A journalist is a person engaged in the profession of journalism.
Reporters are one type of journalist. They create reports as a profession for broadcast or publication in mass media such as newspapers, television, radio, magazines, documentary film, and the Internet. Reporters find the sources for their work; the reports can be either spoken or written; they are generally expected to report in the most objective and unbiased way to serve the public good.
Depending on the context, the term "journalist" also includes various types of editors and visual journalists, such as photographers, graphic artists, and page designers.
Origin and scope of the term
In the early 19th century, journalist meant simply someone who wrote for journals, such as Charles Dickens in his early career. In the past century it has come to mean a writer for newspapers and magazines as well.
Many people consider journalist interchangeable with reporter, a person who gathers information and creates a written report, or story. However, this overlooks many other types of journalists, including columnists, leader writers, photographers, editorial designers, and sub editors (British) or copy editors (American).
Regardless of medium, the term journalist carries a connotation or expectation of professionalism in reporting, with consideration for truth and ethics. It should be added that some journals, such as the downmarket, scandal-led tabloids, do not make great claims to truth or ethical reporting.
18th-century journalists
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Daniel Defoe - as editor of the Review, he can claim to have invented many of the most popular formats, including the eye-witness report, the travel piece and the strongly opinionated column. Defoe's Review began publication on 19 February 1704 and lasted until 11 June 1713. He was also involved in several other periodicals, including The Master Mercury (1704), Mercator: or, Commerce Retrieved (1713-14), The Monitor (1714), The Manufacturer (1719-21), The Commentator (1720) and The Director (1720-1).
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Richard Steele - founded and edited London-based periodicals including The Guardian and The Spectator in the early 1700s.
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Joseph Addison - wrote many of the finest pieces in Steele's publications
19th-century journalists
20th-century print journalists
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Samuel Hopkins Adams (1871–1958) - American investigative journalist
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Hannah Arendt (1906-1975)
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Ben Bradlee, editor of the Washington Post at the time of the Watergate scandal
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Winston Churchill (1874-1965) war correspondent in the Boer War, captured by the Boers
- Claud Cockburn (1904-1981) radical Irish journalist
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C.P. Connolly (1863-1935) radical American investigative journalist associated for many years with Collier's Weekly.
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Paul Foot (1938-2004)
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Martha Gellhorn (1908-1998) war correspondent
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Emily Hahn (1905-1997) - wrote extensively on China
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Pauline Kael (1919-2001) - Film critic for The New Yorker
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A.J. Liebling (1904-1963) American journalist closely associated with The New Yorker
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Walter Lippmann (1889-1974)
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Jonathan Meades
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H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) - essayist, critic, and editor of The Baltimore Sun.
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George Orwell (1903-1950) - reported on poverty, misery, and the Spanish Civil War
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Robert Palmer (1945-1997) - first full-time, chief pop music critic for The New York Times, Rolling Stone contributing editor
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Edward Said (1935-2003) - essayist, Palestinan activist
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James ("Scotty") Reston (1909-1995) - political commentator for the New York Times
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George Seldes (1890-1995) - American journalist, editor and publisher of In Fact.
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George Bernard Shaw - better known as a playwright, but influential as a music writer and wrote other forms of journalism
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Randy Shilts - reporter for The Advocate and San Francisco Chronicle.
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Edgar Snow, pro-socialist journalist and writer, chronicled the Chinese revolution
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I.F. Stone (1907-1989), investigative journalist, publisher of I.F. Stone's Weekly
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Anna Louise Strong, pro-socialist journalist and writer
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Walter Winchell (1897-1972), American political columnist, radio broadcaster
20th-century broadcast journalists
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Edward R. Murrow, CBS News radio correspondent in London Blitz, maker of TV documentaries , noted interviewer
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Walter Cronkite, former United Press correspondent, TV anchor for CBS News in the 50s, 60s
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David Brinkley, television anchor and interview show host on the American networks ABC and NBC
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Peter Jennings, television anchor for ABC
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Jim Lehrer, anchor of The Newshour with Jim Lehrer
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Tom Brokaw, television journalist and former anchor and managing editor of "The NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw."
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Dan Rather, succeeded Cronkite as managing editor and primary anchor of the CBS Evening News
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Vernon Corea, a pioneering radio journalist and announcer with Radio Ceylon/SLBC and the BBC
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Sorious Samura, CNN TV documentary maker from Sierra Leone
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Fritz Spiegl, popularizer of classical music for the BBC
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Brian Williams, succeeded Brokaw as managing editor and anchor of "The NBC Nightly News."
Internet journalists
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Ana Marie Cox - works under the name Wonkette, famous for humorous coverage and breaking several stories during the 2004 Presidential Election .
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Matt Drudge - Active in revelations of the scandals of the Clinton administration, in the United States.
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Cali Ruchala
Contemporary journalists
There are numerous examples of journalists who made their mark writing fiction or other non-journlism, including:
Production journalists
Despite the fact that many people conflate journalist and reporter, a journalist is anyone who works any editorial aspect of a publications. This includes production journalists such as sub-editors, copy editors, graphic designers, art directors, and photographers.
Graphic designers and art directors who work exclusively on advertising material, however, are not considered journalists.
Fictional journalists
Attributing the profession of journalist to a fictional character allows many possibilities:
- The action and adventure genres use reporters because they may travel extensively and are supposed not to avoid risks as ordinary people do, but to face them like Tintin).
- In the superhero subgenre, journalists may be among the first to have news of disasters and crimes. Since they can operate with considerable autonomy out in the field as long they meet story deadlines, it eases complications arising from maintaining a secret identity. Major superheroes like Clark Kent / Superman and Peter Parker / Spider-Man are journalists in their civil lives.
- Journalists are supposed to explain complex things simply. A clear case is Kermit the Frog in his news-reporter role on Sesame Street, but a journalist character is also useful in a fiction work about a country or a culture strange to an adult public. For instance, Guy Hamilton and Billy Kwan make sense of the politics of Indonesia in the early 1960s for the Western viewers of The Year of Living Dangerously, and Ernest Hemingway's alter ego introduces Spain to Anglo readers of Fiesta (The Sun Also Rises).
Besides, many fiction writers like previously cited Hemingway, or Arturo Pérez Reverte, use their professional background as journalists to create their fiction characters.
See List of fictional journalists
See also
External links
