Interpreting expertise: Finnish journalists’ accounts on journalistic judgement of expertise on healthy eating

Abstract

Previous research on journalism and expertise has tended to point out the shortcomings and biases in how journalists consider expertise and use expert sources. Such analyses, however, rely on a substantialist preconception of expertise and treat the issue of expertise and journalism as a normative issue. Based on 10 in-depth interviews with journalists drawn from a broader interview study, this study draws on the notion of interpretative repertoire as an analytical tool and investigates how journalists account for journalistic judgement of expertise in the context of healthy eating. The article identifies four different repertoires, in which each journalistic judgement of dietetic expertise is interpreted and constructed in different terms. It argues that this interpretative variability in journalists’ accounts might be less telling of an incomplete understanding of expertise than of the complexity and tensions involved in how expertise in the context of health is judged in journalism.