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Why democracies need a Functional

Definition of Journalism now more than
ever
Ivor Shapiro
Published online: 13 Feb 2014.

To cite this article: Ivor Shapiro (2014) Why democracies need a Functional
Definition of Journalism now more than ever, Journalism Studies, 15:5, 555-565, DOI:
10.1080/1461670X.2014.882483
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WHY DEMOCRACIES NEED A FUNCTIONAL

DEFINITION OF JOURNALISM NOW MORE
THAN EVER

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Ivor Shapiro

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.
KEYWORDS accuracy; definition; independence; journalism; originality; professional identity

Introduction
Although journalism has been recognized as a distinct occupation, involved with
news reporting, since at least the late nineteenth century (Barnhurst and Nerone 2009, 20),
practitioners disagree strongly on key definitional issues, including whether or not
journalism is a profession, and whether or not designated practitioners rights or
responsibilities might differ from those of ordinary citizens (Hartley 2000, 41; see also Gant
2007). Within todays rapidly democratizing news ecosystem, too restrictive a definition of
journalism might, with particular injustice, reserve important activities, worthy of social
and legal protection, to specific groups of authors and publishers (Ingram 2011; Rosen
2011). And, at least in some cultures, this difficulty is associated with a long-held vision of
the essence of free expression. As Hargreaves (1999, 4) puts it: [I]n a democracy, everyone
has the right to communicate a fact or a point of view, however trivial, however hideous.
Meanwhile, in the academy, even those for whom journalism studies is a home
discipline have happily made do without a consensus definition of their common interest.
Scholarly definitions of the notion of journalism have been rare and often unsatisfactory
(Mellado 2012, 414), and, as Zelizer has shown, scholars from various backgrounds
(sociologists, historians, rhetoricians, ethicists, and others) will tend to envision journalism
in dramatically different ways. Thus, journalism becomes a whole of various contradictory
parts (Zelizer 2004, 43). Seen in this light, any attempt to define journalism might be seen
as a hegemonic foray by one discipline against another.
Indeed, the very act of definition is quite literally exclusive: any definition of
dogness must exclude cats. And inevitably, the act of definition often gets confused with
the act of evaluation. Those who seek to answer the question What is poetry? might
forgivably assert that some verse is too shallow to deserve the higher name; likewise, the
Journalism Studies, 2014
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2014 Taylor & Francis

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IVOR SHAPIRO

statement Thats not journalism! is less apt to be about definition than about either
ethical or rhetorical judgment. But definition is (definitively!) not evaluation, and, while the
study of journalism within the academy may be inevitably peripatetic, this essay will
attempt to show that the lack of a commonly accepted working definition makes a
difference in practiceand that a reasonable definition is, despite many suggestions to
the contrary, within reach.

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The Case for Definition

The past two decades or so have seen a dramatic blurring of the boundaries
between journalism and other forms of public communication, and between journalists
and those formerly known as media audiences (Weaver and Willnat 2012, 529; see also
Singer 2003). Transformations both in media technologies and rhetorical forms and norms
(such as the emergence of comedic pseudo-journalists of Jon Stewarts ilk) have obliged
journalists to do boundary work to protect the authority of the journalistic paradigm
a belief system that provides its interpretive community with agreed-upon standards,
values and practices (Berkowitz and Gutsche 2012, 644; see also Hindman 2005).
Egalitarian discomfort with the idea of professional distinction should diminish if
one seeks strictly to recognize what constitutes journalistic activity, rather than who is a
journalist. A truly functional definition (usage that will be explained more fully below)
should not drive a wedge between the work of professional/mainstream and that of
amateur/alternative authors, but rather between journalism and such paradigmatically
different activities as public relations, entertainment, and content aggregation (see, for
example, Working 2013).
People in every democracy regularly and intuitively make these distinctions: asking
questions of a stranger on the street is one thing when it is journalism and another when
it is not, as is cold-calling a government official or business executive. In many countries,
those understood to be committing an act of journalism may gain admission to specific
seats in courtrooms (including, in Canada, child-protection hearings otherwise closed to
the public), to parliamentary lobbies and press galleries, and even to sports teams locker
rooms without respect to gender (Black 2010). But these intuitions of a journalistic
difference will increasingly seem discriminatory as virtual press passes become
available, in principle, to anyone, thus contributing to boundary blur.
In the legal realm, meanwhile, legislatures and courts confront definitional questions
when journalists seek protection of their sources identities (Kent 2013; Ugland and
Henderson 2007; see Free Flow of Information Act 2013). Courts adjudicating the
(Napoleonic) Civil Code for the Canadian province of Quebec have acknowledged the
existence of a professional journalist whose conduct must be judged against the
reasonable standards of his/her profession (Neron v. Chambre des notaires du Quebec
2004). The idea of responsible journalism (Reynolds v. Times Newspapers Limited and
Others 1999) has, with variants, gained recognition as a defamation defense by courts
around the British Commonwealth since 1999 (Jobb 2010). But the variant on the latter
defense now applying in common-law Canada (i.e. all jurisdictions except Quebec) is
known as responsible communication on matters of public interest precisely because the
countrys Supreme Court explicitly declined to create a class distinction for journalists. As
the Chief Justice wrote:

