Defending the Profession: U.S. Journalists’ Role Understanding in the Era of Fake News

ABSTRACT

Using theories of journalists’ role perception, we analyzed how U.S. mainstream journalists defined “fake news,” and signaled to audiences the difference between their own news stories and “fake news” to defend their profession and a particular narrative of their profession as crucial to democracy. Results from interviews yield a split definition of “fake news:” journalists’ own understanding of the term and how journalists see their audiences apply the term. Participants defended their news reporting process by highlighting traditional best practices and new tools to verify information. In order to justify their profession’s purpose and legitimacy in democracy, journalists emphasized strategies of highlighting institutional history, transparency, and community engagement.

KEYWORDS:

• Fake news
• U.S. journalists
• journalism
• media literacy
• journalists
• professional role perception

Acknowledgment

This work was supported by Wayne State University CFPCA Faculty Creative/Research Award.

Disclosure Statement

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

Notes

1 As the term is widely used, we will use the term “fake news” in this paper without using quotation marks around the term each time for better readability.

2 One participant obtained a graduate degree in international policy and received journalism training from a leadership program. The other held a bachelor’s degree in political science and received journalism training as part of a fellowship.