In May 2020, New York Times media columnist Ben Smith critiqued Ronan Farrow, charging Farrow with practicing “resistance journalism.” Smith’s column generated significant discussion among journalists. This article analyzed the metajournalistic discourse that emerged following Smith’s column to examine how journalism’s boundaries are negotiated and contested. “Resistance journalism” has three main elements: it is unobjective, targeted, and truth-bending. “Resistance journalism” falls outside of the boundaries of journalism, according to the discourse, due to three practices: it lacks verification, focuses on narrative, and has a propensity to advocate. We argue that the current political economic and technological disruptions within digital media and networked society are creating new spaces for the rhetorical competition over journalism to occur, upending journalistic routines and creating hybrid journalism cultures.
Belair-GagnonVHoltonAE (2018) Boundary work, interloper media, and analytics in newsrooms: a analysis of the roles of web analytics companies in news production. Digital Journalism6(4): 492–508.
2.
BerkowitzD (2000) Doing double duty: paradigm repair and the Princess Diana what-a-story. Journalism1(2): 125–143.
3.
BiddleBJThomasEJ (1979) Role Theory: Concepts and Research. Huntington, NY: R.R. Krieger Publishing.
4.
CanellaG (2021) Journalistic power: constructing the “truth” and the economics of objectivity. Journalism Practice13(4): 1–17. doi: 10.1080/17512786.2021.1914708. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2021.1914708.
5.
CarlsonM (2015) Introduction: the many boundaries of journalism. In: CarlsonMLewisSC (eds) Boundaries of Journalism: Professionalism, Practices, and Participation. New York, NY: Routledge, 1–18.
6.
CarlsonM (2016) Metajournalistic discourse and the meanings of journalism: definitional control, boundary work, and legitimation. Communication Theory26(4): 349–368.
7.
CarlsonM (2017) Journalistic Authority: Legitimating News in the Digital Era. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
8.
CastellsM (2007) Communication, power and counter-power in the network society. International Journal of Communication1: 238–266.
9.
CraftSThomasRJ (2016) Metajournalism and Media Ethics. Fukuoka, Japan.International Communication Association.
10.
De MaeyerJHoltonAE (2016) Why linking matters: a metajournalistic discourse analysis. Journalism17(6): 776–794.
11.
DeuzeM (2008) The professional identity of journalists in the context of convergence culture. Observatorio (Obs*)2(4): 103–117.
12.
DeuzeMWitschgeT (2018) Beyond journalism: theorizing the transformation of journalism. Journalism19(2): 165–181.
13.
EkströmM (2002) Epistemologies of TV journalism: a theoretical framework. Journalism3(3): 259–282.
14.
EmersonRFretzRShawL (1995) Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
15.
FaircloughN (2003) Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. New York, NY: Routledge Psychology Press.
16.
FerrucciP (2017) Technology allows audience role in news construction. Newspaper Research Journal38(1): 79–89.
17.
FerrucciP (2018) Mo “meta” blues: how popular culture can act as metajournalistic discourse. International Journal of Communication12: 4821–4838.
18.
FerrucciP (2019) The end of ombudsmen? 21st-century journalism and reader representatives. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly96(1): 288–307.
19.
FerrucciP (2021) Joining the team: metajournalistic discourse, paradigm repair, the athletic and sports journalism practice. Journalism Practice1–19, (online first). DOI: 10.1080/17512786.2021.1907213
FerrucciPNelsonJLDavisMP (2020a) From “public journalism” to “engaged journalism”: imagined audiences and denigrating discourse. International Journal of Communication14: 1586–1604.
22.
FerrucciPTaylorRAlaimoKI (2020b) On the boundaries: professional photojournalists navigating identity in an age of technological democratization. Digital Journalism8(3): 367–385.
23.
FerrucciPVosT (2017) Who’s in, who’s out? constructing the identity of digital journalists. Digital Journalism5(7): 868–883.
24.
FreedmanD (2014) The Contradictions of Media Power. New York and London: Bloomsbury.
25.
GraberD (2002) Mass Media and American Politics. Washington, DC: CQ Press.
26.
HellmuellerLMelladoCBlumellL, et al. (2016) The contextualization of the watchdog and civic journalistic roles: reevaluating journalistic role performance in US newspapers. Palabra Clave19(4): 1072–1100.
27.
HindmanEB (2005) Jayson Blair, the New York Times, and paradigm repair. Journal of Communication55(2): 225–241.
28.
HindmanEBThomasRJ (2013) Journalism’s “crazy old aunt” Helen Thomas and paradigm repair. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly90(2): 267–286.
29.