WHY DEMOCRACIES NEED A FUNCTIONAL DEFINITION OF JOURNALISM

[T]he traditional media are rapidly being complemented by new ways of communicating
on matters of public interest, many of them online, which do not involve journalists.
These new disseminators of news and information should, absent good reasons for
exclusion, be subject to the same laws as established media outlets. (Grant v. Torstar
Corp. 2009, para. 96)

There are both legal and practical incentives, then, for seeking a concise, clear
description of the journalistic function.

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Previous Definitions
A survey of professional and scholarly attempts to describe the essential nature of
journalistic practice and journalists roles and identity suggests that a fairly narrow band of
elements may be identified as key to the journalistic function. In the summary that follows,
phrases with potential definitional import are italicized for the readers convenience; a
quick look through these phrases will confirm the presence of common strands.
Within the extensive corpus of scholarly research on the nature of news and news
work, and on news workers self-perceptions and roles, definitions, where proposed, have
inclined toward varying degrees of circularity or exclusivity. Many of these statements
refer somewhat vaguely to work involved in gathering and/or disseminating news, to
news production, and/or to the provision of information and commentary on public
affairs (Schudson 2002, 14; Splichal and Sparks 1994, 20; Stephens 2011; Wahl-Jorgensen
and Hanitzsch, 2009, 5). Zelizer defines journalism as the organized and public collection,
processing and distribution of news and current affairs material and elsewhere, with
unacknowledged circularity, defines news as new information about an event or issue
that is shared with others in a systematic and public way (Zelizer and Allan 2010, 6263,
80). Conboy goes somewhat further, defining journalism as work that seeks to provide a
truthful account of the contemporary world and to report information that is new about
that world, whether in terms of fact or opinion based upon that fact (Conboy 2013, 2; see
also Kinsey 2005, 124).
In a series of influential books on journalistic roles and identity, Weaver and others
appraised surveys of journalists in 31 countries on every continent except, so far, Africa.
The need to isolate comparable survey populations normally requires explicit definition,
but reports in the Weaver corpus define journalism or journalists in varying ways, if any.
The most commonly cited explicit definition is that a journalist is a person who has some
editorial responsibility for the preparation or transmission of news stories or other
information (Weaver and Wilhoit 1986, 168; Johnstone, Slawski, and Bowman 1976, 7).
Left undefined here is what constitutes editorial responsibility or news, and what types
of other information might be included. Several of the studies population definitions are
based on workers places of or terms of employment (Hong Kong), membership in unions
or associations (Denmark, Finland, Switzerland, Quebec), government certification (Brazil,
France), or occupational classification by a government census (Australia). Other country
studies choose not to define journalists or journalism at all (China, Sweden, United
Kingdom, and many others).
The most comprehensive definition in the Weaver collection is offered by a German
group who state that, unlike other types of communication (for instance, public relations),
journalism provides the public independently and periodically with information and issues

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that are considered newsworthy, relevant and fact-based (Weischenberg, Malik, and Scholl
2012, 208209). We will return to this definition below.
Taking a more theoretical and literary approach, Adam defined journalism as a form
of expression used to report and comment in the public media on events and ideas,
always marked by five principles of design, which he listed as: news or news judgment;
reporting or evidentiary method; linguistic technique (plain style); narrative technique; and
method of interpretation or meaning (Adam 1993). Adams description, though both
inspirational and influential, is difficult to apply with a strictly definitional purpose, both
due to its reliance on the difficult word news and because various criteria could be
applied with equal relevance to a wide variety of non-journalistic disciplines, such as
history or advertising.
A recent paper by an ethics panel of the Canadian Association of Journalists
adopted a more strictly definitional angle, asking: What is not journalism? According to
that report (to which I contributed), all journalistic work includes an original act of creation
(as distinct from aggregation, republication, or quotation), a self-conscious discipline
calculated to provide an accurate and fair description of facts or opinion, and a
disinterested central purpose of providing information independently of consideration
of the effect, for good or ill, of the coverage provided (Brethour et al. 2012). Meanwhile, a
proposed US federal shield law (Free Flow of Information Act 2013) defines journalism as
work involved with news or information that concerns local, national, or international
events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public.

