“Why I quit journalism:” Former journalists’ advice giving as a way to regain control

This study offers a metajournalistic discourse analysis of first-person narratives by former journalists who quit the profession. It finds the former journalists felt powerless while in the industry. They expressed this by writing about feelings of being stuck in their “dream job,” haunted by an always-on mentality, strained mentally overall, and unsupported by the industry and colleagues. This article argues that with these texts, the former journalists regained a sense of power over the industry by offering advice to other journalists about leaving the industry. As with any profession, advice giving in journalism has always occurred in myriad interpersonal settings with a variety of actors, from educators to colleagues to friends. Mediated advice would occur within the relatively restricted realm of journalism trade press. Yet self-publishing digital platforms provide public outlets for advice giving, including to former journalists who have lost their news platform for speaking to the public.

Distributing Whiteness: Please Like Me and Global Television Circulation

This essay examines the formal and informal distribution of Australian dramedy Please Like Me via the now-defunct American digital cable channel Pivot and via fan communities on Tumblr. I argue that structural whiteness operates as an invisible engine at the heart of Please Like Me’s distribution. My analysis unpacks how an unexamined narrative of white privilege forms the backbone of Please Like Me’s diegesis, fandom’s investment in circulating the show, and Pivot’s alignment of the show with its supposedly socially conscious brand. Examining trade press, promotional material, and fan discourse, I demonstrate how structural whiteness functions as point of intersection between industry and fan-driven distribution.

Audience loyalty as the main prerequisite for trade press thriving

Modern publishing businesses need a complex roadmap for developing print and digital directions, and lack of the strategy for media means overload with unnecessary current activities for employees, lack of attention to readers and advertisers and dissatisfaction with the financial achievements by head office. The proposed paper attempts to understand the usage patterns and preferences of audience for print trade magazine. The questionnaire is based on the theory of the functions of the trade press to make sure that the magazine performs the established functions for its audience. The data also helped establish the demographics of the magazine's audience. The findings of the study enable to throw light on the present media usage habits and to examine the trade media consumption behavior. The study showed that the audience of the trade media is very homogeneous and characterized by similar socio-economic characteristics. Even though the study gives insights into current trade press preferences of audience, the results may not be generalized as every audience has own territorial, gender and financial differences and diversified socio-economic background. The study can be further extended by taking a sample from different types of trade media.

Branding Cannabis in Canada: Challenges for the Cannabis Act’s Promotion Restrictions

Background: This article examines how Canadian cannabis companies promoted their new brands after legalization in late-2018. Analysis: Nearly 4,000 items were collected from the websites and social media of 20 cannabis brands and triangulated with insight from the trade press. The promotional practices are contextualized in two areas: the history of tobacco advertising in Canada, as legal precedent for the Cannabis Act, and theories of branding. Conclusion and implications: Brands are navigating the Cannabis Act’s promotion restrictions by embodying what it means to be a brand in the twenty-first-century media environment. This reveals an incompatibility between regulations and contemporary marketing. Contexte : Cet article examine comment les compagnies de cannabis canadiennes ont promu leurs nouvelles marques suivant la légalisation du cannabis à la fin de 2018. Analyse : Sur les sites web et les médias sociaux, on a recueilli près de 4 000 références à vingt marques de cannabis qu’on a triangulées avec des commentaires provenant de la presse spécialisée. On a contextualisé les pratiques de promotion par rapport à deux domaines : celui de l’histoire de la publicité pour le tabac au Canada comme précurseur légal de la Loi sur le cannabis, et celui des théories sur la valorisation de la marque. Conclusion et implications : Les compagnies de cannabis, tout en respectant les restrictions sur la promotion imposées par la Loi sur le cannabis, cherchent à incarner ce que cela veut dire que d’être une marque de commerce dans l’environnement médiatique du 21e siècle. Les contraintes sur les compagnies soulignent cependant une incompatibilité entre la réglementation et le marketing contemporain.

Journalists on COVID-19 Journalism: Communication Ecology of Pandemic Reporting

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, journalists have the challenging task of gathering and distributing accurate information. Journalists exist as a part of an ecology in which their work influences and is influenced by the environment that surrounds it. Using the framework of disaster communication ecology, this study explores the discursive construction of journalism during the COVID-19 crisis. To understand this process in the field of journalism, we unpacked discourses concerning the coronavirus pandemic collected from interviews with journalists during the pandemic and from the U.S. journalism trade press using the Discourses of Journalism Database. Through discourse analysis, we discovered that during COVID-19 journalists discursively placed themselves in a responsible but vulnerable position within the communication ecology—not solely as a result of the pandemic but also from environmental conditions that long preceded it. Journalists found their reporting difficult during the pandemic and sought to mitigate the forces challenging their work as they sought to reverse the flow of misinformation.

Introduction

The National Thrift News first reported in September 1987 about the infamous Keating Five meeting where five U.S. Senators sought to weaken a regulatory examination of a troubled savings and loan owned by the politically powerful Charles Keating Jr. The newspaper’s coverage of this event, which became central to the cultural memory of the savings-and-loan crisis, initially was ignored by major media. It speaks to a broader failure of conventional business journalism, which is summarized here through a review of business journalism history and normative practices. A common thread in this criticism is business journalists’ lack of independence from the business and markets they cover. This chapter argues that the trade press performs a valuable surveillance function of industry.

The Enforcers

This chapter examines the historical foundation of watchdog reporting in journalism and its application to business reporting; it argues that business journalists must watch over powerful corporations and alert society to potential threats. The press’s watchdog tradition should be examined through a new dimension for the trade press; it acts as an enforcer of normative behavior in a particular industry. Trade-press editors and reporters often are called the “conscience” of a given business as they report on people and companies that violate business ethics. In this fashion, trade journalists again serve a critical function in capitalism, helping markets self-regulate.

The Enforcers

The Enforcers describes the problems with business journalism and its possible future by focusing on the little-studied genre of the trade press. A historical and normative analysis of business journalism frames a case study about a small but extraordinary trade newspaper, the National Thrift News, whose aggressive reporting on the savings-and-loan crisis contributed to the downfall of a corrupt banker, Charles Keating Jr., chairman of American Continental Corporation and owner of Lincoln Savings and Loan. The National Thrift News offers broader lessons for mainstream business journalism in that its newsroom envisioned investigative reporting as a commercial and market opportunity; the editor’s part-ownership of the newspaper allowed the staff to take risks. The National Thrift News defied a long-standing narrative that trade publications are captive to the industries they cover; the case study provides new evidence of accountability and investigative journalism in the trade press. It explores the complex relationships and interactions between businesspeople and the press, how their fortunes can rise and fall as a result of similar economic forces, and how their roles in the capitalist system create tension and put them at odds with one another. This book makes the case that business journalism must evolve from its origins as market servant and become a market watchdog.