HoppTFerrucciP (2020) A spherical rendering of deviant information resilience. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly97(2): 492–508.
30.
KovachBRosenstielT (2014) The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect. Santa Barbara, CA: Three Rivers Press.
31.
LumsdenL (2015) Socialist muckraker John Kenneth Turner: the twenty-first century relevance of a journalist/activist's career. American Journalism32(3): 282–306.
32.
MaaresPHanuschF (2018) Exploring the boundaries of journalism: instagram micro-bloggers in the twilight zone of lifestyle journalism. Journalism21(2): 1464884918801400.
33.
McDevittM (2020) Where ideas go to die: the fate of intellect in American journalism. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
34.
McDevittMFerrucciP (2018) Populism, journalism, and the limits of reflexivity: the case of Donald J. Trump. Journalism Studies19(4): 512–526.
35.
MelladoCHellmuellerLMárquez-RamírezM, et al. (2017) The hybridization of journalistic cultures: a comparative study of journalistic role performance. Journal of Communication67(6): 944–967.
36.
MeltzerK (2019) From News to Talk: The Expansion of Opinion and Commentary in US Journalism. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
37.
MeltzerKMartikE (2017) Journalists as communities of practice: advancing a theoretical framework for understanding journalism. Journal of Communication Inquiry41(3): 207–226.
38.
SchausterEEFerrucciPNeillMS (2016) Native advertising is the new journalism: how deception affects social responsibility. American Behavioral Scientist60(12): 1408–1424.
39.
SchudsonM (1992) Watergate in American Memory: How We Remember, Forget, and Reconstruct the Past. New York, NY: Basic Books.
40.
SchudsonM (2001) The objectivity norm in American journalism. Journalism2(2): 149–170.
41.
ShoemakerPJReeseSD (2014) Mediating the Message in the 21st Century: A Media Sociology Perspective. New York, NY: Routledge.
42.
SingerJB (2003) Who are these guys? the online challenge to the notion of journalistic professionalism. Journalism4(2): 139–163.
43.
SingerJB (2015) Out of bounds: professional norms as boundary makers. In: CarlsonMLewisSC (eds), Boundaries of Journalism: Professionalism, Practices, and Participation. New York, NY: Routledge, 21–36.
44.
SjovaagH (2015) Hard news/soft news: the heirarchy of genres and the boundary of the profession. In: CarlsonMLewisSC (eds), Boundaries of Journalism: Professionalism, Practices, and Participation. New York, NY: Routledge, 101–117.
45.
SmithB (2020) Is Ronan Farrow Too Good to Be True?The New York Times.
46.
TandocECJrHellmuellerLVosTP (2013) Mind the gap: between journalistic role conception and role enactment. Journalism Practice7(5): 539–554.
47.
TandocECJrJenkinsJ (2018) Out of bounds? how Gawker’s outing a married man fits into the boundaries of journalism. New Media & Society20(2): 581–598.
48.
TandocECJrVosTP (2016) The journalist is marketing the news: Social media in the gatekeeping process. Journalism Practice10(8): 950–966.
49.
TuchmanG (1972) Objectivity as strategic ritual: an examination of newsmen’s notions of objectivity. American Journal of Sociology77(4): 660–679.
50.
VosTPCraftSAshleyS (2012) New media, old criticism: bloggers’ press criticism and the journalistic field. Journalism13(7): 850–868.
51.
VosTPFerrucciP (2018) Who am I? Perceptions of digital journalists’ professional identity. In: EldridgeSFranklinB (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Developments in Digital Journalism Studies. New York, NY: Routledge, 40–52.
52.
VosTPMooreJ (2020) Building the journalistic paradigm: beyond paradigm repair. Journalism21(1): 17–33.
53.
VosTPSingerJB (2016) Media discourse about entrepreneurial journalism. Journalism Practice10(2): 143–159.
54.
VosTPThomasRJ (2019) The discursive (re) construction of journalism’s gatekeeping role. Journalism Practice13(4): 396–412.
55.
WeaverDHBeamRABrownleeBJ, et al. (2007) The American Journalist in the 21st Century: US News People at the Dawn of a New Millennium. New York, NY: Routledge.
56.
WolfgangJD (2021) Taming the ‘trolls’: how journalists negotiate the boundaries of journalism and online comments. Journalism22(1): 1464884918762362.
57.
ZelizerB (1993) Journalists as interpretive communities. Critical Studies in Media Communication10(3): 219–237.
58.
ZelizerB (2004) When facts, truth, and reality are god‐terms: on journalism’s uneasy place in cultural studies. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies1(1): 100–119.
