Journalism Practice

This article is a contribution to the debate on audience participation in online media with a twofold aim: (1) making conceptual sense of the phenomenon of participatory journalism in the framework of journalism research, and (2) determining the forms that it is taking in eight European countries and the United States. First, participatory journalism is considered in the context of the historical evolution of public communication. A methodological strategy for systematically analysing citizen participation opportunities in the media is then proposed and applied. A sample of 16 online newspapers offers preliminary data that suggest news organisations are interpreting online user participation mainly as an opportunity for their readers to debate current events, while other stages of the news production process are closed to citizen involvement or controlled by professional journalists when participation is allowed. However, different strategies exist among the studied sample, and contextual factors should be considered in further research.

This study seeks to understand how community newspaper editors negotiate the professional complexities posed by citizen journalism*a phenomenon that, even in the abstract, would appear to undermine their gatekeeping control over content. Through interviews with 29 newspaper editors in Texas, we find that some editors either favor or disfavor the use of citizen journalism primarily on philosophical grounds, while others favor or disfavor its use mainly on practical grounds. This paper presents a mapping of these philosophical-versus-practical concerns as a model for visualizing the conflicting impulses at the heart of a larger professional debate over the place and purpose of user-generated content in the news production process. Moreover, these findings are viewed in light of gatekeeping, which, we argue, offers a welcome point of entry for the study of participatory media work as it evolves at news organizations large and small alike. In contributing to a growing body of literature on user-generated content in news contexts, this study points to the need for better understanding the causes and consequences of journalism's hyperlocal turn, as digitization enables newswork to serve increasingly niche geographic and virtual communities.

Magazines increasingly seek to drive up traffic by developing busy online communities with high levels of user generated content, without the resources for active management of every comment. If successful, a highly interactive site can generate free content, attract regular visitors, give an insight into readers' concerns and provide revenue. Like a successful pub, it generates and thrives on lively debate, which may carry the seeds of trouble.

The purpose of this study is to understand how journalists engage with and use statistics to articulate science news in particular Arab countries with emphasis on the cases of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The study assesses the current capabilities of journalism and identifies key knowledge gaps in the area, while examining the nature of the news sources that provide this data and how journalists handle these sources in relation to the outputs that they produce. It does so by applying a mix-methods approach that triangulates content analysis, expert panel and semistructured interviews with journalists and news editors in order to analyse outputs, organisational cultures and practices. The overall project suggests similarities in the existing gaps and causes of these deficits to those present among journalists in the West and highlights some important distinctive contextual features that hinder news reporting of science in the countries studied here.

This special issue addresses a topic of journalism studies that has previously been somewhat neglected but which has gained increasing scholarly attention since the mid-2000s: the coverage and evaluation of art and culture, or what we term "cultural journalism and cultural critique." In this introduction, we highlight three issues that serve to frame the study of cultural journalism and cultural critique more generally and the eight articles of this special issue more specifically: (1) the constant challenge of demarcating cultural journalism and cultural critique, including the interrelations of "journalism" and "critique"; (2) the dialectic of globalisation's cultural homo-genisation, on the one hand, and the specificity of local/national cultures, on the other; and (3) the digital media landscape seen in terms of the need to rethink, perhaps even redefine cultural journalism and cultural critique.

This study explores how an engaged journalism process supported by participatory design practices can impact attitudes and perceptions of audience engagement in local journalism. Using MuckRock's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) submission tool, journalists, journalism students, and community stakeholders engaged in participatory design workshops centered around pressing local issues and creative approaches to filing FOIA requests. This study re-imagines FOI requests not just as a way to locate source material for important local reporting, but as a visible process that invites the public to engage and understand how that reporting is doneand how anyone can use and benefit from the process. Findings show that design-driven engagement journalism practices can make public records culture more inclusive, engaging, and accessible, and support more collaborative and creative engagement between journalists and audiences.

