Exploring Health Journalists’ Professional Role Conceptions: A Comparative Analysis of Newspaper and Other Health Journalists

Abstract

Health journalists play a vital role in shaping public perceptions and decisions regarding personal and public health-related issues. However, there has been limited research exploring health journalists’ professional role conceptions, and the significance of these roles for sustaining the health industries remains understudied. This research aims to address this gap and enhance understanding of the profession by exploring how health journalists perceive their professional roles and their impact on the sustainability of the health industries. By utilizing secondary data from a professional research center that conducted a national survey (N=774) of health journalists, this study reveals that health journalists prioritize their role conceptions similarly to previous research, with the order being interpretive, disseminator, adversarial, and populist mobilizer. Notably, health journalists perceive the adversarial and populist mobilizer roles much more important than journalists previously surveyed. Newspaper health journalists attribute greater importance to their professional roles than health journalists working for other news delivery channels or general newspaper journalists. Overall, health journalists earnestly strive to fulfill an educator role, which is critical for translating scientific medical information. This research sheds light on the complexities of health journalists' role perceptions and contributes to a deeper understanding of the distinct professional identity of health journalism. The study’s findings challenge conventional assumptions and have significant implications for advancing the field, fostering informed and impactful health journalism that serves both the audience and society at large.