Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Journalists are on the front lines in managing the most difficult experiences of this world: loss and loneliness, sorrow and sadness. As a part of their professional practice in the field, journalists often end up taking on their share of that pain. How do they manage this pain? As a conceptual article, this manuscript draws from theoretical frameworks and synthesizes scholarship to explore how altruism helps journalists manage pain in their profession. We argue that suffering is an essential part of the human experience and journalists—by virtue of their profession—perhaps experience more of it than many professions. That said, journalism works at its best when journalists manifest altruism out of that suffering, offering a cluster of joyful expressions from this pain. When journalists do, this altruism works in a two-fold manner: it eases the suffering of others and helps journalists manage their own.
Source: Journalism and Media
Institution: University of South Florida
Language: English
Topic: Journalism and Media Studies
Subfield: Communication
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $1,207
Funder: University of South Florida
OpenAlex ID: W4414017103