Bringing Up the Body: Uncovering the Subjectivity of Journalists

In this paper, I discuss major contributions to journalism studies that come from approaching journalistic practice from the vantage point of the body – that is, understanding how journalists go about their work in ways shaped by their embodied experience. I will develop the argument that a consideration of the journalistic body requires a challenge to the fundamental underpinnings of professional practice, which are premised on the invisibility of the body. Foregrounding the body in relation to journalism practice calls for greater reflexivity in relation to the subjectivity of journalists. The paper discusses three overlapping insights resulting from such an approach: First, it requires attention to individual journalists’ bodies and lived experience in relation to their pasts – or what journalists “carry.” Second, it calls for attention to how they feel in the present – and how these affective responses shape their practice. Finally, it requires charting how journalists’ bodies interact with other bodies, and the institutions surrounding them, as they go about their work.