‘New Forces’: How Classroom Textbooks Are Redefining Journalism

Introduction

This article begins with an enduring question—what is journalism? The definitions abound as journalism has taken many digital forms at an astonishingly rapid pace. Traditionally, journalism educators often focused on stable traditions, unchanging values, and consistent practices. Central, ethical obligations shaped the fundamental understanding of journalism such as journalists’ duty to scrutinize power, inform citizens, and provide a forum for public compromise (Brown, 2005; Gilmour & Quanbeck, 2010). The rise of digital newsrooms has led to an increasing variation in the meaning of journalism across the United States (Adams, 2021; Deuze & Witschge, 2018; Zelizer, 2013).

This article examines the evermore changing explanations of journalism, drawing on the concepts of its social function and a thematic analysis of popular, U.S.-focused textbooks. Identifying the definition of journalism is a useful way to examine the textbook presentations of reporting practices to students about to enter fast-changing newsrooms. Course textbooks provide the core foundation for educators’ teaching about journalists’ social goals and position in society to students who value high ethical standards (Fullerton et al., 2013). This article reveals fresh insights into how journalism is taught to the journalists of tomorrow. The article argues that widely used textbooks no longer share a common set of core principles. General textbooks often focus on journalists’ dominant role in holding power to account. Specialized authors emphasize digital journalists as good neighbors in interactive, power-sharing relations with local communities to report on everyday life. This analysis shows the value of fostering a social concern among student journalists for developing pluralist approaches toward reporting ethically on the diverse groups in society.

Literature Review

A flurry of scholarship has emerged about the meaning of journalism during massive advances in media technologies (Atton, 2003; Broersma & Singer, 2021; Zelizer, 2019). As Fullerton et al. have shown (2013), ethical development has been taught in journalism school curricula for about a century. At universities, PhD level educators are needed to not only teach about the news but also to evaluate and provide textbooks about the wider social impact of journalism. Besser et al. (1998) have commented, “With so much riding on textbooks—teachers building their course content around the text and expecting students to learn from the text—it is peculiar that so few empirical studies exist about college textbooks” (p. 4). These instructional resources remain an underexplored field of research.

A wide range of definitions share a common theme that pertains to identifying the social function of journalism. Traditionally, journalism’s societal role has been related to concepts of journalists’ work in gatekeeping, upholding notions of quality, news values, and audience relations. These concepts have informed insights into journalists’ social function within expanding communicative spaces. Journalists have traditionally appeared as the central agents in articulating society’s views by acting as the gatekeepers in deciding what is—and what is not—high-quality information for their public (Reader, 2021; Shoemaker & Vos, 2009; Valdeón, 2022). Journalists elevated their roles as a privileged knowledge class who monitor the elite sources of government, politicians and experts (Conway, 2022; Wolfgang et al., 2021). As Palmer et al. (2020, p. 1973) observe, “The ideal casts journalism as a heroic institution, independent from private and political interests, that informs the public about important issues and holds power to account.” Educators often represent journalists as forceful watchdogs who act as a monitor of power for the public interest (Knobel, 2018).

Good watchdog journalism has long included strong dimensions of quality. According to Urban and Schweiger (2014), high-quality journalists should be diverse in accurately representing social groups and socially relevant issues while upholding ethical, impartial standards. Professional journalists have mainly emphasized rigorous, independent reporting as a public service while news managers have frequently accentuated popular trivia as being the most saleable news (Beam et al., 2009; Hujanen, 2009; Schapiro, 2010; Soloski, 1989). Meijer (2001) has found that high-quality journalism can succeed in popular formats by providing a civic-oriented approach to inform public audiences about complex social issues. Tong (2018) has shown that digital tools can contribute to the image of the technology-savvy journalist who speedily delivers authoritative news.

More recently, the gatekeeper role has been redefined as a digital curator who interacts with audiences to pull together varied news (Bruns, 2018, pp. 5–6; Hermida, 2012; Müller & Wiik, 2021). The role of the egalitarian curator has challenged the privileged position of the gatekeeper who controlled a news monopoly (Carlson, 2017). Scholars have portrayed digital curators within a wider social sphere that is underpinned by the battle to uphold a common good (Bruns, 2018; Hess & Gutsche, 2018). At the local level, journalists have further developed the curator role by interacting with their communities to not only inform citizens, but also to nurture and advance their neighborhoods. These community builders have extended the digital curator function to strengthen local connections and gain public trust (Abernathy, 2014; Harte et al., 2018; Hess & Waller, 2017; Wenzel, 2019).

