Burning bridges as career imperative? Accountability, journalistic identity and police sources

The relationship between journalists and their sources is significant for the way it may, or may not, serve the information needs of the news audience. Changes in the media environment, such as citizen journalism and video documentation of police abuse have created challenges for accountability journalists who cover law enforcement. This project uses long-form interviews with such journalists to examine their relationships with law enforcement sources, their experiences covering police, and how they perceive their professional identities. We find that relationships once often marked by positive mutual interest have become more competitive and contentious. The consequent degradation of cooperation between two major public institutions may have deleterious effects for U.S. democracy.