“Thank god for Deadspin”: Interlopers, metajournalistic commentary, and fake news through the lens of “journalistic realization”

Abstract

Interlopers are a class of digital-peripheral journalists and outlets who position their work as journalism, but who have struggled to be recognized as such. While we have long acknowledged journalism's place online, as digital-peripheral journalists interlopers face challenges when it comes to appreciating their work as news and their contributions as journalism. This article argues their contributions warrant further evaluation as the journalistic field continues to confront change and engage new approaches to journalism, and as interlopers continue to produce news. Using Deadspin's coverage of the Sinclair Broadcast Group as an exemplar of such contributions, this article details an approach which accounts for interlopers' unique approaches to news, locating in broader news discourse measures of "journalistic realization" as a legitimating discourse. Its findings tentatively suggest a weakening of historically hardened boundaries between journalism's core and its periphery, and argue for continued, nuanced exploration of the nature of the journalistic field.

Metajournalistic discourse on the rise of gaming journalism

“…If gaming journalists articulated uncertainty regarding their societal contributions, traditional journalists articulated even less certainty. Gaming journalism seemed to be operating outside the bounds of legitimate journalistic practice through its churnalism , and hence, traditional journalism could not expect the societal contributions one would expect from appropriate journalistic practice (Eldridge, 2019).…”

“…Metajournalistic discourse speaks of whether particular actors have a place within the broader journalistic ecology and locates that place. In metajournalistic discourse, journalists can be “dismissed by the objects of their critique (other journalists)” or conversely, they can be “regarded positively, as independent from and not beholden to the larger forces and structures of the journalistic field” (Eldridge, 2019: 7). Journalists mark off boundaries of appropriate and inappropriate journalistic practice.…”

Confronting Uncertainty: The Contours of an Inferential Community

“…We draw this distinction based on the way journalists refer to the act of speaking as an object that warrants attention due to the status of the speaker or the way something goes viral. This is in contrast to instances when what they saythe speaker's subject claims-is the basis on which further news attention builds (Eldridge, 2019). When the subject matter gets the primary attention, this often reflects at least an initial acknowledgment that that material itself has some likely importance that warrants further consideration.…”

“…The embedding of media artifacts, including tweets, screencaps, and documents reveal online newswork that builds on premises posed by one media, toward conclusions by another (cf. Eldridge, 2019).…”

Facebook and Fake News in the “Anglophone Crisis” in Cameroon

“…Social media and changing legitimacy in news journalism Scholars have suggested different terms to refer to non-traditional actors who practise journalism including interlopers (Eldridge 2018b), strangers (Holton and Belair-Gagnon 2018), peripheral (Holton and Belair-Gagnon 2018) and emergent actors (Eldridge 2018b). According to Eldridge (2018b: 858), interloper media refers to "a subset of digitally native media and journalistic actors who originate from outside the boundaries of the traditional journalistic field, but whose work nevertheless reflects the socio-informative functions, identities and roles of journalism".…”