To be a journalist in Chile, one must possess a university degree valid in Chile and be legally “recognised” as a journalist (Ministry Secretary General, 2013). Since the latter is rather subjective, there are no particular restrictions to professional practice, while it is mainly a professional field supported in higher education.
The first journalism school in Chile started in 1953 at University of Chile. In the 1960s, under the influence of the International Centre for Higher Education in Journalism for Latin America, a formative model was introduced with a bachelor’s degree in Communication. This incorporated content about journalism, public relations, and advertising that is still used today (Mellado & Hanusch, 2011). In Chile, there are currently 43 journalism programmes throughout the country in different modalities: evening, morning, and those directed to people with bachelor’s degrees in other areas. Sometimes there is more than one programme per university across private and public institutions (Mifuturo, 2020). The number of programmes offered has increased greatly since 1985, hand in hand with the growth of private universities (Délano et al., 2007). In addition, within the field of communications, there is an increasing number of postgraduate programmes with specialised courses, master’s degrees, and three doctoral programmes.
Professionalisation, too, has grown, with 50 per cent of journalists holding a title in the field in the 1960s, to 70 per cent in the 1970s. The last available study (Mellado, 2014) shows that 86.2 per cent of working journalists had studied this specific degree at university, and 92.5 per cent had a professional degree (6 –9% had a master’s degree) (Cabalin & Lagos Lira, 2012; Mellado, 2014). The number of these programmes is still growing.
According to Cabalin and Lagos Lira (2012), journalists do not value their previous formative academic learnings, but understand it as a formal step needed to access the industry, where the “real” learning happens. While journalists criticised their formative education, they were unable to detail what these gaps are. They were also critical about what they considered deficiencies in their colleagues’ training, for example, a lack of general knowledge.
To achieve their degrees, students are obligated to undertake a professional internship in a journalistic medium; some cases consider two internships, including one linked to corporate communications. Mellado and Hanusch (2011) conclude that those who work in journalism and public relations share common values but fulfil different roles. The report by Mellado and colleagues (2015) about the profile and expectations of journalism students shows that as they advance in their academic degrees, while most of them maintain their interest in working in media, there is also an increase in expectations of working for corporate communications or as academics.
Since Chile’s return to democracy, the professionalism of the country’s journalists has been in question, given the previous 17 years of dictatorship, when censorship and state intervention in the media occurred alongside self-censorship and independent media that worked clandestinely. Such a history has, therefore, created a legacy of questionable practices. This critical view of journalism has been reflected in concerns of academia about professionalism and performance of journalists, with research interrogating their routines, values, practices, and the systemic elements that model these (Gronemeyer, 2002; Lagos & Cabalin, 2013; Otano Garde & Sunkel, 2003). This gained ground during the 2019 protests, with columns written by academics as well as declarations to the media (see also Aguilar, 2019; Lagos & Faure, 2019; Salinas & Cabalin, 2019). Two letters signed by professors of journalism from University of Chile and the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile criticised the coverage of the protests.
Regarding ethics, while the interviewed journalists considered it an important value, Mellado (2014) showed that only 43.3 per cent of journalists affirmed ethical principles that cannot be transgressed, independent of situations. In the same study, journalists said that if necessary, they would use ethically questionable practices, for instance hidden cameras and microphones. In turn, Lagos and Cabalin (2013) show that each professional interprets ethics differently.
Journalists inhabit what is considered a precarious market (Lagos & Cabalin, 2013; Lagos & Faure, 2019), where routine is more important than innovation. Here, creativity is not a shared value, let alone being the most relevant, from the perspective of information professionals (Gronemeyer, 2002). Digital outlets have gradually created an innovative space, but it is still in early stages. An example of this is the fact that the Award for Excellence in Journalism gave its first prize for digital innovation in media as recently as 2020, and decided not to keep the category in 2021. While development of narrative multimedia tools has not been the main contribution of digital media in Chile, online outlets have moderately reinforced the role of watchdogs, which is weaker in legacy media (Elórtegui Gómez & Mellado Ruiz, 2019). Ciper Chile represent an important case. While the organisation had not made much use of multimedia resources for years, it was reputed for publishing impactful and thorough investigations. After an audience survey, it took a decision to make its website more user-friendly, which was complemented with a call for economic support from readers, in order to function as a foundation.
Mellado (2014) exposes that participation of journalists in the National Journalism Association is 13.5 per cent, corroborating the negative view that all interviewees reported about this entity. Participation in other associations, as of 2012, was 14.5 per cent. A representative of the National Journalism Association, in turn, recognised they face a critical situation regarding new adherents:
Our professional formation is individualistic; we are not trained to do teamwork. Colegio de Periodistas has more than 60 years and close to 6,500 journalists in its historic membership. We are aware that we are going through a representation crisis. Colleagues only come to us when their job is at risk, and the media, as a whole, is not aligned with our agenda, for example, regarding our call for a new media law.
The Chilean Network of Journalists, founded in 2013, provides professional development opportunities to journalists through workshops as one of its main tasks. As of 2020, it counts 353 individuals as members, while 561 people have attended their workshops (Red de Periodistas, 2020); this is very low considering that every year, about 1,000 journalists graduate from universities (e.g., 907 journalists graduatedin 2018) (Mifuturo, 2020). In 2005, practicing journalists numbered 10,768, and on the assumption of about 850 graduates a year on average, was projected to reach 22,492 active journalists in 2020 (Délano et al., 2007).
Employees of the media are active within internal unions, grouped under the Chilean Confederation of Media Unions and the Federation of Television Unions, which make pronouncements about labour practices that media workers consider unfair, both at administrative and editorial levels. In 2019, the union in Radio BioBio organised a strike with a public demand for improvements to their work conditions; among their reasons was the fact that some journalists were working 65-hour weeks, when the law establishes that workweeks cannot exceed 45 hours. This case received support from other media unions, the National Journalism Association, journalists, and editors, all of whom agreed this represented the general reality of all media organisations in Chile (El Desconcierto, 2019). Sometimes, such actions generated internal controversies. An editorial case occurred after the 2019 protests in the newspaper La Tercera, where a journalist claimed the director had made them sign an article they had not researched themselves and with which they did not agree, considering it imprecise. The newspaper recognised this later and erased the journalist’s name from the article. The story became public by the newspaper’s union, which denounced this as a common practice; however, the medium’s editors wrote another letter in response, denying these accusations (El Dínamo, 2019). This pitted one group’s word against another’s.
