Shock to the system? Journalism in Irish public service media after the crash

Abstract

The political and economic disjunctures associated with the 2008 financial crisis and the policy responses to it have coincided with the deepening of professional journalism’s cultural crisis of authority and legitimacy, associated with declining public confidence in the hegemonic norms underpinning journalism practice. This paper presents the findings of research undertaken in the newsroom of Ireland’s main public service media organisation aimed at exploring the durability of key tenets of journalistic professionalism as its practitioners negotiated the crisis. In demonstrating evidence from interview testimony of limited editorial responses to crisis, enduring support for dominant professional norms and prevailing practices of representation, inclusion and participation, the findings are suggestive of a broad normative resilience in the face of crisis. Such stability, it is argued, reflects the ideological enmeshment of public service media and journalistic professionalism within the political and cultural systems of their host states but offers few resources for extricating public service journalism from deepening professional and institutional cultural crises.