According to Hallin and Mancini (2004), professionalisation of journalism has three components: autonomy of journalists; development of distinct professional norms and rules; and the public service orientation of journalists. The degree of autonomy of Danish journalists is relatively high, not least due to a combination of 1) a very strong union representing almost all Danish journalists, which has been very successful in securing high income and good working conditions for their members, and 2) the Danish welfare state model which gives (media) employers high flexibility and (media) employees high income security.
Until global digital intermediaries challenged the business model of national professional media organisations by attracting advertising spending to social media platforms, the economy of media companies in Denmark was good. In recent years, however, the economy has been challenged in news organisations and this has led to less job security and lower income for the youngest generation of journalists (see also indicator C5 – Journalists’ job security). The professional culture of Danish journalists is strong and goes hand in hand with a homogenous development of distinct professional norms and rules (Willig, 2016). Regarding the third component, the public service orientation of Danish journalists is relatively high. First, electronic media carrying news are predominantly public service media. Second, regarding newspapers, Denmark has a tradition of not-for-profit ownership (Willig, 2010), reflected in mission statements and policy papers of individual news companies (Willig et al., 2015) as well as in the self-understanding of journalists (Skovsgaard, 2010; Willig et al., 2015). Thirdly, Denmark had a monopoly on journalism education until 1998, but even with the introduction of two new programmes of formal journalism educations at two different universities, all three forms of education are more alike than different, not least because they all include 12–18 months of paid internship (Willig, 2016).