This article analyzes the nature of debate on “below the line” comment fields at the United Kingdom’s Guardian, and how, if at all, such debates are impacting journalism practice. The article combines a content analysis of 3,792 comments across eighty-five articles that focused on the UN Climate Change Summit, with ten interviews with journalists, two with affiliated commentators, plus the community manager. The results suggest a more positive picture than has been found by many existing studies: Debates were often deliberative in nature, and journalists reported that it was positively impacting their practice in several ways, including providing new story leads and enhanced critical reflection. However, citizen–journalist debate was limited. The results are attributed to the normalization of comment fields into everyday journalism practice, extensive support and encouragement from senior management, and a realization that comment fields can actually make the journalists’ life a little easier.

This article introduces a theoretical typology of four rival yet converging ideal types of cultural critics in contemporary media culture and in cultural journalism, more specifically, encapsulated by the term the heterogeneous cultural critic and characterized by different kinds of authority and expertise: (1) the intellectual cultural critic, who is closely connected to an aesthetic tradition, bohemia and/or academia, or institutionalized cultural capital; (2) the professional cultural journalist, who is first and foremost embedded in a media professional logic; (3) the media-made arbiter of taste, whose authority is closely linked to practical experience with cultural production and repeated charismatic media performances; and (4) the everyday amateur expert, who offers subjective opinions and represents experience-based cultural taste. The aim is to provide an analytical minimum model for future empirical studies by outlining the contours of the multiple, objective and subjective, professional and non-professional cultural "authorities" of contemporary media culture.

Between 2012 and 2016, UNESCO registered 530 deaths of journalists. They also published a statistic showing that television journalists were the most killed, followed by print media, radio and online journalists. Hinted in this statistics is the need to understand the relationship between the medium through which and in which the journalists produce news and the threats and dangers posed to them. In this article, we discuss this interlinkage and call it medium-specific threats. As examples of this interlinkage, we describe the cases of community radio journalists in the Philippines, photojournalists in Afghanistan and online journalists in Venezuela. Based on these examples from independently conducted studies from very different parts of the world, we make the broader case that while recognizing the prevailing political-economic and socio-cultural factors and forces at work in these media systems-in-flux, investigations of mediumspecific threats to journalists are needed for more nuanced understanding of and thus mitigation of journalists' insecurities.

Adopting a systems framework from the sociology of occupations, this study proposes a model to explain the vulnerabilities of journalism in the face of challenges from blogging, and the conditions under which journalists are likely to change their practices to address these vulnerabilities. A test of this model shows that editors' awareness of local blogging activity corresponds to increased use of blogs as sources, discussion of blogs in planning meetings and adoption of the blogging form on news websites.

Recently, true crime podcasting has exploded. These podcasts organizations mobilize resources, compete with other organizations, gain legitimacy, and focus on sustaining foundings and preventing mortalities. This study uses a mixed methods approach to explore this media phenomenon from the perspective of organizational ecology. A demography of true crime podcasts was conducted and population density over time was calculated. Content analysis of news articles mentioning "true crime podcasts" was conducted to understand how journalists from other media organizations act as legitimacy agents to confer public legitimacy on organizations within the population. Explanation of the true crime podcasts' ecosystem is provided, as well as evidence of growing public legitimacy.

Digital environments play a central role in the news making process. Seeking new ways to interact with people previously seen as audience is a big challenge for media and journalists today, especially in local contexts, where journalists are more embedded in the community, physically and digitally, namely through social media and from mobile devices. This study intends to identify how local journalists are using digital tools in their routines, especially when it comes to be close and engaged with communities. To do so, a survey was applied to a sample of journalists (n = 107) from 42 newsrooms from the central region of Portugal, which gathers the most significant presence of local media. Findings point to full integration of the Internet into local journalists' routines as well as social media and mobile. Digital technologies are used essentially for news gathering and to get in touch with sources. Employing social media to engage with the community is true only for a few. The same happens when it comes to recognize or even incorporate content produced by citizens. Local journalists are not always so available to be close to the public as they usually claim.