A fast-changing area of journalism research has been the analysis of newsworthiness. Scholars have expanded Galtung and Ruge’s foundational list of news values (1965) comprising hard news or serious reporting, such as elite sources, conflicts and negative events. Harcup and O’Neill (2017, p. 1483) have remarked, “for online news, the pressure to obtain clicks and shares will also influence decisions about news to select, as well as news treatment.” Beyond the clickbait, other news values include entertainment, remarkably good news, strong visual elements and shareability on social media that relate to everyday reports (Araujo & van der Meer, 2020; Mast & Temmerman, 2021; Pompper & Hoffman, 2020). Journalists’ roles have become more diverse to respond to the acceleration of hard news as well as an upsurge of public interest in soft news or lifestyle reporting. Hanitzsch and Vos (2018) identified evolving news functions encompassing both political and everyday life. These functions include an advocative-radical role of journalists who closely participate in political arenas; a developmental-educative dimension as they promote real-world changes; along with a collaborative-facilitative role when they partner with public organizations to enhance social development.

These varied perceptions of journalists’ work have focused on explaining the digital shift in their contemporary roles, techniques, and impact. Emerging forms of journalism have challenged the rapid, click-focused news cycle. For example, solutions journalists spend time to involve audiences in problem-solving (Wenzel et al., 2016). Constructive journalists accentuate positive news values to inspire solutions to community problems (Bro, 2019). The slow journalism movement has also gained momentum for “disentangling our association of news and journalism with speed and instantaneity” (Le Masurier, 2015, p. 139). Slow journalists have combined a stylistic emphasis on engaging reading experiences with a focus on social justice.

Given the intense interest in journalism, researchers have increasingly focused on how the university textbooks present the profession to journalists in training. Parks (2019) noted that historically, textbooks provided a narrow focus by emphasizing bad news. Gilmour and Quanbeck (2010) remarked on a pessimistic theme portraying the overwhelming popularity of clickbait. They commented, “Some textbooks imply that journalism is beyond hope, and that the public must seek out its own sources of information” (p. 336). Hopper and Huxford (2017) observed a lack of discussions about emotive news. Huxford and Moore (2011) also found few textbooks provided sections on journalists’ use of anonymous sources. Researchers found that the textbook writers would often steer their discussions away from the need for diversity and inclusivity in reporting (Hardin & Preston, 2001; Heckman & Homan, 2020). Claussen (2010), Weedon and Wilson (2020) noticed limited discussions about objectivity and subjectivity in journalism. Textbooks have become a significant resource aiding instructors’ quest to encourage a sense of social responsibility among the journalists of tomorrow.

This study contributes to identifying the changing textbook definitions of journalism within digital newsrooms. This area has been underresearched since Gilmour and Quanbeck’s (2010) observation of the shared textbook theme pertaining to the loss of journalism. More recent textbooks were of particular interest in this study to ascertain whether there has been a shift away from the pessimistic tone that appeared in the early texts about the rise of digital journalism.

Method

This thematic analysis centers on books that are widely used in American journalism undergraduate classrooms to answer the main research question: what is journalism? The sample of books was based on previous thematic analyses focusing on eight main journalism texts (Gilmour & Quanbeck, 2010; Hardin & Preston, 2001; Weedon & Wilson, 2020). This study includes 10 journalism textbooks that are predominantly U.S.-based with an American focus that often sets the trend for international curricula. Initially, the textbooks were selected in a news survey of 55 journalism professors at American universities (Giardina, 2021). For the survey, the professors recommended general textbooks providing essential elements and specialized, digital textbooks focusing on useful strategies. This study focused on 10 books from the survey that have also been recommended in the undergraduate journalism syllabi of at least 50 large American universities. Half of the books focused on general teachings and the remainder specialized in digital journalism. The sample did not include style and grammar guides, nor the author of this present article.

The general journalism textbooks are as follows:

While Roush’s Show Me The Money concerns business reporting, the content covers a wide range of journalism topics. This study examined an edition in 2013 of The Best American Magazine Writing and the latest version in 2021 to identify any changes in the representation of journalism. The sample also included Harrower’s (2013) edition because journalism educators continued to promote this textbook.

