Privately Employed, Print Oriented, Professionally Educated, Less Experienced, and Badly Paid: A Professional Profile of Kerala Journalists

The present study, a part of author’s PhD thesis, tries to understand the professional characteristics of journalists in Kerala. Every aspect of a journalist’s professional life including his professional education, experience, and income become very significant in the processing of news as the way news as a social construct is shaped is highly influenced by the characteristics of journalists. The public perception about the world is mediated. And it is the media that tell the audience ‘not what to think but what to think about.’ Unquestionably, it is the mediators of reality or the news people who tell the audience what to think about. A survey of 541 Kerala journalists revealed that the media profession in this part of India is mostly privately owned, concentrated in three major cities and dominated by print journalism. Indicating the professionalization of the field, most of the journalists are professionally educated but less experienced and badly paid.

Download Pdf