This study analyzes the interpretive repertoires used by public relations (PR) advisors of Dutch politicians to describe their relations with talk show journalists. A qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews revealed that the dominant repertoires come from the realm of play. PR advisors downplay the power struggle to position politicians on talk shows as a competitive game while at the same time they legitimize their close relationships with journalists with another play metaphor, the rehearsed stage play. Moreover, comparing politicians' appearances on talk shows with stage performances gives them the opportunity to brush aside the contradiction between their extensive pre-broadcast preparations and the authentic appearance they attempt to emulate. Studying the interpretive repertoires of advisors working in PR and how they fruitfully combine the elements of struggle and cooperation sheds light on the structures and strategies that define journalist-source relationships. It provides insights into how PR advisors perceive and enact their own role, which often goes unnoticed both in research and by the general public.

Speed and quality used to be considered the twin pillars of ''good'' journalism. Now there is a third pillar: sociability. It is no longer enough to be ''first with the news'', nor is it sufficient to be comprehensive and trustworthy. It is now increasingly considered necessary to ensure that news is produced in a form that is capable of spreading virally. This paper considers the way in which ''viral'' transmission is impacting on the work of news journalists and news organisations.

Local news organizations are adapting their newsroom routines to better respond to a digital readership. These models feature different levels of online integration, but all aim to restructure newsroom responsibilities to ensure editorial and economic sustainability. This study uses a cross-national approach to assess how roles and structures in local and regional newsrooms are changing in the digital environment. In-depth interviews with managers, editors, and journalists in five countries (Finland, France, Germany, Portugal, and the U.K.) reveal how their newsroom structures have adapted for the production of digital content; how they have changed their newsroom cultures to better reflect a digital-first mind-set and changing audience preferences; the role of newsroom leaders in implementing these changes and equipping staff members to respond to digital disruption; and changes to journalists’ roles and responsibilities, including new beat assignments, the use of new digital tools, and the creation of entirely new positions. The findings shed light on ways local and regional news organizations are defying their institutional nature and innovating by restructuring their internal and external practices and rethinking their news products to appeal to digital audiences.

This paper examines the impact of the digital transformation on broadcast practices from a producer/studio participant perspective with a focus on sports journalism online. More specifically, the study targets changes in sports talk and interaction as producers reshape their communicative activities to fit audiences' new contexts of reception. It discusses how these changes in practices relate to some of the fundamental assumptions in current broadcast talk theory. The textual studies are complemented by interviews with six prominent Swedish media industry representatives in order to shed light on their perceptions of the broadcast to online shift given their respective experiences. The results show how producers/participants adapt to a more casual and relaxed interactional style and tone online than in ordinary broadcasting. The studied sportscasts also largely abandon the traditional broadcast address, as expressed in direct discursive address and looks-to-camera, for an orientation to screen devices where social media active audiences are to be "found," although still having a traditionally positioned audience to attend to. Although sociability is still the structural principle for producers' interactional choices irrelevant of platform, the strategies of how to achieve it are changing due to the digital transformation.

Faced with growing competition and dwindling readership, especially among young people, some metropolitan newspapers have switched from a broadsheet to a smaller, easier to handle format. This strategy has been successful at least in the short term, and has been applied recently in Quebec by small-market newspapers owned by the Gesca chain. In April 2006, Le Soleil, the second-largest daily of the group, adopted a compact format and new design, accompanied by new content sections, changes in newsroom staff and management, as well as an elaborate marketing plan. In announcing the change to its readers, an article by the editor-in-chief focused on adapting the newspaper's content to readers' lifestyles and interests, as well as developing interactivity. The plan was met with some resistance in the newsroom and among readers. Based on a theoretical model of long-term change in journalism, briefly set out in the article, this study analyzes this case as it compares to the “commu...

