Stuck Between Democracy and a Layoff: Connecting Journalists’ Personal Disillusionment to Overall Normative Press Evaluations

This study is interested in the paradox between journalists’ ambitious, democracy-serving goals with the practical realities of low wages, layoffs, and harassment, proposing this mismatch results in disillusionment. It develops a novel survey instrument to measure journalistic disillusionment and tests it with a survey of American journalists (N = 695). It then connects disillusionment to six normative press roles (information, investigation, analysis, social empathy, public forum, and mobilization) and tests whether organizational differences (print vs. broadcast, audience size, and legacy status) moderate this relationship. Findings suggest disillusioned journalists see their field struggling with information, analysis, social empathy, public forum, and mobilization, but not investigative journalism. Further, traditional distinctions between types of journalism do not play a role in this relationship. Discussion considers how evolving conceptions of the audience may explain part of this relationship, how traditional distinctions between journalism types might be outdated, and ultimately calls for further research into journalistic disillusionment.