The professionalisation of journalism: Global trends and the challenges of training and job insecurity

This chapter aims to answer the question of how the professionalisation of journalism is experienced in the 18 countries included in the 2021 Media for Democracy Monitor (MDM) research sample. To this end, we focus on two dimensions of analysis, which concern, on the one hand, the importance of education and professional training – including the aspect of accountability processes along with the self-regulation culture – to the construction and development of journalistic professionalism, and on the other, the way in which the precariousness of journalistic work affects its perception and self-perception. Ideally, these two levels should correlate, but when being put to the test in the context of the actual working conditions of journalists, they have margins of deviation. The first dimension captures the ideals of journalists and the rootedness of the values that characterise the professional ethos of journalism. The second dimension captures some of the conditions that make journalists able to carry out their work in a way that responds to the ideals of society and the journalists themselves.