How the Social Complements, Extends or Replaces the Professional: Autonomy and Adaptation in Journalist–Source Relationships

ABSTRACT

This study uses the process model of journalistic roles and discusses how journalists perceive (normatively and cognitively) and enact (according to their narrated practice) their professional roles upon interaction with socially distant vs. closer sources on the political beat. Specifically, the study looks at how journalists negotiate between their professional and social roles, and balance between autonomy and adaptation to the source when encountering sources with whom they are related by single (purely professional) vs. multiplex (social and professional) social ties. Empirically, the article compares journalist role conception (based on 26 qualitative interviews with journalists in Lithuania and Sweden) and performance (based on 475 reconstructed journalist–source interactions in both countries). The results show that the professional role is fluctuating and sensitive to the social relationship context. In both countries, journalists praised the norm of role autonomy from sources. However, in role performance, professional and social roles influenced each other during interactions with sources. The patterns of negotiating the professional role in different relational contexts to sources were similar regardless of the country.

KEYWORDS:

• Professional role
• journalist-source relationships
• autonomy‌
• interpersonal communication
• political beat
• trust
• sources
• watchdog

Introduction

Journalism as a profession contains a paradox. On the one hand, a journalist, especially in normative terms, should maintain social distance from their sources (Örnebring and Karlsson 2022). This distance ensures journalists’ autonomy and is a prerequisite for objective reporting and acting as a watchdog over those in power. On the other hand, to conduct sensitive investigations and serve the public, a journalist is expected to develop a network of sources who supply information that is otherwise difficult to access or risky to share (Ericson, Baranek, and Chan 1989). Relying on information provided exclusively that is sometimes difficult to verify without revealing the source also presents a risk for the journalist. Trust-based interaction, which can result from an established relationship between journalists and their key sources is a cornerstone for accessing such information. However, cultivating these relationships means long-term professional and social routines, balancing autonomy from the sources, and adapting to them.

Professional roles are under constant renegotiation depending on the perceptions within the journalistic community and public expectations this community meets. Besides the audience, sources are one of the central reference groups for journalists, which makes journalist–source interactions a relevant context to explore when it comes to the professional role.

Social aspects occur alongside professional ones in any professional interaction between human agents. Journalist–source interactions are no exception. Well-established sources, whom the journalist knows for a long time or from several social contexts, might expect a different type of access and adaptation from the journalist than sources who encounter the journalist only for the first time, solely within a professional context.

Relationships between journalists and their sources on the reporting beat, including, relationships on the individual level, can result in either too much proximity or too much adversarialism. The literature points out the risks for political journalists becoming too loyal to their sources, or starting to act as advocates of specific goals at the expense of objectivity (Magin and Maurer 2019).

This leads to the proposal and the intended contribution of this article: professional role conception and role performance are fluctuating rather than stable. Relationships between individual journalists and their sources can play a role in the way journalists perceive and perform their role when interacting with these sources. Since the news is constructed in the interactions between journalists and their sources (Berkowitz 2019), these interactions and the relationships leading to them are an important context to explore. However, there is lack of studies analyzing the social and professional roles of journalists and sources alongside each other in a systematic and empirical way. This research intends to reduce this gap.

As Örnebring and Karlsson (2022) pointed out, journalists cannot be autonomous from all sources, but more from some types of sources. This article explores the idea further, aiming to understand how the social and professional aspects of the relationship between a particular journalist and a source are reflected in how journalists perceive and perform their professional roles.

Professional roles are discursively constructed and developed within a cultural and social context (Hanitzsch and Vos 2018). Journalists’ willingness to adapt or keep a distance from sources, and motives for such choices should therefore be seen as being a result of a particular professional culture. This motivates comparing data from at least a few contexts, in the case of this article—Sweden and Lithuania.

In order to understand how journalists perceive their professional/social roles in relation to sources, this study draws on 26 qualitative interviews with leading political reporters. The next step was to determine how these norms translate into practice. This is based on a total of 475 reconstructed interactions between journalists and their sources from both countries.

A Note on the Comparative Context of Sweden and Lithuania

The political and media context can influence journalistic access to sources (especially in terms of the formal communication routines by press departments) or presuppose different preferences for professional roles among journalists. Sweden (population 10.4 mln) and Lithuania (population 2.8 mln) have relatively small and thus, comparable media and political markets with no formal political parallelism, although with several important differences. Comparing data from those countries can be helpful in understanding whether journalistic role perceptions and enactment are context dependent or if they reach beyond one country’s context.

There are a few important differences that potentially might influence journalistic autonomy from their sources in these two countries. Sweden has a long tradition of free press, since 1766, ranking as fourth on the World Press Freedom Index (2023). Its level of journalistic and political communication professionalization is advanced. This could mean more defined professional roles and thus, greater autonomy as well as stronger professional organizations. Lithuania ranks seventh in the World Press Index (2023).¹

Lithuanian journalists have been transitioning from the unusual proximity of the early 1990s (both journalists and politicians strived for the same goals: country independence and democracy) to freedom of the press and professionalization (where journalists distance themselves from the political power). This transition could be reflected even in the professional and social relationships between Lithuanian journalists and their network of the political sources.

