Journalistic Epistemologies and Journalism Culture in the United States

This survey-based study of U.S. journalists ( N = 1,579) describes their current epistemological outlooks and explains how the conceptions of their social roles are related to journalistic epistemologies. We argue this is a novel approach to understanding journalistic cultures—not just the sum of journalistic roles and epistemologies, but in the relative coherence of these concepts taken together. We identify three main epistemological orientations among U.S. journalists: intuitionist, standpoint, and naturalist. The findings suggest objectivity is no longer the unquestioned epistemology in U.S. journalism culture, replaced by a combination of naturalist and constructivist orientations.