Journalists
A journalist is a person who practices journalism; that is, a journalist creates reports as a profession for broadcast or publication in mass media such as newspapers, television, radio, magazines, documentary film, and the Internet. "Journalists" also included related occupations, such as editors and visual journalists. (See below.)
Origin and scope of the term
In the early 19th century, the term journalist once meant simply someone who wrote for journals, such as Charles Dickens in his early career, but has come to mean a writer for newspapers and magazines as well.
Many people consider the term journalist interchangeable with reporter, but this is imprecise, as it ignores many other types of journalists, including columnists, leader writers, photographers, editorial designers, sub editors (British) or copy editors (American) and so on.
Many journalists write for print periodicals, but some also write books or publish on the Internet. Broadcast journalists appear on radio or television. Some journalists do a bit of everything.
Regardless of medium, the term journalist now carries a connotation or expectation of professionalism in reporting, with consideration for truth and ethics. This expectation is not always met, as journalists may publicly or privately take sides, but this is not taken lightly when revealed.
It should be added that some journals, such as the downmarket, scandal-led tabloids, do not make great claims to truth or ethical reporting.
18th-century journalists
- Daniel Defoe - as editor of the Review, in London in the early 1700s, he can claim to have invented many of the most popular formats, including the eye-witness report, the travel piece and the strongly opinionated column.
- Richard Steele - founded and edited London-based periodicals including The Guardian and The Spectator in the early 1700s
- Joseph Addison - wrote many of the finest pieces in Steele's publications
19th-century journalists
20th-century print journalists
- Samuel Hopkins Adams (1871–1958) - American investigative journalist
- Hannah Arendt (1906-1975)
- Rhett Baker (1950-2003) - Buffalo Housing committee recording of hearing of Daniel Patrick Moynihan 1999 / Buffalo, N.Y.
- Ben Bradlee, editor of the Washington Post at the time of the Watergate scandal
- Winston Churchill (1874-1965) war correspondent in the Boer War, captured by the Boers
- Claud Cockburn (1904-1981) radical Irish journalist
- C.P. Connolly (1863-1935) radical American investigative journalist associated for many years with Collier's Weekly.
- Martha Gellhorn (1908-1998) war correspondent
- Emily Hahn (1905-1997) - wrote extensively on China
- Pauline Kael (1919-2001) - Film critic for The New Yorker
- A.J. Liebling (1904-1963) American journalist closely associated with The New Yorker
- Walter Lippmann (1889-1974)
- Jonathan Meades
- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) - essayist, critic, and editor of the Baltimore Sun.
- George Orwell (1903-1950) - reported on poverty, misery, and the Spanish Civil War
- Edward Said (1935-2003) - essayist, Palestinan activist
- James (Scotty) Reston - political commentator for the New York Times
- George Seldes (1890-1995) - American journalist, editor and publisher of In Fact.
- Bernard Shaw - better known as a playwright, but was influential as a music writer and wrote other forms of journalism
- I.F. Stone (1907-1989), investigative journalist, publisher of I.F. Stone's Weekly
- Walter Winchell
- Paul Foot (1938-2004)
20th-century broadcast journalists
- Edward R. Murrow, CBS News radio correspondent in London Blitz, maker of TV documentaries, noted interviewer
- Walter Cronkite, former United Press correspondent, TV anchor for CBS News in the 50s, 60s
- David Brinkley, television anchor and interview show host on the American networks ABC and NBC
- Dan Rather, succeeded Cronkite as managing editor and primary anchor of the CBS Evening News
- Sorious Samura, CNN TV documentary maker from Sierra Leone
- Fritz Spiegl, popularizer of classical music for the BBC
Internet journalists
Contemporary journalists
There are numerous examples of journalists turned novelists, both in the past and in the present, amongst them:
Production journalists
Despite the fact that many people conflate journalist and reporter, a journalist is anyone who works any editorial aspect of a publications. This includes production journalists such as sub-editors, copy editors, graphic designers, art directors, and photographers. Graphic designers and art directors who work exclusively on advertising material, however, are not considered journalists.
Fictional journalists
See also