Evaluative Criteria and Values

As suggested above, moral norms are only indirectly related to definition. In a
phrase such as responsible journalism, for instance, the noun is modified, not defined, by
the adjective; otherwise the formula would be tautologous. Put another way, for
responsible journalism to be a meaningful concept, irresponsible journalism (something
that is journalism by definition, but that is not practiced in a responsible way) must exist.
Nevertheless, since the paradigmatic values held by an interpretive community (Zelizer
1993; Berkowitz and Gutsche 2012, 644) help to define that community, our quest may be
informed by attempts to describe journalists norms and goals, such as the following
examples.
Deuze proposed that working journalists worldwide share a common occupational
ideology whose essential elementsa collection of values, strategies and formal codes
characterizing professional journalism and shared most widely by its membersinclude
five ideal-typical traits or values, which are public service; objectivity; autonomy;
immediacy; and ethics (Deuze 2005, 446447).
Kovach and Rosenstiel described the social purpose of journalism (to provide people
with the information they need to be free and self-governing) and laid out journalists
obligations of truthfulness and verification, their duties of loyalty to citizens and independence
from those they cover, their role as monitors of power and providers of a forum for public
criticism and compromise, the need for journalism to be interesting, relevant, comprehensive,
and proportional, the need for journalists to exercise freedom of conscience, and the rights
and responsibilities of citizens (Kovach and Rosenstiel 2007, 1213).
Taking a sociological approach, Gardner, Csikszentmihalyi, and Damon sought to
understand how journalists and the various stakeholders in the news business understood

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WHY DEMOCRACIES NEED A FUNCTIONAL DEFINITION OF JOURNALISM

the standards and aspirations of their domain. Among their conclusions: journalists are
sustained by a common aspiration toward a sense of distance and objectivity, as well as
fortitude in respect of the jobs challenges (Gardner, Csikszentmihalyi, and Damon
2001, 183).
In a 2010 paper, I proposed a five-fold framework for the evaluation of journalistic
quality, based on the classical faculties of rhetoric. Among other things, this proposal
included a quality standard under each heading, conformity with which would suggest
the presence of quality journalism. The five standards were: independent observation;
efforts to ensure accuracy; openness to appraisal (enabling the audience to identify and
assess sources of information and opinions); editing (the work is part of an unfolding
account to which others contribute); and presentation that is uncensored by sources,
owners, advertisers, and others (Shapiro 2010).
While this survey of references to evaluative criteria is by no means exhaustive, it,
along with the preceding more formal definitional material, indicates that particular ideas
tend to recur despite the use of a wide variety of disciplinary lenses on the nature of
journalism.

What is a Functional Definition?

Before proceeding to draw recurring elements into a definitional framework, the
stated goal of a functional definition, itself, requires some definition!
The word definition means here what it means to lexicographers: a concise,
efficient statement of the exact meaning of the thing described. This is different from a list
of traits, elements, or principles. We will recognize a useful definition if it parsimoniously
lists the special and required characteristics of an activity that may be recognized as
constituting journalism and not something else. But, while a definition is always
exclusive, it is also as inclusive as possible. A desirable definition of journalism will
therefore embrace journalistic work in a wide variety of forms, subject areas, and cultural
contexts. Ideally, it should resonate anywhere, or, at least, in any democracy.
As for the modifier functional, it is not used here in the sense of sociologically
defining journalisms role within a culture, polity, or economy. Still less does it assume that
journalism might be functionalistically identified as a profession (see Allison 1986;
Greenwood 1957; McLeod and Hawley 1964; Ritzer 1977). Rather, the term is used, again,
in a literal1 and lexical sense. This idea is most clearly understood when seen in
contradistinction to other possible approaches. Zelizer (2004, 2243) identified five broad
headings under which the notion of journalism might be envisioned: as a profession, as
an institution, as people, as text, and as a set of practices.2 The first three sets might be
termed class definitions, because they exclude groups of people, the fourth refers to
work products rather than workers or their activities, while the fifth (a set of practices) is
functional.

