Why democracies need a Functional Definition of Journalism now more than ever

Abstract

What is journalism? Although some democracies continue to recognize a special status for professional journalists, a clear definition of what constitutes journalistic activity remains elusive. This is a practical problem, both because the boundary-blurring effect of an evolving news ecosystem moves the literal meaning of the word ever-further from intuitive recognition, and because the notion of a free press demands that courts protect specific practices. Five proposed activity descriptors are combined to propose a parsimonious definition: “Journalism comprises the activities involved in an independent pursuit of accurate information about current or recent events and its original presentation for public edification.” This is termed a “functional” definition to distinguish it from both normative evaluation and from “class” definitions for practitioners.