Offering the best measure yet of U.S. journalism, a new book, The American Journalist in the 21st Century, examines in detail exactly who is writing, editing and producing the news these days – and what motivates them.

Indiana University journalism professors David Weaver, Randal Beam, Bonnie Brownlee, Paul Voakes and G. Cleveland Wilhoit based the book on a Knight Foundation-funded study of nearly 1,500 journalists in 2002.

U.S. journalists today are “a more educated group of news people, whose basic values and ethics persist in the face of dramatic changes in technology and workplace environments,” says co-author David Weaver.

The American Journalist in the 21st Century is the latest in a series of national surveys begun in 1971 by sociologist John Johnstone with The News People. Weaver and Wilhoit continued the series in 1982 with The American Journalist. In 1992, they wrote The American Journalist in the 1990s.

The book examines journalists’ background, ethics, political leanings, job satisfaction and views on reporting practices.

One interesting finding, Weaver says, is that journalists working for online news media are not dramatically different from those in more traditional mainstream media.
Others: Journalists are more satisfied than they were a decade ago. And they rate their news organizations’ efforts higher than they did a decade ago.

The American Journalist in the 21st Century is published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. To order it, visit www.erlbaum.com/weaver or call 1-800-926-6579.

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation promotes journalism excellence worldwide and invests in the vitality of communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers.