Anna von Garmissen and Wiebke Loosen identified these findings in the world's largest journalism study "Worlds of Journalism".
The average German journalist is male, 45.3 years old and has an academic degree. He works full-time in the online or print section of a newspaper, often feels stressed and has recently experienced insults on the Internet and disparagement of his work. This briefly summarizes what journalism researchers Anna von Garmissen and Wiebke Loosen have been able to determine about journalism in Germany so far.
Between September 2022 and February 2023, they interviewed 1,221 journalists working in Germany about working conditions, perceptions of their own roles, ethical attitudes and the dangers and challenges facing their profession. Before the survey could begin, a kind of inventory was necessary, as Anna von Garmissen recounts: "We first had to find out how many journalists there are in Germany and where they work." An elaborate research process that ultimately led to an estimate of around 40,000 journalists. These formed the basic population from which the researchers derived a representative sample.
Female and Younger
The study is part of the international research network "Worlds of Journalims", which is examining the state of journalism in more than 100 countries worldwide for the third time. The first two waves of the survey were conducted from 2007 to 2011 and from 2012 to 2016. Changes are now becoming visible. "We can see that more and more women are working in German journalism," says Wiebke Loosen. "The proportion of women has risen from 40.1 percent in 2015 to 44.0 percent. Journalism is also getting younger."
All teams participating in Worlds of Journalism follow a jointly developed guideline for the survey. LMU Munich is responsible for international coordination and management. The sub-study for Germany is funded by the German Research Foundation. In addition to Anna von Garmissen and Wiebke Loosen, Elsa Bartelt and Tim van Olphen also worked on the study. The initial results discussed in this episode can be read in a working paper, which is available online as an open access publication.
Links
Working Paper
Anna von Garmissen
Prof. Dr. Wiebke Loosen
Johanna Sebauer
Contact
(Hamburg, 29 January 2024)
