Journalist

A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This process is called journalism.

Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertising, or public relations personnel. Depending on the form of journalism, "journalist" may also describe various categories of people by the roles they play in the process. These include reporters, correspondents, citizen journalists, editors, editorial writers, columnists, and photojournalists.

A reporter is a type of journalist who researches, writes and reports on information in order to present using sources. This may entail conducting interviews, information-gathering and/or writing articles. Reporters may split their time between working in a newsroom, from home or outside to witness events or interview people. Reporters may be assigned a specific beat (area of coverage).

Matthew C. Nisbet, who has written on science communication, has defined a "knowledge journalist" as a public intellectual who, like Walter Lippmann, Fareed Zakaria, Naomi Klein, Michael Pollan, and Andrew Revkin, sees their role as researching complicated issues of fact or science which most laymen would not have the time or access to information to research themselves, then communicating an accurate and understandable version to the public as a teacher and policy advisor.

In his best-known books, Public Opinion (1922) and The Phantom Public (1925), Lippmann argued that most people lacked the capacity, time and motivation to follow and analyze news of the many complex policy questions that troubled society. Nor did they often experience most social problems or directly access expert insights. These limitations were made worse by a news media that tended to oversimplify issues and to reinforce stereotypes, partisan viewpoints and prejudices. As a consequence, Lippmann believed that the public needed journalists like himself who could serve as expert analysts, guiding "citizens to a deeper understanding of what was really important".

In 2018, the United States Department of Labor's Occupational Outlook Handbook reported that employment for the category "reporters, correspondents and broadcast news analysts" will decline 9 percent between 2016 and 2026.

A worldwide sample of 27,500 journalists in 67 countries in 2012–2016 produced the following profile:

In 2019 the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism Digital News Report described the future for journalists in South Africa as "grim" because of low online revenue and plummeting advertising.