The Journalist's Predicament

Drawing on in-depth interviews in France and the United States, Matthew Powers and Sandra Vera-Zambrano explore the ways individuals come to believe that journalism is a worthy pursuit—and how that conviction is managed and sometimes dissolves amid the profession’s ongoing upheavals.

Matthew Powers is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he codirects the Center for Journalism, Media, and Democracy. His books include NGOs as Newsmakers: The Changing Landscape of International News (Columbia, 2018).

Sandra Vera-Zambrano is a member of the National Research System and coordinates both the PhD program in communication and La Revista Iberoamericana at Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City.

Rodney Benson, author of Shaping Immigration News: A French-American Comparison:
In a path-breaking sociological analysis, Powers and Vera-Zambrano force a reckoning with the journalistic profession's enduring inequalities. Read this essential book to gain a deeper understanding of journalism's contemporary "crisis"—who thrives, who barely survives, who leaves, and why.

Angèle Christin, author of Metrics at Work: Journalism and the Contested Meaning of Algorithms:
Powers and Vera-Zambrano's excellent book analyzes how journalists in the United States and France respond to the economic and symbolic decline of their profession. They reveal the pragmatic adjustments that journalists must make to continue believing in their work. The Journalist's Predicament is a profoundly humane, generous, and compelling book on the current transformations of newsmaking.

Erik Neveu, coeditor of Bourdieu and the Journalistic Field:
How do French and American journalists behave in market-driven newsrooms, in the face of declining work conditions? Some resist these changes and some surrender to them; some find springboards for innovation and others leave the profession entirely. To map these varied experiences, this insightful book explores journalists’ strategies and the social conditions that subtly shape them.

Lucas Graves, author of Deciding What's True: The Rise of Political Fact-Checking in American Journalism:
What keeps journalists going in the face of wrenching changes across the news industry? Matthew Powers and Sandra Vera-Zambrano offer the most convincing answer yet to this vital question. Based on nearly a decade of comparative research in France and the United States, The Journalist’s Predicament develops a powerful new framework that connects professional norms to the individual aspirations and career trajectories of working journalists. The result is a major contribution to the sociology of news.