Institutional sentinel: Journalistic role performance and the defense of media autonomy under democratic threat

This article develops the concept of the institutional sentinel to explain how journalists may temporarily reconfigure professional role performance when the institutional conditions of independent reporting become objects of political contestation. Existing debates on journalism under democratic strain often frame departures from conventional objectivity as either activism or part of a moral turn. Such binaries overlook a more specific form of intervention: the public defense of governance arrangements, editorial autonomy, and organizational safeguards that enable impartial reporting. The institutional sentinel is defined as a situationally activated role-performance logic in which journalists collectively shift from monitorial observation to defending these conditions when they are publicly framed as being under procedural threat. The article is conceptual and uses the 2025–2026 conflict surrounding Lithuania’s public broadcaster, LRT, as a revelatory vignette. The vignette clarifies three elements: activation under perceived procedural threat within a context shaped by threat fusion; boundedness, expressed through temporariness, role transparency, object specificity, and reversibility; and a defensive paradox whereby institutional self-defense may protect autonomy while exposing journalism to accusations of bias, self-interest, or partisanship. The article offers a mid-range conceptual tool and develops scope conditions and propositions for comparative research on media autonomy, legitimacy, and professional boundary work.