Five Defining Functions

From a functional perspective, five sets of common and definitional themes may be
identified in the literature explored above.
The first common area relates to the choice of subject matter to be explored. The
word used most commonly to describe the subject matter of journalism is news. It is

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clearly true that journalism focuses by definition on current or recent events, although
exemplary models of journalism include attempts to contextualize, analyze, and interpret
events rather than merely conveying the latest emerging facts. In any case, journalism is
not history.
The second recurring area refers to the audience addressed. The word journalism is
not used for insider-to-insider communication within organizations and closed communities; rather, journalism seeks, by definition, to broaden the boundaries within which
information is known and understood. Implications of this idea include that journalists
prefer plain language and engaging media forms, and that they see themselves as
accountable not just to employers or peers but to a broader public. In short, journalism is
not private.
Third, the principal standard against which journalists weigh information is that of
factual accuracy. While journalists may ethically hold themselves up to various measures of
truthfulness (is a report truthful if it quotes a person telling a lie, or if revealing a true fact
implies a false context?), or of ethical notions such as fairness or balance in deciding
among competing versions of truth, journalism always involves some attempt at ensuring
that factual statements are accurate. At the very least, the word journalism does not
properly refer to the communication of information that the communicator knows to be
false, and even in cases where opinion forms the main thrust of a work, a journalistic
author will be concerned with the accuracy of factual statements therein. (To be clear:
while the actual achievement of accuracy of a report is a matter for evaluation, the
presence of an active attempt at accuracy is suggested as a functional descriptor.)
Journalism is not credulous.
A fourth area of commonality refers to the communicators interests. Some may still
argue that journalism is by definition objective, but journalists around the world
embrace varying ideals related to advocacy (Hanitzsch 2011). More definitive is the root
idea that the communicators direct material interests do not drive what is deemed and
described as true. Instead, the word journalism suggests that the researcher/communicator has some degree of independence with respect to the possible consequences of
information being made known. Of course, a journalists career prospects will likely be
enhanced by publication of a great story, but this benefit is normally a function of the
informations interest to the audience, rather than of the good or harm that might accrue
to anyone as a result of the information becoming known or understood in a certain way
(Brethour et al. 2012). Put differently, within a market perspective, the journalist and the
audience occupy, at least temporarily, common ground wholly owned by neither (Calcutt
and Hammond 2011, 61). Journalists seek information, and seek to publish it, based on
that informations interest to themselves and to their audiences, rather than their, their
employers, or their sources interests in a particular outcome. Journalism is not
propaganda.
The final element may be so obvious as, usually, to go unmentioned. An activity of
journalism involves, by definition, original creationnot merely copying, republishing, or
referencing existing works. Although a journalistic work often builds on (and normally
acknowledges) others prior work, it goes beyond merely replicating it. Journalism is not
aggregation.
To summarize, a parsimonious and useful definition of journalistic activity should
include intuitively comprehensible allusions to each of these five elements:

WHY DEMOCRACIES NEED A FUNCTIONAL DEFINITION OF JOURNALISM

A.
B.
C.
D.

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E.

Current or recent events as subject matter.

Breadth of audience (which in turn implies a concern for accessible or engaging language
and forms).
Attempted ascertainment of factual accuracy.
Independence (connoting an arms-length interest in publication itself versus direct benefit
from the consequences of what is published).
Involves original work (as opposed to mere linking or replication).

