Personal Factors Shaping Journalists’ Professionalism in Today’s Military Journalism

This article introduces the concept of today’s military journalism, drawing on the experiences of journalists operating in hybrid warfare contexts. It explores character-skill challenges that were absent in earlier, pre-digital wars. The article pursues a threefold aim: to review and analyze existing practices, identify emerging key concepts and challenges, and develop a framework for optimizing and enhancing the personal factors shaping professional skills of media professionals in today’s hybrid-information military journalism. The research employs interdisciplinary methods, including theoretical approaches (systematic reviews, definitional and generalization methods) and practical techniques (content analysis, socio-communicative modelling, and educational simulations). The article’s primary contribution is a new educational model for training and retraining journalists in the context of today’s military journalism. This model addresses the complexities of distinguishing between fake and factual, objective and subjective, and ethical and unethical phenomena. Theoretical insights provide a comprehensive understanding of the evolving mass-communicative landscape, where journalists act as versatile yet dependent players alongside bloggers, military personnel, politicians, and media consumers. Finally, the article offers classifications and generalizations related to emerging principles, standards, dilemmas, and challenges in today’s military journalism.