A penny for your words. Job insecurity as the chief problem affecting Spanish professional journalism

Abstract

In view of the difficult period professional journalism is going through and the challenges facing journalists in their day-to-day work, this paper seeks to identify the main problems affecting professional Spanish journalists from the perspective of journalists, citizens and experts. To this end, the research presents results obtained through surveys of Spanish journalists, citizen focus groups and in-depth interviews with experts. The findings derived from the survey of journalists conducted in 2018 are compared with those from a survey of Spanish and European journalists conducted in 2012, both of which used the same parameters. The inclusion of findings from an additional survey carried out in 2008 by the researchers of this paper allow us to plot the evolution of the problems faced by the profession in Spain, highlighting those that have remained unchanged and become more deeply entrenched over a decade marked by the global economic crisis. The results show that Spanish journalists identified job insecurity as the main problem of their profession, while economic and political pressures came in second and third place respectively.