The specialized digital journalism textbooks are as follows:

The authors often refer to their professional backgrounds as journalists. Most authors are highly regarded scholars at American universities with one journalism professor based in the United Kingdom (Bradshaw, 2017).

This analysis has used qualitative textual analysis concerning themes that focus on the meaning of journalism for a changing profession. This study also aimed to investigate the related questions:

To achieve reliability, the study included a manual analysis of the texts by a single coder relating to the specific criteria of journalists’ roles, objectives, techniques, values, and relations with audiences. As Weedon and Wilson (2020) note, it is important to attend to themes that serendipitously emerge during the reading of the books while attending to the largest research question for the analysis to be both inductive and theoretically driven.

Discussion and Findings

The main themes that emerged from this analysis revealed a dramatic contrast in the portrayal of digital technology changes. The authors of the general textbooks downplayed the impact of change on journalism, while the specialized textbooks showed a transformation to every aspect of the profession.

Enduring Traditions

The general textbook authors invoked a sense of permanent principles and lasting techniques to define journalism. Kovach and Rosenstiel’s book (2014) became widely known as setting the gold standard in journalism education for covering essential democratic functions. They assured would-be journalists, “the basic news values have remained constant over time” (p. 1). Likewise, Foreman (2016, p. 9) affirmed, “it is precisely in a period of technological transition that we should adhere to time-honored principles.” The textbooks accentuated the core values of verifying truthful information independently to monitor power. As Kovach and Rosenstiel (2014, p. 98) remarked, “The essence of journalism is a discipline of verification.” The urgent need for truth-telling took precedence over the former emphasis in journalism education on providing a forum for public compromise (Brown, 2005; Gilmour & Quanbeck, 2010).

These textbooks accentuated established, hard news beats, extending from city halls to the American presidency. Roush (2016) also motivated students to investigate news of impact and conflict within large corporations by affirming, “all journalism boils down to one statement: Show me the money. Show the reader or viewer or listener where the money is coming from, or where it is going, and you have a great story.” He asserted a public demand for, “[h]arder, tougher, more thorough business reporting.” With a direct appeal to students, Harrower (2013) wrote, “Who’s the watchdog here? Whose job is it to expose the lies, explain the dangers, inform the uninformed? If you become a journalist, it’s your job.” Authors developed varying expressions of shared ideals and journalistic idioms to portray journalists’ continuing watchdog role to enlighten “uninformed” citizens.

The practice-based textbooks focused on print-oriented writing providing “just the facts.” Harrower (2013) explained to student readers, “Writing is still the simplest, most effective way to deliver information.” As Holt (2013) remarked in The Best American Magazine Writing anthology, “reporting matters, writing matters, and design matters.” He recommended avoiding popular terms such as long-form, narrative and literary journalism that might deter busy readers. As he declared, “You might just call it magazine writing. And get on with it.” Among the general textbooks, the anthology provided a rare focus on short, juicy profiles and traditional magazine writing. Jeffery opined, “Of course, magazines must-individually and certainly collectively-provide contrast to big, weighty, public-affairs journalism” (Holt, 2021). Most authors prioritized writing as distinct skills that are set apart from audio, video, and interactive graphics.

The authors increasingly referred to a need for reporting on diversity. These works ranged from Roush’s (2016) tip sheet, Foreman’s (2016) case studies and Kovach and Rosenstiel’s (2014) emphasis on a free expression of democratic views in newsrooms. They often urged students to report from a neutral point of view even when the accused, such as alleged, undocumented immigrants, were more willing to go on the record with emotive stories than anonymous accusers like officials patrolling border security. Kovach and Rosenstiel (2014) declared their main goal was recapturing the lost meaning of objectivity from the early 20th century. They asserted, “[T]he news, like science should flow from a process for reporting that is defensible, rigorous, and transparent” (p. 10). Moreover, Jeffery remarked on a fresh clarion call for reporting about racial injustice among journalists of color by portraying factual stories about vulnerable, unjustly accused citizens, rather than expressing a fleeting sense of outrage (Holt, 2021). As she wrote in The Best American Magazine Writing, “this anthology is replete with, yet provides only a small sampling of, writing by Black Americans that gives voice to every manner and method of systemic repression and amplifies demands for change.” In varying degrees, these ethical discussions suggested Hanitzsch and Vos’ concept (2018) of journalists’ developmental-educative role to highlight social issues for promoting positive reforms.

