The Paradoxes of the Journalistic Profession

Abstract

The Search for a New Collective IdentityUntil mid 19 th century the literary system was rather undifferentiated in many European countries.Authors of fiction and 'men of letters' in general served the same printers.It was sometimes difficult to distinguish between the kind of contributions that were printed in newspapers and those printed in other publications: book, journals etc. 1 In the last decades of the 19 th century, however, publishing in general was in transition from loose and informal arrangements to a more formalised work organisation.In many countries the press became a regular newspaper industry addressed to a mass market with the help of the new and fabulously efficient technology of printing.Sharply falling prices for newsprint opened the market for many new competitors and started a boom in circulation from which all seemed to benefit, new and old newspapers alike.Other traits of the period were increased advertising and a fierce competition.2 An emerging new journalism focused on a variety of news for a heterogeneous audience, and more regular work routines for newspapermen, news-workers, journalists -or whatever was the favourite term for an aspiring profession.This was a new breed of writers for the 20 th century, quite different from the gentleman publicist and literate of most of the 19 th century.When reporters moved from the street, bars and coffeehouses into more sheltered offices inside newspaper palaces in the metropolis of the modern world, and when journalism became a full-time job of some magnitude, the qualifications in demand also changed.Editors and journalists did not regularly belong to the educated upper class any more.The inevitable question became: Who shall be considered a journalist?Some sort of trade-organisation could most effectively answer this question.Journalists started to organise like most other trades in the late 19 th century.Associations appeared both on the local, the national and international level: in Germany in the 1860s-1870s, in Scandinavia in 1880s-1890s, and in the Baltic countries in the 1900s-1920s.Great Britain saw the formation of its pioneering Newspaper Society in 1836.A National Association of Journalists with professional aims came in 1884 and founded the Institute of Journalists in 1890.A trade union -the National Union of Journalists -emerged only in 1907.Associations in the United States did not cover both editors, journalists and to some extent also publishers like the early European associations.3 The American Newspaper Publisher Association came into being in 1887.Newsworkers began to organise in the 1890's and finally founded The Newspaper Guild in 1933, which eventually became an effective organisation for wage negotiations.4 On both continents it took a long time before journalists were involved in wage negotiations; loyalty to their newspaper, or an outright animosity from publishers, was for a long while apparently stronger than any urge to ally with fellow reporters.Only in the 1920s did codes of ethics begin to appear.5 But the first centres for the systematic study of journalism came a decade earlier: In the United States a School of Journalism was founded at the University of Missouri in 1908 and at Columbia University in 1912.6 The first institute and chair of 'Zeitungskunde' in European universities was established at the University

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