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Public relations practitioners and journalists in South Korea (n=300) were surveyed regarding their perceptions of the influence of 11 types of informal relations (ranging from press tours to perks and bribes) on the news. Using coorientational analysis, the perceptions of each group regarding the ethics of informal relations were also investigated. The two groups reported significantly different perceptions of the influence of informal relations on the news, as well as the ethics of informal relations. Practitioners perceive greater influence of informal relations on news coverage as well as on news content, and perceive informal relations as more ethical or acceptable in practice than do journalists. Regarding informal relations, journalists’ perceived gap between their own ethical values and their predictions of practitioners’ ethical values is bigger than the converse. Finally, practitioners’ misunderstanding of journalists’ ethical values is greater than journalists’ misunderstanding of practitioners’ ethical values. This study indicates that even in a culture where press clubs and interpersonal media relations are the norm and could be expected to breed familiarity, attitudinal differences between practitioners and journalists are striking.

Purpose – This study looks at the explanations given in Finnish media for the two school shootings that took place in the country in 2007 and 2008. It also investigates how Finnish journalists reflected on the explanations and the problems they posed to journalists’ professional values.

Design/methodology/approach – The study gives an overview of the most common explanations for the two incidents in the media through a textual analysis. A qualitative reading of interviews with journalists after the two school shootings sheds more light on journalists’ reflections on the explanations given. The findings are considered against the concept of professional values of journalism in Finland.

Findings – The media coverage of explanations varied markedly between the two school shootings. After the first rampage, explanations centered on the shooter and portrayed the incident as an “isolated case,” whereas after the second rampage journalists focused on societal problems and authorities’ wrongdoings in their explanations. The change can be attributed to the different nature of the two incidents, plus journalists’ increased need to pay attention to audience feedback in the rapidly changing media landscape. The altered ways of reporting also indicated a partial rethink of the professional values among journalists. With the school shootings, Finnish journalists’ traditionally strong support for deontological ethics as the cornerstone of disaster reporting declined slightly, with teleological ethics gaining prominence.

Originality – The study provides new insights into recent changes and developments of disaster reporting and journalists’ professional values in Finland.

The prevailing challenge faced by practitioners is to conduct effective media relations, especially with the proliferation of diverse media platforms both online and offline. For such a predominant and critical function, a systematic approach needs to be offered. This paper aims to address these issues.

A new model is developed, drawing on insights from corporate communications and journalism literature.

This model identifies two sets of influences that practitioners should seek to understand. The internal influences include journalist mindsets, journalist routines, and newsroom routines. The external influences include extra‐media forces and media ideology.

At this juncture, it is not able to predict causalities among the influences. What this model is able to establish is the connections among the influences. Future research can address that.

This model is instructive for new practitioners to view media relations as a holistic process rather than merely an information subsidy function. For seasoned practitioners, it serves to encourage them to re‐evaluate their current strategies and to engage in strategic thinking on how to transform their current practices.

The author has developed a new model called mediating the media that is meant to equip practitioners to conduct media relations in a systematic manner with the primary objective of winning the journalists over by the knowledge of their work and their profession. This may form the basis for an initial trail that takes media relations to the next level.

This paper seeks to examine the intriguing juxtaposition of a bona fide independent union for journalists in the UK, which is vocal about editorial standards and interference, yet has seldom taken collective action to respond to such instances.

A grounded approach to this phenomenon is used by way of examining the intersection of the nature and influence of journalistic professionalism, the journalists' material and economic interests and the particular approach of the union to both these matters. The data are based on qualitative fieldworks supplemented by secondary sources.

The journalists and their union have yet to identify and articulate the conditions, which give rise to this situation and a strategy for defending their professional interests which is compatible with and supportive of strategies for defending their material interests.

There is a need to develop a strategy by which journalists can collectively exert more influence over editorial content.

The quality of content of newspapers could be enhanced by the greater influence of journalists as a collective body.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework for assessing what are the possibilities and pitfalls of using algorithmic systems of news personalization – i.e. the tailoring of individualized news feeds based on users’ information preferences – for constructive conflict coverage in the context of peace journalism, a journalistic paradigm calling for more diversified and creative war reporting.

The paper provides a critical review of existing research on peace journalism and algorithmic news personalization, and analyzes the intersections between the two concepts. Specifically, it identifies recurring pitfalls of peace journalism based on empirical research on constructive conflict coverage and then introduces a conceptual framework for analyzing to what degree these pitfalls can be mediated – or worsened – through algorithmic system design.

The findings suggest that AI-driven distribution technologies can facilitate constructive war reporting, in particular by countering the effects of journalists’ self-censorship and by diversifying conflict coverage. The implementation of these goals, however, depends on multiple system design solutions, thus resonating with current calls for more responsible and value-sensitive algorithmic design in the domain of news media. Additionally, our observations emphasize the importance of developing new algorithmic literacies among journalists both to realize the positive potential of AI for promoting peace and to increase the awareness of possible negative impacts of new systems of content distribution.