There are also important similarities between the countries, which theoretically should motivate journalists and political sources to seek closer, exclusive access to each other. The media in both countries is currently experiencing the need to rethink business strategies and attract a paying audience (therefore, exclusive content) while simultaneously balancing this need against the efficient use of resources. Exclusive, quick access to sources thus becomes especially important. The political life in both countries is based on coalition governments, which means more competition (Sagarzazu and Klüver 2017), which is known to be generally favorable for informal interactions between the media and its sources (Baugut 2019; Van Aelst, Shehata, and Van Dalen 2010). Therefore it is likely that journalists in both countries have to balance between autonomy from their sources and adapting to some types of sources in order to gain advantages in the competitive media/political market.

Autonomy vs. Adaptation Within an Ongoing Relationship

In beat reporting, where journalists encounter the same sources on a repetitive basis partly due to the limited circle of potential sources, but even more due to the improved efficiency of relying on the same sources (Dick 2012; Reich 2009; Reich 2012), interaction between a journalist and a source is not a singular event. Instead, it is a complex, ongoing social relationship where both sides adapt to each other (Blumler and Gurevitch 1981; Reich 2009; Wintterlin 2020) on a repetitive basis.

Any relationship requires balancing autonomy and adaptation. Being autonomous means having the power to take independent decisions and act without external pressures to this action (Christman 2020). Adaptation is defined as the “process of changing to fit some purpose or situation,”² and refers to navigating social rules and expectations in a way that makes it possible to achieve desired goals. Interaction, where the actors meet each others’ expectations for cooperation, builds trust between them and makes transactions possible (Kunnel and Quandt 2016). When journalists perceive the source to be credible, they significantly reduce verification efforts for the information such sources provide (Barnoy and Reich 2022). Therefore, each interaction between a journalist and a source can be treated as a trust building (or reducing) event in the overall context of the relationship.

The theoretical opposites of autonomy and adaptation to sources, or some groups of sources, can be also found in the literature on journalistic role conception and entails collaborative-facilitative and critical-monitorial dimensions (Hanitzsch and Vos 2018). The former refers to journalists acting as partners of the government (Christians, Glasser, and McQuail 2009; Hanitzsch 2007). A social facilitator is an example of such a role (Marquez-Ramirez 2021), and presupposes loyalty between journalists and some of the sources. The watchdog role refers to journalists voicing criticism and holding powers to account and expects distance between journalists and those they report about. The third function relevant to explore in the context of journalist–source relations is an advocative-radical function, where journalists see themselves as participants in the political discourse (Cohen 1963; quoted in Hanitzsch and Vos 2018) or identify themselves with some causes or groups of society and therefore, can be called their advocates. The roles of the watchdog or the advocate and the loyal facilitator are not necessarily mutually exclusive (Mellado, Hellmueller, and Márquez-Ramírez 2017). Journalists might see themselves as watchdogs for those in power, but maintaining access to the sources that share sensitive information can make them facilitators of political opponents and come at the expense of autonomy.

A Process Model of Professional Roles

Journalist–source relationships can be analyzed on two levels: role orientations (consisting of normative and cognitive roles) and role performance (consisting of practiced and narrated roles), as suggested by Hanitzsch and Vos (2017). Normative roles here refer to aggregate expectations that journalists believe are desirable in society and are essential in journalism’s contract with the public. Hanitzsch and Vos (2017, 118) point out that normative roles appear external to individual journalists and correspond to a shared picture of “what journalists ought to do.” In the next step, individual journalists selectively internalize the normative roles into their own cognitive scripts, which they then translate into their values: “what journalists want to do.” Cognitive roles are more sensitive to journalists’ individual experience, professional environment, and expectations within that environment, and this might result in some discrepancy between normative and cognitive roles.

Empirical studies have repeatedly demonstrated that world views and a person’s own perception of a role can differ from the way these roles are enacted in practice (Hellmueller 2014; Mellado and Mothes 2021; Schudson 2001;), here called role performance. Therefore, while values guide performance, they are enacted only to a certain extent, and the disparity between values and practices can depend on external and internal pressures, including those of a political or commercial character and established organizational routines. However, even social roles can be reflected in the disparity between the ideals and the actual performance (Raemy and Vos 2021).

Role performance consists, according to Hanitzsch and Vos (2017), of actual practices (what journalists do) and narrated practices (what they say they do). The narrations derive on one hand from how the actors reflect on their performance but also from how they negotiate these practices in relation to the values (how they think they should behave). Therefore, normative, cognitive, practiced, and narrated roles are connected to each other in a circular manner and can be viewed as a process model (Hanitzsch and Vos 2017, 123). This research intends to capture these transitions.

