidence and encouragement gave me the strength I needed to continue. As we close in on ten years together, I think back to how far we’ve come since we first met as undergraduates at that birthday party in Madison. I can’t wait to see what’s next for us. I also want to thank our girls, Maddie and Zabel, for reminding me (not always gently) to step away from the laptop every so often for some play time. Thanks also to my wonderful friends—Julia and Scott, Nicole, Mike and Rachel, Paul and Laura, Mike and Mo (and now Henry!), and the many brilliant friends I made throughout graduate school. Some of you are scattered far across the country, but you’ve still helped me in a thousand different ways. 3 Dedication For John 4 Chapter 1: Introduction As the journalist and civil liberties advocate Glenn Greenwald tells it, when he and documentary filmmaker and freelance journalist Laura Poitras were en route to Hong Kong to meet National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden for the first time, they had an unwanted tagalong: longtime Guardian defense journalist Ewen MacAskill. MacAskill had been sent on the trip at the insistence of Guardian editors, who wanted a veteran journalist who they trusted to size up this new, too-good-to-be-true source. Janine Gibson, the editor of the Guardian ’s US website, also wanted MacAskill on board to make sure the reporting stayed objective; all of Greenwald’s past work for the Guardian had been opinion columns, not traditional reporting, and he was now about to cross over to the news section. Gibson wanted to make sure the paper “questioned every single word, making sure we didn’t overreach, and justifying every single claim where a legal case could be made” (Harris, 2016, p. 17). Unlike past stories Greenwald had written for the Guardian , which he published directly to the paper’s website with no editorial oversight, the stories on the Snowden disclosures were going to involve the full editorial staff at the newspaper. For the first time, Greenwald was going to take part in the Guardian ’s normal editorial process. Both Greenwald and Poitras did not want MacAskill to accompany them to Hong Kong. In Greenwald’s view, MacAskill was a “company man” who was sent along to be his “babysitter” (Greenwald, 2014, p. 62). He and Poitras did not know him and so were