The omnipresence and ubiquitous nature of online news on social media has challenged the traditional news production process of most news organizations worldwide. However, most research on this topic has dealt with the impact of social networks on global North societies. In this article, drawing upon a world-systemic approach, we focus on how social media transforms journalism practice in Ecuador and explore its main influences on how journalists make sense of and evaluate their professional roles. Based on interviews with 40 Ecuadorian journalists having a variety of backgrounds and levels of experience, we show how social media affects journalists' professional practices, conceptualizing these influences as systemic and antisystemic phenomena. The most important systemic consequences of social media are related to the immediate nature of news, the changing identity of journalists and the growing wave of sensationalism, while the most important antisystemic feature is the nourishing of an indigenous orientation whereby Ecuadorian journalists favor their own rhetorical and narrative traditions against global (central) mores.

This article contends that not only journalism but also journalism studies can benefit from a stronger commitment to the public. While the bodies of literature on "popular journalism", "public journalism" and "citizen/participatory journalism" have, in different contexts and from different angles, made a strong case in favour of a public-oriented approach to journalism, it is remarkable how few of the empirical studies on journalism are based on user research. As the control of media institutions over the news process is in decline, we should take the "news audience" more seriously and try to improve our understanding of (changing) news use patterns. Besides this rather obvious theoretical point, there are also societal and methodological arguments for a more user-oriented take on the study of journalism. Starting from a reflection on the key trends in news use in the digital age-participation, cross-mediality and mobility-this article attempts to show the theoretical and societal relevance of a radical user perspective on journalism and journalism research alike. Furthermore, we look at new methodological opportunities for news user research and elaborate on our arguments by way of an empirical study on changing news practices. The study uses Q-sort methodology to expose the impact a medium's affordances can have on the way we experience news in a converged and mobile media environment. The article concludes by discussing what the benefits of a radical user perspective can be both for journalism studies as for journalism.

For a long time, Dutch parliamentary journalists have shown an interest in migrating to the "other side" and becoming political PR professionals or spokespersons. The Dutch term used by journalists for colleagues who make this switch is "overloper" (turncoat). It is a term with a clear negative connotation, which says a lot about how journalists view the field of public relations. The relationship between journalism and public relations has received much academic attention, revealing a rather strong antagonism. Research also shows an increased blurring of boundaries between the two professions. However, there is little research on the lived experience and role conceptions of former journalists who now work in public relations. For our study, we interviewed eleven "Turncoats". Our research focussed on their perception of their past profession as journalist, their motivation to switch to public relations and their views on the relation between public relations and journalism. We found that both intrinsic and extrinsic motives played a role in their career switch. Most notably they construct a permeable boundary by importing journalistic skills and roles in their new profession. They also have clear opinions on what those boundaries should be and are critical about the current state of journalism.

The low readability of news has often been attributed to production and format features, such as deadline pressures and news story organizational features. This study, however, puts the blame elsewhere. News stories written by nine high-profile journalists and later revealed as deceptive were more readable and contained more direct quotations (another readability indicator) than authentic stories generated by the same news organizations. Because the stories were written under similar production and format conditions, these findings indicate that low readability is due to the challenge of journalism to convey information only about the real world. Not so constrained, deceptive "news" portrays a simpler world.

This study used the 2017 Las Vegas and 2016 Orlando mass shootings as case studies to explore alleged double standards in reporting of events featuring Muslim and non-Muslim mass perpetrators of violence. The study used framing theory and content analysis to examine Los Angeles Times and New York Times coverage of the shootings during the one week immediately following each event. Findings are consistent with previous literature and the researchers' expectations. The Orlando shooting, carried out by a Muslim, was allotted more coverage despite the fact that it produced nine fewer fatalities than the Las Vegas shooting, perpetrated by a white non-Muslim. The analysis also showed that the examined newspapers were more likely to employ a "terrorism" frame in their coverage of the Orlando shooting than in their coverage of the Las Vegas shooting; link the Orlando mass shooting with the global war on terrorism; and to humanize Stephen Paddock, the white perpetrator of the Las Vegas shooting. Framing differences found in this study may contribute to downplaying the threat of white male gun violence, and to reinforcing fears of Islam and Muslims.