The Professional and the Social: Overlap, Complement, or Take Over

The social nature of news construction adds a level of subjectivity that is described by theories on interpersonal communication (Berger 2005). Some of the important aspects from these theories for this research are reciprocity, in terms of how the actors perceive each other; reflexivity, in terms of how they adapt their behavior to each other; and multiplexity, in terms of the interaction potentially including several goals and motives at the same time. This section intends to discuss these connections.

When it comes to normative and cognitive role orientations, journalists and sources assess how they can approach each other based on the “social norms, social prescriptions, individuated knowledge about the other’s behavior as well as functions or goals” (Berger 2005, 419). These norms are related to the norms accepted within their professional (but also social) environment and how the actors perceive their own (professional and social) role(s) in the particular context. The own role is viewed in relation to the role of the other. A journalist might reflect on whether a source lives up to their role, as this role is perceived by the journalist. A source, in turn, evaluates whether the journalist lives up to the role of a journalist.

Based on the role conceptions, a journalist should see how close their relationships with a source can be (from a watchdog, which would expect a strict social distance, to, for example, an activist or facilitator regarding a particular issue, where a journalist and a source could find themselves striving for the same goal). At the same time, pre-existing social ties with some sources might make journalists renegotiate their professional roles in the context of these particular relationships. Therefore, the internalization of professional norms into cognitive scripts that define journalist–source interaction is negotiated with the norms that guide the social interaction between human agents in general.

At the level of role performance, interaction presupposes reciprocal adaptation. Interpersonal adaptation theories point out that “social action is governed by the norm of reciprocity that obligates individuals engaged in social exchange to help and not harm those who help them” (Berger 2005, 418, referring to Gouldner, 1960). The more one actor behaves as expected, the more likely the other actor will be willing to adapt and behave in the manner that they perceive is expected of them. In a journalistic context, it could be that helpful and credible sources will have a better chance of getting their message through or being contacted again (Barnoy and Reich 2022). On the other hand, when expectations are not met, compensation mechanisms come into play, for example by adversarial formulation of interview questions when interviewing reluctant politicians (Ekström and Tolson 2017). This research therefore looks at how the elements of social norms are reflected in the interaction between journalists and sources within a professional context.

Reflection on practice focuses on the motives behind specific interactions, as narrated by the actors themselves. Those narrations are always subjective and include justification of the choices made based on the actors’ cognitive scripts—their values and perceptions of what behavior is appropriate (Hanitzsch and Vos 2017). The reflections on social interaction could indicate that individuals might pursue (not necessarily consciously) different goals simultaneously. The more social ties that connect the actors, the larger the number of roles they hold with each other and the more multiplex the goals can be (Berger 2005; Dillard 1997). In some cases, those goals can be contradictory. A goal related to long-term relationship building in order to maintain access to information might collide with a goal to always act as an impartial and objective journalist. Reflection regarding interactions and their outcomes for future relationships is closely related to whether the actor believes they live up to others’ expectations (Ferrin, Bligh, and Kohles 2007). Rejecting a story suggestion from a potentially important source (not meeting the source’s expectations) might potentially worsen the relationship. By analyzing the narrations, this research explores how the actors justify their choices based on the cognitive scripts (professional and social) that preceded them.

To summarize, journalists navigate between the interaction prescribed by their professional role and the more subjective social role they construct within each relationship. The social role is always unique since it is dependent on the relationship history with a particular source. Studying the interaction between journalists and their human sources can mean studying how professional roles and social roles compete, overlap, and complement each other in different contexts. Therefore, this study suggests analyzing how journalists experience and resonate regarding the reciprocity (the perception of their own and the sources’ roles), reflexivity (willingness to adapt to the sources and acceptable forms of adaptation), and possible prevalence of multiplexity of the social and professional goals upon the interactions.

The proposed research questions follow the logic of the process model of professional roles, where the shared norms (RQ1) are translated into the perceptions of the own role on the cognitive level (RQ2), which then informs the performance (RQ3).

RQ 1. Normative values. How do journalists perceive their own and the source roles, and the relationship between those roles?

RQ 2. Cognitive beliefs. How do journalists believe the journalist–source interactions and relationships play out in their own practice?

RQ 3. Role performance. How journalists enact their professional and social roles in practice upon specific interactions with sources?

Reciprocity, reflexivity, and multiplexity are used as means to analyze the social role that might influence the professional one, both when it comes to conception and performance.

Method: Qualitative and Reconstruction Interviews

The analysis of role perceptions includes norms and values and focuses on how journalists perceive relationships. The results are based on 26 qualitative interviews with journalists covering national politics in Lithuania (16) and Sweden (10). In the broader research design of this study, this functioned as an explorative stage, preceding the analysis of performance, which was investigated through reconstruction interviews with 475 journalist–source interactions narrated by 17 and 16 reporters in Lithuania (n = 240) and Sweden (n = 235), respectively (Table 1).