The article particle is the first to provide a comprehensive conceptualization of the impact of new content distribution techniques on constructive conflict coverage in the context of peace journalism. It also offers a novel conceptual framing for assessing the impact of algorithmic news personalization on reporting traumatic and polarizing events, such as wars and violence.

Codes of ethics are important instruments in journalism, as they promote transparency and self-regulation of media, in addition to monitoring the quality of information. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the perceptions that Spanish journalists have of the effectiveness of codes of ethics and to evaluate the different personal and professional variables which condition this vision.

The methodology used in the present study is based on quantitative content analysis using the survey technique. This technique makes it possible to obtain empirical data on various key aspects of the profession that are determining factors in ascertaining Spanish journalists’ views of one of the instruments of accountability that is external to the media: general ethical codes.

The results show that Spanish journalists are largely confident in the effectiveness of ethical codes in their profession. Likewise, it was seen that variables such as age, professional experience or the media with which they work influence the perceptions that professionals have of such instruments.

If understanding journalism as a profession whose mission is to guarantee the citizens their right to information, then it is essential to be familiar with the tools provided by the profession itself to be accountable to the public regarding this professional mission. Hence the importance of instruments of accountability and the perceptions of the professionals themselves regarding their effectiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to test the viability of the media relations framework, Mediating the Media model (Pang, 2010), and ascertains its relevance to practitioners in a changing media landscape in Singapore where social media is emerging as an alternative source of information tool.

In-depth interviews with 20 media relations practitioners who were former journalists. Practitioners with journalism experience were chosen as they perform better at media relations (Sallot and Johnson, 2006a; Sinaga and Callison, 2008).

The model posits two sets of influences, i.e. internal (journalist mindset, journalist routines and newsroom routines) and external (extra-media forces and media ideology) in media relations. Internal influences were found to be more prevalent than external influences and journalist mindset was the most pervasive factor influencing media relations.

Findings are based solely on interviews and some claims cannot be corroborated. As this is a qualitative study situated in one country, it is also not generalizable.

This study will serve useful insights for new practitioners to approach media relations in a holistic and systematic manner and for seasoned practitioners to re-evaluate their current media strategies.

This inaugural test found rigor in the model, and affords an in-depth understanding of the dynamics of journalist-practitioner relationships in a changing media landscape. It also presents an intriguing opportunity for the model to be applied to countries where the media industry operates under vastly different environments so as to ensure that the model stands up to scrutiny as it seeks to be positioned as a viable model for media relations.

Crisis in journalism is a widely discussed and controversial topic in Greece since 2009 when economic recession afflicted the Greek society. However, the last decade of financial hardships and ownership changes in the Greek media sector (2009–2019) gave rise to a widening of perception on the part of journalists of what really crisis stands for when it comes to their profession. Based on 25 in-depth interviews with Greek leading news media professionals from all types of media outlets (press, television, radio and news websites), the present research describes how journalists perceive, assess and manage the crisis of their profession in today's networked media landscape, characterised by unprecedented phenomena such as the rise of churnalism, post truth journalism and fake news in the context of new trends with regard to how the Greek audience is seeking information and consuming news. While existing research on journalism profession has tended to emphasise the conversion of journalist into a multitasked employee towards audience members who treat journalism with suspicion, this chapter focusses on to what extent journalists by themselves are critical of their profession's vulnerabilities such as the lack of genuine investigative journalism, alienation from the actual reporting based on primary material and manipulation of media professionals within an unstable market. The research gives insights into journalists' opinions and attitudes with regard to the symptoms indicating that journalism in Greece is suffering from chronic and acute crises related to the extraction and dissemination of news, the relationship of journalists with media owners as well as the operation of the media market.

Journalists moving into corporate communication have for many years been regarded as a move to the “dark side”. This paper turns the lens to explore how trained journalists working as internal communication practitioners due to their journalistic self-concept and skills can contribute to internal communication.

An interview study was conducted with twelve trained journalists working with internal communication in different types of organizations. Three indicators of professionalism, namely autonomy, altruism and expert knowledge, were used as categories to structure the interviews and analysis.

The respondents perceived that their journalistic self-concept and skills helped them identify the employee perspective, write relevant stories and deliver them quickly. Furthermore, their courage and lack of fear of authorities enabled them to challenge decisions made by their senior managers, especially regarding how, what and when to communicate.

The three indicators of the journalist profession, – autonomy, altruism and journalistic knowledge and skills – may help establish internal communication that is relevant, transparent and trustworthy.

Organizations may benefit from building their internal communication around the three indicators of the journalist profession. They could, for example, host independent internal media that present the employees’ perspective and maintain a critical attitude to the organization in a relevant and compelling manner.

Few studies have explored the role of journalists working as internal communication practitioners and their contributions to internal communication.