The accidental journalist: shifting professional boundaries in the wake of Leonardo DiCaprio's interview with former President Clinton

Abstract

ABC asked actor Leonardo DiCaprio to interview former President Bill Clinton on the environment as part of an Earth Day special that aired on the network in April 2000. In this textual analysis, I apply Thomas Gieryn's work on professional boundary building and Erving Goffman's theories on front‐ and back‐stage behavior to explore the controversy caused by DiCaprio's interview. Journalists at first criticized ABC News for asking an actor to do a journalist's job. They decried the DiCaprio interview as a further encroachment of entertainment into news. But as coverage progressed, print reporters began to portray experienced broadcast journalists as out of touch—as members of the “old guard”. They attacked scholars and other journalists who pointed out the blurring of the news–entertainment boundary. They were made members of what one writer called the “journalism police”. Print reporters covering the DiCaprio controversy concluded that broadcast journalism was a lost cause. What followed was a fight over credibility which featured frantic boundary maintenance by all parties. In fact, the three types of credibility contests described by Gieryn—expulsion, expansion, and protection of autonomy—seemed to take place simultaneously. In the end, journalists have gone to the boundary maintenance well once too often; readers and viewers may no longer care.

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