Table 1. Perspective of analysis in qualitative and reconstruction interviews.

	Professional role perspective
Social role perspective	Normative and cognitive	Narrated performance
Reciprocity	The perception of the professional roles of the journalists in the relationships with the (different types of) sources; expectations for proximity vs. distance in those relationships. What is the balance between adversarial vs. symbiotic relationships and how to create it? What are advantages/disadvantages of the different types of relationships?	How well did the journalist/source live up to the expectations for their role? How well did the relationship/way of interaction fit into this expectation? How the source became part of this story: who made the first contact (journalist or the source)? What channels/spaces were used for the interaction? Was it a formal/informal interaction? How common is this type of contact? How regularly does the journalist interact with this source (on a scale, from the first time to regular weekly interaction); How can the relationship be described in terms of formality/informality? How trustworthy is the source as perceived by the journalist and why (considering all situations)? How trustworthy is the source in this particular situation and why?
Reflexivity	Under what circumstances and what types of adaptation to the sources are acceptable? What are the expectations of journalists and sources for such adaptations? In what situations is the adaptation needed?	Has the source asked or been offered any adaptation (confidentiality, withholding/postponing some information)? Why was it needed? Is the source attributed in the text and how? Has the source contacted the journalist during or after publication and why? What was the contribution/impact on the story from this particular source (i.e., inspired the story, provided the main share of the information, provided technical details, suggested other sources, etc.)
Multiplexity	Motives for trust/distrust in the relationships between journalists and their sources. Multiplex goals in professional contacts that grow into friendship; personal networks that can be used for professional purposes.	How closely did the journalist and source know each other (on a scale from purely professional to personal social ties)? Why did the source cooperate/not cooperate? Has the source provided any feedback during or after the story, how? Will the interaction affect the relationship in the future and how?
Method and data	26 qualitative interviews with journalists and political sources in Lithuania and Sweden	33 reconstruction interviews with journalists in Lithuania and Sweden, 475 reconstructed interactions

The total population of reporters covering national politics in each of the countries is difficult to estimate. In order to create a sample of interviewees, we monitored the news on national politics in the media outlets that were the main political news providers and who reached the largest and most demographically diverse audience in each respective country for 60 days (Table 2). Later, the political news journalists who contributed the most in each of the outlets were asked to participate in the reconstruction interview (one to three journalists were asked).

Table 2. Types of media represented by the journalists in the interview sample.

Media	Lithuania	Lithuania	Sweden	Sweden
Journalists from:	Qualitative interview	Reconstruction interview	Qualitative interview	Reconstruction interview
Public service TV	2	1	2	2
Public service radio	2	2	2	4
Daily newspaper	4	4	3	6
Tabloid newspaper	1	2	2	2
News website	4	5	N/A	N/A
News agency	2	2	1	2
News magazine	1	1	0	0
Total	16	17	10	16

The interviews used in this study were conducted by its author in the native languages of the respondents, and the author also recorded, transcribed, and coded the responses. Each of the interviews was about 75 min long.

The qualitative interviews were coded looking for normative and cognitive role perceptions and analyzed with regard to the aspects of interpersonal communication theory: reciprocity, reflexivity, and multiplexity.

An additional method was required to cross-check the journalists’ interactions and motives and relate these to specific practice” (performative/narrated roles); therefore, the reconstruction interviews came into play (Table 1).

Reconstruction interviews (Reich 2009; Reich and Barnoy 2020), discussing 475 journalist–source interactions in total, addressed the performative level. Firstly, it allowed getting an insight into practices and the narrations about them, via following a structured questionnaire, consisting of closed and multiple-choice questions that encouraged the journalists to reconstruct in detail the process of a story’s production from the initial idea to publication. It produced accounts of how and why journalists came in contact with different sources while working on selected news stories, what were the formal or informal circumstances of the interaction, had the journalist received any feedback from the source after producing the story, etc. Secondly, the questionnaire included follow-up questions where journalists elaborated on what motivated interactional choices and trust in the particular interactions and in the relationships in general. The focus lay on the description of the relationship history and how journalists motivate their trust or distrust for the sources in those interactions or more general relational contexts.

The reconstruction interviews ensured the anonymity of the sources but at the same time still allowed the reporters to go into detail about their interactions/relationships in these specific situations, which was the focus of the research. During the interviews, the journalists were promised confidentiality. They received 7–12 articles or transcribed radio or TV stories that they had produced with a by-line during the previous month. The stories were numbered. By picking a card with a number and without revealing the number to the interviewer, the journalists answered questions about their interaction with sources while producing each story. This technique was important when considering the ethically sensitive issues related to the social proximity between journalists and their sources.

The major part of the questionnaire invited journalists to talk about each contact they had with different sources they encountered while producing the story (Table 1). All the questions were asked in the same order, reconstructing interaction with each of the sources separately, from the initiative and means of communication to the perceptions regarding the interaction. This allowed the journalists to focus and recall the interactional steps and reflect on each of the relationships one by one.

