Near is My Shirt but Nearer is My Skin? The Moral Obligations of a Christian Journalist

The present study focuses on the problem of compatibility between the Christian faith and journalistic ethics. It conceptualizes journalism in terms of professional ideology (Mark Deuze) and presents its key components (public service, objectivity, independence, immediacy, ethics). It shows how this ideology is linked to "high modernity" (D. C. Hallin) and how its imperative of impartiality and distance is at odds with a Christian conception of communication. It then uses empirical material (in­-depth interviews with two Czech professional journalists from the public service media) to illustrate the strategies Czech journalists use to overcome the conflict between faith and profession. It turns out that the harmonisation of identities and the construction of an organisational identity (L. van Zoonen), encompassing both professional norms and religious subjectivity is enabled by deprofessionalisation processes in journalism, but also by the detraditionalisation of religion. The study concludes that this reality needs to be grasped theoretically and pastorally, and journalistic ethics (especially the notion of objectivity) needs to be subjected to a revision to include a personal, relational aspect – serving to build a living community.

Keywords: Journalism; Christianity; Media Ethics; Community; Personalism; Individualism; Professionalism