Does media ownership affect the editorial page? Scholars such as Tim Groseclose, Jeffrey Milyo, and Tim Groeling have offered recent empirical tests for media bias in political news coverage. This article focuses on the editorial content of newspapers to examine whether a change in publishers affects a newspaper's editorial page's support for government action on public policy questions, the attention given to the major political parties, and the tone of coverage of the parties. Our content analyses compare the Wall Street Journal's editorial page before and after Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation purchased the paper with two newspapers that did not change ownership structures over the same time period (New York Times and Washington Times). We show that Murdoch's Wall Street Journal is far less supportive of government intervention in the economy, much more negative to Democrats, and much more positive to Republicans than the paper's editorial page was under Bancroft family ownership. We also show that the Wall Street Journal's changes were unique as the New York Times and Washington Times generally did not exhibit similar changes to their own editorial pages.

Journalism is undergoing a strong restructuring of its labour market due to the consequences of the economic crisis and the technological innovations. Discussions on the search for new formulas for job creation are centred on the emergence of entrepreneurial journalism. Spain is a paradigmatic example of this phenomenon because between 2008 and 2014, 454 news media outlets were created. The rise of entrepreneurial journalism raises many questions and challenges that affect all areas of journalism. One is their introduction in journalism education and the views of journalism students. The aim of this article is to analyse the perceptions regarding entrepreneurship held by those who will be future journalists and who are now receiving their education in the classroom. Our goal is to find out what knowledge journalism students have about entrepreneurship and the skills that are deemed essential. We evaluate the willingness of journalism students to develop their own business project and the major barriers and obstacles. The methodology uses a quantitative approach based on surveys in Spain (N=184). The results suggest an increase of the willingness in students to engage in entrepreneurship. However, students also have a negative and disenchanted view of journalism as they progress in their studies.

Research documenting the media under-representation of people of color indicates that unless journalists re-imagine the way they report on communities of color, those growing segments may be left without a stake in the ‘‘public imaginary.’’ In this paper, I suggest that journalism educators
turn their attention to Chicano/a student journalists in order to begin the process of re-envisioning newsgathering and writing in ways that more accurately depict and inform Latino/a communities. Driven by a collaboration between myself and undergraduate student producers
of Venceremos, a bilingual Chicano/a student publication at a western state university, this paper builds a case for why these student journalists are an important source of knowledge and inspiration for journalism educators concerned with improving mainstream coverage of diverse
communities. The essay also summarizes my association with the Venceremos staff in order to model how journalism educators can team up with alternative student journalists and it demarcates traits that typify their evolving Chicano/a journalism practice.

Modeled on the "New Beats: A study of Australian Journalism Redundancies" project (2014-17), the purpose of this study was to gather data to examine how forced career change among U.S. newspaper journalists has affected their employment, professional identities, financial situations and perceptions of newspaper journalism. Drawing from a sample of about 350 former and current U.S. newspaper journalists who had lost their jobs, 47% said the career change did not affect their professional identity. Meanwhile, 36% still identify themselves as journalists, although many have not worked in their traditional newspaper job for several years. Similarities between this study and those conducted by the New Beats team include: About 30% of those who left newspapers returned to journalism jobs; the most common new career for the departed was in media communications or marketing; and Australian journalists and American journalists demonstrated a breadth of positive and negative emotions after leaving their media jobs. A common finding between this study and the Australian parent study is that journalists are actively negotiating their professional identity at a profoundly challenging moment, and that despite the role of structural forces, journalists are retaining at least some agency in how they define themselves.

Newsrooms are in a makeover process, reflecting the complex changes taking place in the market, along with a shift towards the digital domain within the media value creation chains. Our comparative study monitors convergence and integration processes in newsrooms in Spain (El Mundo), Germany (Die Welt) and Austria (Der Standard). Five years ago, we established three typical newsroom models and a convergence matrix for analysis and comparison: Full Integration, Cross-Media and Coordination of Isolated Platforms. The models and matrix have now been confirmed-and enriched with new details and descriptors regarding newsroom organization, workflows and change management. At the same time, audience participation is becoming a key strategic question in all newsroom models, whereas the traditional logic and rhythms of daily newspaper production are losing ground.