Results

This section presents how journalists balance professional and social roles on normative, cognitive, and narrated/performative levels in the relationships with sources. The data were analyzed based on the categories of social interaction: reciprocity (what expectations do the actors have for the relationship with each other and for each others’ roles); reflexivity (in terms of how much they (are willing to) adapt their behavior to each other); and multiplexity (in terms of whether the interaction or relationship combines social and professional goals).

Normative Perspective

The first research question asked how journalists see their own professional role and the relationships between source–journalist roles in terms of reciprocity, reflexivity, and multiplexity from the normative perspective.

In both countries, the journalists expressed a preference for a clear division between the journalist and source roles. Moreover, the interviewees shared a generally adversarial normative attitude toward political sources, meaning that the information they provide also involves self-interest and therefore, should always be double-checked:

All politicians have an agenda and therefore none of them can ever be fully trusted. (Swedish journalist 2)

Journalists described their main role as watchdogs of politicians and emphasized the integrity of their professional role, whereas the roles of loyal facilitator or advocate were seen as problematic. The following example emphasizes that the roles have to be reciprocally accepted—the sources have to be clear about the distance between a journalist and a source:

Even in those cases when a source shares exclusive information with me, I strive not to feel to be dependent on that person. Even more importantly, the politician sharing the information should not expect me to be dependent. Sources stand on one side, and journalists stand on the other side of the barricades. It is problematic when journalists start trying to promote the “Bigger Purpose of the State” and become mouthpieces for the sources. (Lithuanian journalist 1)

The same attitude was strongly supported by the Swedish colleagues, where establishing close social ties was presented as incompatible with the normative role of the critical journalist:

My main task is not to establish relationships but to be a good (critical) journalist [reciprocity]. If (the sources) get angry let them be, even if I will get less access [reflexivity, reduced adaptation] in the future. (Swedish journalist 1)

If my source will dislike my reporting, they have to be aware that I will still report. (Lithuanian kournalist 2)

To summarize, a strong emphasis on the separate professional roles and their reinforcement in the eyes of the sources works at the expense of social adaptation, according to the answers. Therefore, multiplex goals (friendship and professional) are not acceptable.

Cognitive Perspective

To address the cognitive perspective, the journalists were asked to reflect on their own practice and routines influencing this practice when it came to relationships with sources, as per RQ 2. The interviews addressed issues concerning how the journalists work in order to achieve access to information and what adaptations they perceived as common and acceptable.

When it came to reciprocity in their own relationships with sources, the journalists emphasized the need to talk separately about the relationships with the official, elite sources (quoted, often high-ranked sources, with whom journalists did not have any closer than formal relationship) and the background sources (whom a journalist has known for many years, who provide background details and often stay unquoted). This leads to an important result that journalists perceive their own role differently depending on the source type:

I scrutinize the top politicians, but I would not call them my sources. My sources are the ones surrounding them, their administrative staff who are working for us (journalists). (Swedish journalist 3)

The word choice in the example above (“working for us”) indicates the informal proximity between the interviewed journalist and selected administrative staff members, and the unwritten expectation that these sources will be willing to tweak their professional role in order to serve the interests of the journalists.

When commenting on their own work, the journalists still referred to the norms of maintaining autonomy from political sources in general. At the same time, they emphasized the need to build the network of insiders, the own sources. Differently than on the normative perspective, journalists perceived that having such a network is a sign of an experienced journalist, an asset rather than sacrificing part of the independency and representing some sources more than others. This shows that a journalist can identify with several roles interchangeably, depending on the relationship with the source:

Waiting outside the closed door and talking to the press adviser will only let you know what they want to tell you. you need to have your own sources who would tell you what is really going on. (Lithuanian journalist 5)

The context of the competitive environment, perceived audience expectations, and restricted direct access to politicians (referring the media to press secretaries) therefore legitimizes the adaptation to some of the sources. The journalists explain that the main reason to adapt to the sources and establish somewhat informal relationships is about being able to serve the public interest and provide timely, exclusive information, or finding a story that is not accessible to competitors. The latter has become especially important due to the tough market competition and changing media landscape, where paying subscribers are no longer satisfied with reading about events and are more interested in knowing the background stories:

We are ignoring the press conferences more and more, and we are working with our own news, which requires tight and regular contact with the sources with whom a relationship is established (…). (Swedish journalist 3)

In contrast to the normative perspective, journalists shared that their own interactions with potential or regular sources included social and personal elements, in order to gain trust. While the professional intention is to serve the public, the means to achieve it requires decreasing the social distance:

