Comparing Journalism and Philosophy as Forms of Power

ABSTRACT

Journalists, journalism scholars and philosophers have long noted a dearth of engagement between journalism and philosophy, particularly in the Anglophone world. Yet, they have much to gain from each other as professional communities and as disciplines of thought and practice. This paper attempts to initiate the long-overdue conversation between journalism and philosophy by proposing that they are both forms of power in society. They arise from the same dimension of the human condition and they address complementary needs that arise from that dimension, which is why journalism and philosophy are so tantalizingly similar and yet frustratingly different.

KEYWORDS:

• Interdisciplinary
• journalism
• metaphilosophy
• ontology
• 
  phenomenology
• philosophy

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In this respect, the news report is theoretically distinguishable from an interview or live broadcast, in which X in principle can present itself directly to the audience with minimized mediation by the journalist.

2 The subjectivity of phronesis does not mean that philosophy is inherently relativistic. However, it does mean many of its problems are permanently open to questioning. Academic philosophers feel this keenly, for in contemporary universities, they must act as “experts on subjects on which there can be no expertise” (Kaufman 2019, §1, 1).

3 In Russian: “chelovek na den'” versus “chelovek na vse vremena”.