All the general books focused on the unique, gatekeeping authority of journalism. Kovach and Rosenstiel (2014) declared that journalists needed to lead the stewardship of online news discussions, even if it seemed elitist and a leftover from a pre-digital era when a few outlets controlled most public access to the news. Foreman (2016) promoted the roles of journalists as authenticators who verify facts and sense-makers able to explain intricate complexities to the public. He added, “A democratic society now depends on journalists to be its surrogates in sifting the huge volume of information available, testing it for accuracy, and helping citizens understand it.” These discussions suggested the concept of journalists as a privileged knowledge class who hold a dominant social position by educating and informing audiences.

The authors suggested they did not subscribe to theories pertaining to a transformation of journalism. Kovach and Rosenstiel (2014, p. 15) dismissed starry-eyed idealists by explaining to student readers, “the discourse often has the political and theological tones of a revolutionary movement.” The authors recognized a transformation in news audiences becoming weary of clickbait, but they provided little acknowledgment of a dramatic shift within journalism. For example, Harrower (2013, p. 21) reaffirmed the value of concise hard news reporting in “today’s sped-up, plugged-in world.” The authors urged would-be journalists to forge careers that would help win back cynical readers by studying journalism’s overarching power within a stable public forum based on facts, context, and broad areas of public agreement.

Transformational Visions

In contrast, the authors of the specialized digital journalism books provided bright views to students about a recent transformational history of technologically driven progress. The authors emphasized journalists’ enhanced role of giving varied voices to the voiceless and shining a spotlight in hidden digital corners to identify problems for communities. They promoted service-oriented values such as fairness, relevance, and newsiness. The related values of relevance and recentness took precedence over the main emphasis in the general textbooks on the timeliness of breaking news within a 24-hr news cycle. Adornato (2018) profiled hyperlocal digital journalists who recommended a less pressure-oriented approach. He quoted the New Jersey-based founders of the Village Green outlet who commented that journalism “takes time, skill and a willingness to tackle sometimes thorny issues with humanity and fairness.” Foust (2017) recommended a news value of fairness that was not “so cut and dried” as the objective approach of reporting opposing political sides. He wrote, “if a story has more than two sides, report all of them.”

A sense of newsiness was favored over the values of conflict and negative impact often evidenced in the general textbooks. Newsiness differed from traditional news values by including a positive style, informality, and a popular digital format. For example, Adornato referred to NBC News correspondent Hallie Jackson’s strategy to engage youth on social media platforms. She explained, “I try to make that ‘newsy,’ but also a fun, personal way to interact with people.” The specialized textbooks provided views of journalists’ public service to share trustworthy news that would correct false reports of everyday life on social media including traffic jams, weather changes, and local school closures.

The digital textbook authors also promoted a transformation in journalism through different forms of storytelling. Bradshaw (2017) welcomed would-be reporters by writing: “This is a period of enormous creativity and change, a time when young journalists (and many older ones) have a unique opportunity to try new things, learn and grow quickly and innovate in a completely new form of storytelling.” Blaine (2014) promised to “teach story” by showing how to report emotive news. He opined, “We want audio that’s visual, we want words that remind us of a smell, we want images that we can feel.” Adornato (2018) explained to journalists in training, “Mobile devices and social media are fundamentally different, allowing two-way conversations and active audiences.” The textbooks provided frequent assurances to students that multimedia storytelling would engage audiences.

These authors also advocated a local community-building approach. Adornato (2018) referred to a New York nostalgia site created by Syracuse.com and The Post-Standard. The site’s journalists encouraged readers to add their photos, stories, and sentimental thoughts to the comments and social media sections. Adornato noted, “The site has people feeling. This helps keep the conversation going and encourages people to share the content among their circle of friends. Community can be powerful” (p. 41). Briggs (2019) profiled NPR editor Robert Smith’s reporting about a classic call to adventure for impoverished women in rural Bangladesh. Smith explained he took listeners from scenes of harvesting a Mississippi cotton field to a story of the women’s new jobs sewing the cotton material at an urban T-shirt factory in the hope of improving their lives in Bangladesh. He explained, “We need the people in the story to reflect on what is happening and what it means to them . . . they are emotional moments” (p. 349). The journalists’ approach suggested notions of an expansive public square with personalized interactions focusing on community life. This approach differed from an emphasis in the general textbooks on a public forum based on facts, context, and broad political agreement.