In order to build a relationship, you need to be able to make a call and talk about all kinds of neutral subjects or daily life [reflexivity]. You cannot expect that someone will be completely honest with you if you call and directly ask, what is going on in their party [reciprocity]. You need to know something more about a person: maybe about their hobby or something else, in order to have a pleasant conversation [multiplexity of the social and professional]. Therefore, I sometimes call without a specific issue in mind—just to chat [reflexivity]. (Lithuanian journalist 3)

Willingness to maintain relationships also results in adaptation on the professional level. Those sources who are perceived to be benevolent and helpful can expect more adaptation, as the mechanisms of reflexivity come into play, even if normatively the journalists prefer to maintain stronger autonomy:

I take into account the interests of the source. You get a piece of exclusive information first, so you do not feel you could twist this information against the sources’ intention. I usually try to openly discuss what intention it could be. For example, if the source says “Would you please leave this detail out,” in order to protect the source, or not to make the whole situation so dramatic, I usually take it into consideration. (Swedish journalist 7)

A substantial part of the adaptation to a large degree works subconsciously and is not an active decision, as some journalists admitted. This corresponds well to the theory that people, consciously or not, are unwilling to hurt those who have helped them (Berger 2005). The journalists reflected that some unwritten rules of behavior are taken for granted:

How I manage the relationship is rather subconscious, but of course, it affects me. If I get a piece of information from a source, it is not my first thought how to discredit that source who just informed me. So it is possible to say that it is a part of the (unwritten) agreement, that it (criticizing the source) is not the first thought crossing the mind. (Swedish journalist 8)

The respondents barely mentioned the aspect of multiplexity (pursuing social and professional goals at the same time) in the qualitative interviews. At the same time, they mentioned the concerns that could break the relationship with the source, which would have both short and long-term consequences:

Some sources share the information regularly, and they develop an expectation that we have a friendly relationship. They can get very disappointed to find out that I reported something that was not in their favor, and our relationship is ‘burned.’ (Lithuanian journalist 5)

Performative and Narrative Perspectives

The third RQ addresses role performance and asks how the journalists enact their professional and social roles in practice, upon specific interactions with sources. The results are based on reconstruction interviews, where journalists from Lithuania and Sweden answered questions about 475 interactions with sources they used in recent stories.

First, we looked at reciprocity, how the journalists perceived their own and the source’s role in the interactions they were talking about. The journalists were asked to explain the reasoning behind the source choice, tell about the relationship and regularity of contact with the source, including the degree of informality, and the type of interaction (formal/semi-formal/informal—in terms of planning, recording, venue, language, and discussed topics).³ This allowed an insight into whether the source was perceived as formal and socially distant or had the journalist an established relationship with the source.

The relationship with the source was described as purely formal more often in Sweden (75 percent of all the sources in the reconstructions) than in Lithuania (50 percent). A formal relationship here meant that the journalists reported not having any other social tie with the source apart from the contact in the professional context.

In order to understand how well the source met the expectations of the journalist, the respondents were also asked how much the journalists felt they could/could not trust the source upon the particular interaction and motivate this trust or distrust, meaning that higher trust decreases the chances that the information will be double-checked (Barnoy and Reich 2022) and therefore, increases the chances for acting as an advocate or social facilitator instead of a watchdog.

Even when the relationship was described as purely formal, the journalists were more willing to trust sources who proved to be credible over a series of interactions, which indicates that journalists’ evaluate their sources in the context of the whole relationship:

This source has repeatedly provided information, on several occasions, which was proven to be correct. (Swedish journalist 6)

On the social level, this can be interpreted as a sign of reflexivity—the sources that were perceived as credible were more likely to be approached again.

If the journalists reported having one of the first contacts with the source, they motivated their willingness to trust based on the sources’ rank (highly ranked politicians/officers were perceived as taking a higher risk in case they would provide untruthful information and therefore, were expected to act more credibly). It should be seen in the context of the theory that the actors evaluated how much the behavior of the counterpart matched their initial expectations of how a person having a specific role should act (Berger 2005). The more these expectations were met in reality, the stronger the willingness to trust.

To cover the aspects of reflexivity between journalists and their sources, the journalists were asked open-ended questions that concerned adaptation between the journalist and the source (“Have you mentioned the source in the story, if not—why? Have you had any extra contact/received feedback from the source during the production of the story or after it?”). If a source provided extra information, recommended other sources, or helped to interpret documents, the journalists were asked to mention that.

The results show that one of the most used ways to adapt the sources’ explicit or implicit preferences was by allowing them to communicate the message without being visible in the text. Here, the difference between socially close and distant sources was clear. Those sources who had a closer social relationship with a journalist were more likely to stay invisible in the texts. At the same time, the sources with a closer social relationship and unattributed in the text stood for 30 percent of story ideas, according to the data. While some of the sources shared information under the condition of anonymity, in many cases journalists offered or opted not to mention the sources in the texts by their own initiative. The reasons behind this ranged from the assumed wish of the source (“I think he really would not appreciate being mentioned” (Journalist Lithuania 12)) to an estimation that the source might be vulnerable and therefore, needed to be protected:

This person should not have told me the information, but when you have a relationship, people often tell more than what their official role would allow. She can get in trouble for sharing it. (Swedish journalist 7)

This indicates that journalists are willing to adapt (and self-impose that adaptation) in order to meet the interests of the source not least in order to keep cooperating in the future, even in cases when the sources do not explicitly negotiate for it, and even if it means playing according to the rules of the source and thus, reducing the own role of the watchdog.