(Two other elements recur with great frequency in relevant literature, but do not
belong in a functional definition. First, to define journalism with reference to the public
interest or public affairs might exclude works of marginal political or economic
importance, thus excluding entire oeuvres such as sports and lifestyle reporting, which
are instantly recognized as journalism in common parlance. And second, while most
journalism is indeed produced periodically for continuing media, substantial journalistic
work is done for freestanding entities such as books, documentary films, and stand-alone
multimedia products.)
How comprehensively do existing functional definitions address the five proposed
elements? Some come close, but none fully embraces all five elements, as shown in the
following examples.
1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Calcutt and Hammond (2011, 169): The concerted activity of reporting and commenting on
recent human activity, disseminated in well-crafted forms for the benefit of others more
often engaged in other activities. This definition addresses elements A, B, and E, but not C
or D.
Conboy (2013, 2): [Work that seeks to] provide a truthful account of the contemporary
world [and to report] information that is new about that world, whether in terms of fact or
opinion based upon that fact. Addresses A and C explicitly, and E implicitly, but not B or D.
Weischenberg, Malik, and Scholl (2012, 208209): [Activity that] provides the public
independently and periodically with information and issues that are considered newsworthy, relevant and fact-based. Addresses A, B, and D explicitly, and C implicitly, but not E.
(Also, assumes that all journalism is periodical.)
Brin, Charron, and de Bonville (2004, 5): [A] practice of producing, collecting and shaping
discourse, relating to factual matters of public interest, for a newspaper or other media.3
Addresses B, C, and E, but not A or D.
Free Flow of Information Act (2013): [T]he gathering, preparing or publishing of news or
information that concerns local, national, or international events or other matters of public
interest for dissemination to the public. Addresses B and arguably A, but not C, D, or E.

Proposed Definition
Drawing together the five streams of common elements, the following might be
proposed as a functional definition of journalism:
Journalism comprises the activities involved in an independent pursuit of accurate
information about current or recent events and its original presentation for public
edification.

It must be immediately conceded that this formulation is but one of several possible
ways to synthesize a rich and complex tradition of definitional and evaluative threads, and
that it makes only a small advance on some definitions quoted above. Nevertheless, it

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does address explicitly and concisely all five of the required definitional elements, and
therefore seems a worthwhile start for further discussion.
One especially aggravating aspect of such a discussion may be to isolate what
exactly is meant by journalistic commentary. While journalism always involves some
engagement or nexus with facts, much journalism also involves commentary, opinion, and
analysis. The proposed definition helps to distinguish journalistic assertion from the
various types of propaganda, but some might wish to tease journalistic expressions of
opinion apart from (to name just one example) the assertions of academic experts writing
for opinion pages of newspapers.
The proposed formulation also has the weakness of seeming to rely on two
aspirational, rather than descriptive, qualifiers. However, the first of these, independent,
is used in the most restricted, literal sense. Rather than suggesting an objective or
balanced state of mind or motive, independent, in this context, means only, as
emphasized above, a disconnection from the risks and benefits of propagation. Likewise,
original is meant in its most literal sense: unlike its usage in the realm of art criticism, for
instance, original here does not suggest the presence of innovation or an absence of
influence by others, but merely that new effort is involved.
Definitions, however well or poorly argued, do not gain life or durability by authorial
fiat; rather, they evolve through a steady trend in usage and metamorphosis. Progress
toward a consensus description should eventually help courts resolve difficulties in
addressing news media-specific issues such as confidential sources and libel privileges
and, specifically in Canada, help to embolden jurisprudence that (unlike judgments to
date) put flesh on the bones of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantee, not just of
freedom of expression but, specifically and distinctly, of freedom of the press and other
media of communication (The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Section 2(b)). At
the same time, this progress would be useful to journalists themselves in giving a
comprehensible account of their professional activities, and in earning accreditation where
it may be deemed useful either for practical reasons or for reasons of principle.
And, if nothing else, it should at least provide a handy and coherent response when
ordinary people, whether perplexed or simply curious, ask: So, what is journalism,
anyway?

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author acknowledges substantial advice from Jamie Cameron (Osgoode Hall Law
School, York University), who is his partner in a joint research project to formulate a
proposed legal definition of journalism for common law jurisprudence.

NOTES
1.

2.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines functional as: of or having a special activity,
purpose, or task relating to the way in which something works or operates. A
synonym might be operational, but that term contains no less potential for
misunderstanding.
The list of Zelizers headings has been slightly reordered for the purpose of the sentence
that follows it. A good example of a text definition is: [A]ny authored text in written,
audio or visual form, which claims to be a truthful statement about, or record of, some

WHY DEMOCRACIES NEED A FUNCTIONAL DEFINITION OF JOURNALISM

3.

hitherto unknown new feature of the actual, social world (McNair 1998, 4, cited by
Zelizer 2004, 22).
Translated from the French by the author.

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Ivor Shapiro, School of Journalism, Ryerson University, Canada. E-mail: ishapiro@ryerson.ca.

Web: http://www.ryerson.ca/journalism/facultydirectory/chair/shapiro.html

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