This paper makes a preliminary exploration of new opportunities for journalists and media to establish relevance and audiences through engagement with science issues. It looks at developments in the “democratisation” of science and, in the light of an analysis of a recent Eurobarometer survey, attempts to discover how a largely untapped active audience for the media may be attracted.

The mass media are expected to play a key role in providing relevant and accurate information during a crisis. While numerous studies have explored how well the media perform in providing information during crises, less attention has been given to journalism's ritual aspects, such as those related to remembering, celebrating, mourning and sharing among members of a community. In the culturalist tradition, journalism is as much about ritual and meaning-making as it is about providing information. One of the most important ways of performing this ritual function is through live, on-the-spot journalism *a form of journalism that has becoming increasingly commonplace due to technological developments, and at the very least, it is connected with crisis news coverage. Based on interviews with broadcast media journalists about their decision-making strategies and motives during two crises (11 September 2001 and the Anna Lindh murder in 2003), we link crisis communication with journalism's ritual and symbolic functions. We argue that key journalistic strategies such as immediacy and competition are motivated just as much by rituals related to affirming community and journalistic organisational needs as by informational motivations. We conclude by suggesting that in times of crisis, the roles of psychologist, comforter and co-mourner should be considered journalistic role conceptions especially in a live, 24-hour news culture.

Letters-to-the-editor provide a significant forum for public debate, enabling the exchange of information, ideas and opinions between different groups of people. Since journalistic work is central to the processes of citizenship, this article observes the social context surrounding lettersto-the-editor in four Portuguese press publications. Keeping in mind the existence of a set of selection criteria, based on newsroom practices, it is possible to characterize the debate that takes place in the letters' section as a construction. As with any other editorial content, the published letters are also a result of a selection, editing and framing process, shaped by journalistic routines and subject to limitations such as space and time.

Speed has always been a central part of journalism, and for good reason: people want to be informed about events and threats as soon as possible. Immediacy is seen as one of the key values in journalism's culture. Over the past decade technological and commercial forces have strengthened the speed game. At the same time professional journalism has lost its monopoly on news production; news has become abundant and the value of news diminished along with the attention of the public for news, especially among the younger part of the population. It is hard to tell whether the future of journalism lies in speed strategies like "digital first", in Slow Journalism, or in both. A decisive question is: will the upcoming digital generation be interested in Slow Journalism? Our research among Dutch users in the age range of 15-39 years (N = 2642) showed that-indeed-an overwhelming majority finds that news should be available anytime, anywhere, and for free. However, we also found that a considerable proportion of younger users want journalism to be more investigative, inclusive, cooperative and constructive. These features can serve as substantive building blocks for the emerging concept of Slow Journalism.

This paper examines a news genre that is designed for the enactment of interpretive journalism: the live studio correspondent commentary on Swedish news. We trace how the role of expert commentator/interpreter of events has evolved during a 30-year period with a focus on the relation between interaction and surrounding context. How is the expert interpreter role multimodally achieved, and how do technologies enable or constrain the enactment of an expert identity in these dialogues? As we discuss our results, also basing our argument on other studies of the same interactional phenomena, we will propose that the existence of this particular news format can be related to an ongoing power struggle between journalists and politicians. We see these interactions as providing journalism with a perhaps yet underestimated powerful resource in the framing of news, and argue that they should not be written off as merely supplying lightweight, gossipy comments about politics in a glossy studio environment.

This article presents the results of a study examining the selfperceived roles of journalists covering the #MeToo movement in Denmark and Sweden. Drawing on qualitative interviews with journalists, editors and activists (N = 20) and participant observation at various #MeToo events, we examine the professional journalism cultures underpinning differences in the coverage and the broader public debate spurred by the movement in the two countries. The analysis is informed by the theoretical framework of role performance [Mellado, C. 2015. "Professional Roles in News Content: Six Dimensions of Journalistic Role Performance". Journalism Studies.