In a relinquishment of the gatekeeper role, the authors encouraged students to view themselves as good neighbors in collaborating with citizens to correct fake news that hides under a veneer of legitimacy to appear like real news (Tandoc et al., 2018). Adornato (2018) portrayed audiences’ dominant role in shaping the public sphere as he commented, “There are new forces at the gate: the active audience. The concept of traditional gatekeeping has been upended. Editors, news directors, producers, and journalists no longer have sole control over content that makes it through the gates.” Similarly, Bradshaw (2017) characterized journalists as messengers who create digital platforms for relaying and correcting fake news among audiences. These books shared an underlying theme of motivating students to master digital technologies in a battle for the social good within wider communities.

Both sets of textbooks were mainly targeted for would-be and working journalists, who would help to extinguish the fake news flames for citizens. The specialized authors often portrayed active audiences collaborating independently with journalists to correct false local reports by providing verified, neighborly news such as evacuation alerts as well as related school and road closures. They advanced values of community-building, audience engagement and empathy before technological skills. As Briggs (2019, p. 1) commented in an opening headline, “Journalism is about People, Not Technology.” Among the textbooks, Kovach and Rosenstiel (2014) offered a rare disclaimer that they were writing for ordinary citizens as well as journalists in training. They defined a journalist as anyone who can produce the news and aspires to do so both ethically and responsibly. Mostly, the general textbook authors emphasized the pre-eminence of verified facts, objectivity and a neutral tone in deadline-driven, traditional newsrooms. As Harrower (2013, p. 36) advised his readers, “The facts tell the story and let readers form their own opinions.” The textbooks did not provide entire chapters dealing with the inadvertent sharing of misinformation by some audience members, as well as some deceitful anonymous users’ disinformation or deliberately falsified reports (Tandoc et al., 2018). Briggs (2019, p. 102) remarked to students, “Even though many comments areas on news sites have dark pasts, it is worthwhile to keep investing time and energy in making them better than the ghettos of personal attacks and flame wars that they have all too frequently been.” The authors’ varied idealistic language suggested Hess and Gutsche’s view (2018) that journalists view themselves as a moral compass.

Conclusion

This article has delved into the meanings of journalism that are taught to journalists of the future. Its thematic analysis of textbooks has presented findings that are more upbeat about digital journalism than the observations in previous studies. Journalism textbooks have provided more optimistic views about the impact of digital change since Gilmour and Quanbeck’s study (2010). The textbooks portrayed a strong defense of journalists’ continuing need to uphold core democratic functions in the face of profit-maximizing clickbait.

Yet there is little agreement about journalists’ authority, power, and roles. Most general textbook authors emphasized journalists’ need to act as a neutral or objective monitor of political elites and large corporations in the future. They elevated journalists’ moral authority in privileged gatekeeping work to verify facts for “uninformed” citizens. These textbooks provided more in-depth discussions on reporting diversity through upholding a detached, traditional watchdog or educative role. The authors suggested it was no longer a top priority to provide an open forum for seeking public compromise, once a core principle in journalism education, because it was more vital to provide credible news enhancing a democratic public sphere.

In contrast, the specialized textbooks provided views of audiences increasingly dominating future journalists’ content, reporting styles, and values. The specialized authors reconceptualized journalists’ roles as the public’s collaborative messengers, firefighters, and myth busters to help extinguish fake news flames by accentuating service-oriented values of relevance, newsiness, and fairness. Journalists were viewed as community neighbors with a facilitative role to collaborate with citizens in mainly local news contexts. The conceptions of the digital community neighbor indicate a possible change in the ethical core of textbook instructions about journalism. Specialized authors appealed to students to relay compassionate messages and advocate for diverse community life within an expansive public square involving more empathy for marginalized voices. Journalists’ power derived from a moral authority rather than an exclusive membership in a privileged knowledge class.

The different, ethical roles of a forceful watchdog and a power-sharing, good neighbor need not conflict. For example, a journalist can single-handedly expose hidden problems for the public interest while, at other times, freely collaborate with citizens in equal partnerships to report trustworthy news. It would be valuable for future textbook editions to provide more definitions of journalists’ educative role to enhance digital interactions among diverse groups while correcting deceitful disinformation within online communities. Textbook authors frequently urged students to learn about the emerging digital model of journalism. Continuing these conversations are important for showing students how to combine journalism values with viable digital news. Good, qualified teachers are still needed to select and provide the contextual foundation for a peaceful co-existence of pluralist journalism approaches that will uphold the freedom of an ethical press in all its varied forms.