The article deals with changes in the journalistic profession and journalistic practices in the early 2000s in three new European Union member states: the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. It can be argued that Eastern European journalists face changes and challenges related to the ‘proletarization’ of journalistic work, commercial pressures, and ‘dumbing down’ as well as changing work practices related to new technologies. Yet they face these changes in the specific context of post-communist societies where the links between media and politicians often directly influence the professional practices and standards of journalists. We concentrate on developments in these three countries in relation to three areas: 1) dominant values in the journalistic profession and their change in the past 10 years; 2) influence of structures of ownership and market forces on practices and processes of journalism, and 3) influence of technological changes on journalistic practices and processes.
This paper examines two different understandings of professional autonomy among journalists currently and formerly working at Mafra, a Czech media house acquired in 2013 by Andrej Babiš, who in 2017 became the Czech Prime Minister. We build on existing research of local trends in media ownership and journalistic autonomy to ask the following questions: What differentiated the experience of journalists who exited the organization after the ownership change from that of those who stayed put? How did the two groups understand professional journalistic autonomy? Based on the thematic analysis of twenty semistructured interviews with ten journalists who stayed in the media house after Babiš's acquisition and ten journalists who left, we argue that in the journalists’ narratives, the two decisions reflect two different notions of autonomy: autonomy-as-a-practice and autonomy-as-a-value. While our findings add to the scarce empirical research on journalists’ lived experiences of the region's mediascape marked by growing comingling and concentration of political, economic and media power, we also suggest that the autonomy-as-a-practice and journalists’ agency should be further studied as a possible way how to perform and promote journalistic autonomy even in illiberalizing contexts—in Central and Eastern Europe and beyond.
The professionals behind television cameras are peripheral contributors to journalism who are often overlooked in journalistic research in contrast with co-workers who occupy clearly demarcated journalistic roles. In this article, we use the term camera reporters rather than the more frequently used terms such as cameramen or camera operators as we argue that these professionals are part of the journalistic field and their job titles in themselves question their belonging to this field. The aim of our article is to focus on the role of camera reporters as peripheral actors in the news production process – in this respect we address their journalistic culture, identity, autonomy and practice – and to understand their role not only in the context of boundary work within journalism but perhaps even more importantly in relation to changes brought about by the move of a television studio from the city centre to a residential suburb. The relocation provides a rare opportunity to study camera reporters in their work places and spaces at a time of disruption and adjustment. Our case study is based in a Czech television studio where we have conducted interviews with camera reporters and news reporters. Our findings are in line with other research on peripheral news workers and illustrate complex issues in the professional standing of camera reporters.
In 2013, the Czech-Slovak businessman Andrej Babiš decided to widen the scope of his activities by buying the Czech media house, Mafra. He was also pursuing a political career and in 2017 became Prime Minister of the Czech Republic. Both the purchase and the political ascent of the new owner have contributed to the departure of many journalists from the two national newspapers in the Mafra Group. The journalists left in waves that corresponded to the stages of Babiš's takeover and the gradual tightening of his grip on the newsrooms, and their departure has done fatal damage to the reputation of Mafra newspapers. Through 10 in-depth interviews with some of the journalists who left, this case study charts the disintegration of the newsrooms to assess the decline of journalistic autonomy within the oligarchized media systems of central and eastern Europe. We aim to identify the point at which the erosion of workplace autonomy becomes unacceptable for media professionals and when the situation becomes inconsistent with their professional identities. The findings suggest that the gradual erosion of journalistic autonomy, caused mainly by changes in the organization's culture, led journalists first to accommodate to the changes and later to leave.
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