This article explores the degree to which journalists in Finland experience different types of external interference and how they perceive the implications of interference. For this study, external interference is defined as all active and invasive methods that external actors use to influence journalists and interfere in the journalistic processes to influence editorial content. By using Finland as a case example, this article provides new empirical evidence on how external interference manifests in the contemporary journalistic environment in a democratic Western country with strong safeguards for press autonomy. Based on the statistical analysis of survey responses from 875 Finnish journalists, the results indicate that individual-level factors of age and gender have only a marginal relation to the prevalence of external interference. Of analyzed organizational-level factors-employment type, occupational position, and media outlet used for reportingthe latter two were most significant. This article offers three important empirical contributions: (1) it highlights the existence of editorial defense shield as journalistic practice; (2) it illustrates the complex relationship between gender and external interference; and (3) it demonstrates how journalists in national and regional newspapers are more prone to interference than their colleagues in other media outlets.

In 2013, with the introduction of the Transparency Law in Spain, a number of Spanish newsrooms started working with data journalism methods. In Sweden, which has one of the oldest Freedom of Information acts in the world, newsrooms invested in the skill development of data journalism at approximately the same time. Because previous research suggests that access to public data has been one of the key driving forces for the development of data journalism worldwide, it is important to understand how legislation is actually shaping the practice of data journalism. Based on a survey of 66 key informants in Spain and Sweden and ten in-depth interviews with data journalists from five media companies in each country, we conducted a comparative study, building on the frameworks of media systems to explore data journalism practices in these two countries. The differences found indicate that the national and EU legislation in both nations shape journalistic strategies for accessing data, turning journalists at times into activists fighting for the right to access public data. Beyond the law, data journalists advocate for a transparency culture among the civil servants, in order to secure public accountability.

This paper examines journalists' changing sourcing practices in the context of an emerging media ecology initiated by processes of globalisation, digitalization, commercialism and concentration. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter or YouTube provide the means to access a more diverse range of sources, including civil society organisations and ordinary citizens. We developed a quantitative content analysis to examine to what extent Belgian news coverage showed signs of diverse sourcing practices during the 2011 uprisings in three Arab countries. We analysed a total sample of 1121 news items about the street protests in Syria, Egypt and Tunisia, in four Belgian newspapers (two popular and two quality dailies) and two Belgian broadcasters (the public broadcaster VRT and the commercial channel VTM). The analysis shows that ordinary citizens and non-mainstream groups are important news sources and that social media platforms are relatively often consulted compared to everyday foreign news coverage. In terms of inter-media differences, the findings show that broadcasters' dependency on video footage and eyewitness accounts is reflected in their use of ordinary citizen sources and amateur footage. Moreover, the analysis confirms that the quality newspapers display more diverse and more innovative sourcing practices than the popular newspapers do.

In this study, I examine the perilous conditions facing Filipino journalists covering the Mindanao region, focusing on differences in threats and dangers faced by those who are local to the region and those parachuting in from Manila. Using a qualitative approach, I have conducted one group interview with two local and two non-local journalists, and five in-depth one-to-one interviews with journalists and expert sources, in 2017. The study additionally draws on interviews with fourteen Filipino journalists and editors from 2014. The journalists perceive that safety differ depending on whether they are local to the conflict they cover or not. Safety issues are significant for the ways in which they operate in the field and decisions they make. Extra-judicial killings and impunity for perpetrators committing crimes against journalists perpetuate dangerous conditions particularly for local journalists, while kidnapping for ransom is among the greatest threats perceived by non-local journalists. In situations which non-local journalists can retreat, their local counterparts stay behind and face reprisals. Ethics is imperative to safety particularly for local journalists. Safety training should be tailored to and differentiate between security challenges. Collaboration between local and non-local journalists may improve their safety altogether, but media organisations must adequately compensate both.