In those cases where the journalists had to attribute the information to some source, but were not willing to mention the original source as it could harm the source or the relationship, they worked on finding an alternative, socially distant source who could confirm the information with a name: “My source told me that something is going on. Then I directly call X, whom I quote, and confront him: is this true, confirm or deny” (Swedish journalist 10). In that way, the socially closer source gets to set the agenda (which can make a journalist an advocate of a particular angle of the issue), but the responsibility for the words is attributed to another, formal source.

The process of adaptation, or a certain type of loyalty to the sources who provide sensitive information, is also present in other social relationships, where the actors see an interaction as part of a larger context of the relationship building. One of the respondents described it in the following way:

It is not about one article, but about the interaction again and again. If you write something, you expect the source to give more ideas in the future. If you write something negative or wrong, you know that the relationship will suffer. And to the contrary. Politicians know that they are as dependent on us as we are on them. If they think your approach is good and as they expect, then it is ok. If I promise the information is only for the background—I need to stick to it, if I promise them to see the quotes—I have to keep the promise. (Swedish Journalist 9)

It is noteworthy that this reflection, acquired via a reconstruction interview, contradicts much more strict statements on separate roles presented in normative and cognitive sections.

This illustrates how the practice and concrete situations make renegotiating of the professional roles on the performative level more accepted. In this case, a journalist describes possible compromises (and a reduced role of the watchdog toward a particular source) in exchange for expected cooperation in the future. Professional and social trust develops alongside each other upon each encounter, which leads us to the next aspect: multiplexity.

According to the data of this study, multiplexity of social ties connecting a journalist and a source, or the multiple social roles they might have toward each other seem to lead to more complex decisions when it comes to trusting or using the source.

On one hand, closer social ties to some sources that have established relationships with the journalists might indeed lead to story ideas and thus, make the journalists facilitate or advocate for the agenda of the source. This is not least because the journalists report that those sources with whom the relationship is established and possibly exceeds the professional context are very aware of how to meet the journalists’ expectations:

If that source wants to get attention to their issue, and has a good, direct contact, they tend to sell in their idea better than others. (Swedish journalist 14)

On the other hand, differently than expected, social proximity brings more complexity in the decision to trust in the professional context. The motives to perceive the source as trustworthy varied more in those cases where the journalists reported having known the source for a longer time and/or were able to say that they had to some degree an informal relationship with the source. Here, the respondents mentioned both the arguments that came from their professional experience and the arguments that combined the professional and personal level.

In the example below, the arguments derived from their knowledge about the sources’ intentions to act in this particular relationship:

This politician is a friend of a friend, and I think he shares with me the information because of our friendship. I am aware he is very loyal to his party, therefore he seldom says something against it (and I cannot fully trust it). I compensate it with the other sources. At the same time, it is important to havee such a relationship in order to get the news first. In exchange, I maybe interview him as a senior member of the party instead of the leader of the party. (Lithuanian journalist 12)

The motives to provide trustworthy information were evaluated not only based on the formal role the source had but also on the social role they had in the relationship with the journalist. This social tie could vary from earlier professional experiences: “During the interview, I was not sure he would trust me, because I have critically reported about him in my earlier stories and he got upset” (Swedish journalist 11) to a mix between professional and private spheres (“I know this person has access to the information and I am confident about his competence. I am not sure about his intentions when sharing it with me. He is my ex-partner” (Lithuanian journalist 9)).

Here, it is possible to notice that more multiplex social ties between a journalist and a source do not guarantee that a journalist would trust this source more. Rather the contrary: long relationships mean that a journalist is more aware of the possible interests behind sharing the information and report the need to verify information an extra time. Moreover, when the social and professional roles overlap, the positive and negative experiences of these relationships can make the decision to trust more complicated, at least according to the journalists’ own narratives. In that sense, it is possible to conclude that closer social ties to some of the sources only partly lead to the role of a loyal facilitator, and that “close” can be perceived as “too close.”

Discussion and Conclusions

“Journalists see people mainly as potential sources” (Gans 1979, 117). In other words, for a journalist, any relationship can turn into a journalist–source relationship. As soon as information is shared, a person who (intentionally or not) shared it acquires the role of a prospective source. At the same time, any professional interaction between human agents is also a social interaction. This means that social and professional roles overlap, complement, or, depending on the situation, are interchangeable. This adds a layer of subjectivity to each encounter.

