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Ready to Hire a Freelance Journalist: the Change in Estonian Newsrooms’ Willingness to Outsource Journalistic Content Production

100%

Himma-Kadakas M., Mõttus M.

Central European Journal of Communication

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2021

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vol. 14

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issue 1(28)

27-43

EN

This paper explores the change in Estonian media organizations’ readiness to cooperate with freelance journalists. The interviews with editors of newsrooms of magazines, newspapers, and radio and television broadcasters were conducted in 2014 and 2019. The findings were additionally tested in the conditions of the Covid-19 crisis in 2020. The paper outlines how over the five years the editors have not only changed their perception of who freelance journalists are but how they express the readiness to outsource content from journalistic entrepreneurs. We conclude that the Estonian media market shows signs of adopting diverse collaborative forms that diverge from the journalistic field. The freelancers’ concept has changed, indicating integration of journalistic and entrepreneurial roles – the entrepreneurial journalist is seen less as the odd-jobber working on commission and more of a business partner.

2

Journalists under attack: self-censorship as an unperceived method for avoiding hostility

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Himma-Kadakas M., Ivask S.

Central European Journal of Communication

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2022

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vol. 15

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issue 3(32)

359-378

EN

This study investigates journalists’ self-censorship and introduces a phenomenon of unperceived collective self-censorship that demands a combination of detection methods. We conducted a content analysis of media critique texts (N=156) that discuss attacks on Estonian journalism. These results were combined with the content analysis of journalistic roles in the news (N=2409) and a survey on journalists (N=99) and completed with semi-structured interviews (N=14). The findings showed that accusations against journalists were frequently related to discourses regarding journalists’ interventionist or watchdog roles. Juxtaposing these results with quantitative data, it became evident that when aspects of interventionist and watchdog roles were criticized in the media texts, the performance of these roles decreased in the news. However, journalists’ self-assessment does not show the perception of this change. We argue that self-censorship was created unknowingly within the newsroom. External pressures – such as politically motivated attacks on journalism – may promote unperceived self-censorship.

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Assessing potentials of journalists’ blogs as an instrument of media accountability in Estonia

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Harro-Loit H., Lang J., Himma-Kadakas M.

Central European Journal of Communication

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2012

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vol. 5

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issue 2(9)

243-258

EN

A distinction should be made between institutional media accountability and journalistic accountability. The latter individualizes the accountability of media organizations and enables the public to see the individual journalist (with his own ideas, sense of moral values) instead of a homogeneous mass that fits into the corporate journalistic system. This paper focuses on the possibilities accomplished by journalists’ blogs: are these new instruments of accountability that enable individual journalists to highlight their personal moral sensitivity and open their information processing practices to the public? Do Estonian journalists have enough incentives and autonomy to use weblogs as an opportunity to explain their professional decisions or even openly confront the editorial opinion? The analysis draws on 11 qualitative interviews conducted with Estonian journalists and editors. The findings indicate that the fading interest in weblogs is not the main reason why personal blogs of professional journalists would not function as accountability instruments. Journalists seldom describe attitudes that would characterize the “socially responsible existentialist.”

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Ready to Hire a Freelance Journalist: the Change in Estonian Newsrooms’ Willingness to Outsource Journalistic Content Production

Journalists under attack: self-censorship as an unperceived method for avoiding hostility

Assessing potentials of journalists’ blogs as an instrument of media accountability in Estonia