Page 176 - Communication Theory and Research

McQuail(EJC)-3281-12.qxd 8/16/2005 12:00 PM Page 161

The Sacred Side of Professional Journalism 161

there is always a sacred aspect to a true profession. The question of sacredness.
which has been somewhat neglected in the literature on professionalism, is
found to be intimately related to the idea of self-sacrifice. This goes a long way
in explaining the elevated status of the clergy and doctors and also throws light
on the erosion that the former and, to some extent, the latter occupation is going
through in terms of public esteem.
The division of labour has hit professional workers with full force and is
traditionally regarded as furthering professionalization. I find fault with this
argument as it seems to me that exactly the opposite happens, that is, as the
‘dirty work’ is given over to subordinates, the professional loses his/her grasp
of the whole task. Thus, the delegation of professional tasks to people with
restricted qualifications might actually be contributing to deprofessionalization.
When the case of journalism is examined, it falls short on some traditional
criteria, but it is evident that both its perceived function as a vital service and its
sacred aspect – which I find essential for a comprehensive definition of profes-
sionalism – are present in at least some sectors of journalism. It is more ques-
tionable whether journalists possess a definable body of esoteric knowledge, but
this again depends on how narrowly we define ‘knowledge’.
The sacred aspect of professional journalism has been presented in this paper
as being intimately linked to democracy. At the same time it was noted that the
nobility of self-sacrifice may find its expression under tyrannical conditions.
Thus the democratic value of professional journalism is perhaps best exempli-
fied under nondemocratic conditions.

Notes

In the process of writing this article I benefited from comments from colleagues at the
University of Lund, Michigan State University and the University of Iceland. I also had access
to library and other facilities at these universities, all of which are gratefully acknowledged.
I also wish to acknowledge the valuable comments which I received from an anonymous
reviewer and the editor of the European Journal of Communication. An earlier version of the article
appeared in Pressens Årbog (Broddason, 1990).
1. Indeed, as suggested by Foucault (1980), knowledge and power become integrated to
the point of being indistinguishable; the power of knowledge and the knowledge of the
powerful reinforce each other.
2. For a while the concept of cultural distance was much in vogue; see, for example, Galtung
and Ruge’s (1970) classic article. It is becoming obsolete as it is increasingly evident that
distance so defined offers industrialized nations no protection from the consequences of
Third World events, actions or decisions.
3. An extensive survey among American newspaper journalists revealed a heterogeneity of
attitudes and working conditions in the newsrooms and a mixture of professional and
non-professional responses: ‘... the majority views news as what they – reporters and editors –
think it is ... But the notion of what makes news appeared too personal to achieve even a
newsroom consensus’ (Burgoon et al., 1982: 2).
4. ‘Rules governing the practitioner/client relationship may be formal, written rules or merely
normative routines and controls of everyday professional life. A similar distinction holds
for rules governing relations between colleagues. It does not hold for corporate obligations,
which are generally unwritten cultural assumptions, even though they may appear in
formal ethics codes.