While this conclusion can be rather intuitive, this research contributes by empirically looking at how the aspects of interpersonal interaction (reciprocity, reflexivity, and multiplexity) play out in the set professional context. It helped to get a more specific idea of why and most importantly how journalists adapt their behavior or accommodate sources in order to keep access to them and make the exchange possible.

This study demonstrated that the exchange between the actors goes beyond the exchange of information for publicity and includes exchange for the benefit of long-term relationship building. The actors adapt their behavior to each other depending on their experiences in the past and see that each interaction can influence cooperation in the future.

The results confirm that normative and performative perspectives of journalistic professional roles can and do differ. While journalists in both countries strongly committed to the normative idea of autonomy from sources, cognitive reflection over their own practice made it clear that source type and social ties with the source influence what degree of adaptation in the interactions will be considered as acceptable. Journalists report making adaptations to sources in terms of the performative level. It is noteworthy that some of these adaptations (disguising the source’s name, attributing to alternative sources, or leaving out some sensitive information in order to not harm the source who was perceived as helpful) are self-imposed, which is a feature of reciprocal reflexivity in the relationship. In relationships with only single social ties, it is easy to rely on the normative professional role praising distance and autonomy; in multi-level relationships, the dilemma becomes harder to solve in practice. However, differently than expected, multiplex social ties do not guarantee trust upon the specific interactions. Rather to the contrary, when the social and the professional roles overlap in the relationship, the decision to trust professionally can be influenced by negative experiences in the social interaction and vice versa.

Therefore, professional roles, as Raemy and Vos (2021) pointed out, are under continuous renegotiation, depending on the context. Experiences and knowledge preceding the interaction, as well as expectations regarding the future relationship, influence the way journalists and sources cooperate in a given moment. From the practical perspective, it is important to transparently discuss these adaptations in terms of what benefits and shortcomings they mean for serving the public interest.

This research indicated more similarities than differences between the practices by Lithuanian and Swedish reporters. The comparison in this case showed that social adaptation, or elements of it, is part of the journalist–source interaction and relationship regardless of the country context. Even if detachment between journalists and sources is somewhat stronger in Sweden than in Lithuania, given the differences in the countries’ size, history, and degree of professionalization in journalism and politics, the contrast was less than expected. This indicates that reflexivity in journalist–source relationships, especially on the level of role performance, is part of the occupation where social and professional aspects are closely related to each other.

Admittedly, this study was conducted in two relatively small countries, where the community of political journalists and their sources is limited. Comparative studies that would include more contrasting contexts in terms of the media market size or political parallelism would be beneficial for the generalizability of the results. Another limitation of this study is its reliance on solely journalistic narratives. Legal and ethical aspects of source protection did not allow the acquisition of the sources’ perspectives regarding the interactions/relationships discussed in the reconstruction interviews. However, future studies of social/professional links between journalists and their sources could aim to find methods that would allow including sources’ motives, expectations, and perceptions of specific interactions, to reflect on the reciprocal nature of the relationships.

The perspective of journalist–source relationships as relationships where the actors simultaneously have to negotiate between multiple roles that imply reciprocal professional and social adaptation often stays in the shadows, shielded from scholarly attention. It is possible that this is because the theory of journalism has been too focused on the normative ideals of the profession and the structural factors that enable or challenge the implementation of those ideals in practice. Returning to the idea that norms, cognitive scripts, practices, and narrations are circularly connected, where the practice narrations lead to new norms as suggested by Hanitzsch and Vos (2017), poses a provocative question of whether social adaptation and informality should be perceived as a candidate to become part of a normative journalist role. It is difficult to imagine this happening, particularly because it contradicts the existing norms of autonomy and detachment. While not a professional norm, informality is much closer to a social practice that plays alongside, complements, and contributes to professional logic when solving day-to-day tasks. The social ties between the actors can be viewed as their adaptation to the structures and a way to navigate the environment. What should be discussed more transparently is to what extent we can expect that professional norms can be separated in practice from interaction-based social norms in the profession and what to do when these norms contradict one another.

Disclosure Statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This research study is partly funded by the Baltic Sea Research Foundation (Östersjöstiftelsen).

Notes

1 Reporters without Borders (2023). World Press Freedom Index. https://rsf.org/en/2023-world-press-freedom-index-journalism-threatened-fake-content-industry.

2 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/adaptation.

3 This article uses informality as a broad term that refers to relational ties exceeding the boundaries of the formal professional role in cooperation (both the process and the content of interaction). In the literature, the definition of informality often derives from an opposition to formality (Ledeneva 2018), which refers to ceremonial and often codified rules and procedures created in order to reduce uncertainty (Misztal 2005). The formal decisions would be based on established and defined professional criteria rather than the motives related to the relationship with the source. Informality, meanwhile, is related to more intuitive, flexible, and casual interactions that rely more on tacit knowledge than prescribed norms (Misztal 2000). In contrast to formality, informal social ties would mean more flexibility and interpersonal adaptation between the individual actors.