S C A C SCAC 15-19 | Winter 2019 | December | 12 ISSN 1883-5953 15 On the Roles of Journalists, the News Industry and Journalism in Assessing the Future of the Field: A Rejoinder to Tabe Bergman Dr. Mark Deuze University of Amsterdam Amsterdam, Netherlands In this paper, I respond to a critical analysis of my recent work on definitions of and approaches to journalism as a profession by Tabe Bergman. At the heart of our debate is the division between structure and agency, and what our focus should be in teaching and studying journalism. An argument is made to address structures (of political economy) through agency (of working journalists). Journalism | Journalism Studies | Political Economy | Agency t has been many years since my work was called ‘dangerous’. The first time it happened was in the context of my dissertation on the profile of journalists in The Nether- lands, where I not only interviewed reporters and editors working at venerable mainstream news organizations, but also those at the margins of the profession: the first gener- ation of online journalists (I conducted my interviews in the period 1997 to 1999, the Internet had just entered newsrooms), journalists with a minority background, and those working in infotainment genres. Simply acknowledging that these professionals were also worthy of consideration within journalism studies was considered ‘dangerous’ by several Dutch critics at the time. Fast forward twenty years, and I’m dangerous again: Tabe Bergman, in his critical take on a recent essay of mine where I reflect on my earlier analyses of journalism as a profession (which analyses at the time were based on my dissertation research), considers my statements as “irresponsible, even dangerous” and hopes I “will take the time to reconsider” my statements. This I hope to do in this rejoinder. Let me be clear: I welcome and applaud this criticism, in part because it makes me feel my work matters, and more importantly because our field does not do nearly enough to truly foster critical and agonistic debate. I am indebted to Bergman for his sincere engagement with my work, and would therefore like to take the opportunity to respond. In what follows I will first briefly outline my position on the roles of journalists, the news industry and journalism in assessing the future of the field (of journalism as a profession and of journalism studies). Secondly, I will address the specific criticisms of Bergman in his earlier response as published in Synaesthesia (2019). From the outset I would like to recognize that his concerns with my assumptions about the presumed agency of individual journalists vis-à-vis the corporate ‘creativity machine’ that the news industry tends to be are entirely justified. Indeed, I am overly optimistic, and my research is biased toward finding hope in the actions and praxis of those at the margins or even outside the mainstream system of media production. And I have to acknowledge that in my work I have struggled with the central issue of power – this critique has been levelled against my monographs Media Work (2007) and Media Life (2012) as well, and I am sure my recent co-authored book with Tamara Witschge (2020) on the working lives of journalists around the world who have opted to start their own business will encounter a similar challenge. Again, I think that social hope tends to get the better of me when I consider the powers that be. I hope that his rejoinder engages with the power question more deliberately. What Journalism Is (Not) In 2019, the open-access scholarly journal Social Media + Society started a series of regular special issues (under the section title ‘2K’) aimed at publishing work that often does not make it into traditional academic publishing, including but not limited to stories of failed research and concepts and theories once believed, but requiring re-evaluation. The aim of this is to foster lively and timely conversation that can shape the ways scholars study media and technology, in a format that is accessible beyond their usual audiences (Powers & Russell, 2019). I was privileged to be able to contribute to the inaugural 2K issue, where I was invited to reflect on any belief I once held but now question, temper, or reject – in response to either developments in the world or shifts in their thinking about the nature and impact of technology. Among the first group of authors were many dear friends and esteemed colleagues – including Taina Bucher, Gina Masullo Chen, Zoe Hurley, Zizi Papacharissi, and Karin Wahl- Jorgensen – and I warmly recommend checking out all the inspiring contributions. 1 Our charge was to clearly identify: a) the belief once held, b) the reasons for questioning, tempering or rejecting that belief, and c) the conditions (i.e., scholarly, political, and cultural contexts) that enabled such a belief. The point I chose to pursue in that brief essay (Deuze, 2019): the news industry as it has traditionally been organ- ized is not necessary for journalism as an occupational ideology to survive and for the work of journalists to remain relevant to people’s lives. This insight is inspired by a question that has informed my on-going research on media production and media work (see Deuze, 2007; 2012 and Deuze & Prenger, 2019 for book length overviews): what makes good – as in meaningful, contributing to the common good, autonomous, informative and inspiring – newswork possible? At the heart of my argument is the notion that, up until the early 2000s in most countries around the world, journalists would work in newsroom environments, employed or con- tracted in some form by a news organization for the particular purpose of filling their pages, airtime, and sites with content of value to audiences. The dominant definition of journalism in the eyes of its practitioners could therefore be seen as constituted in and out of newsroom discussions and debates. I