Journalism as Bipolar Interactional Expertise

This article offers a theoretical framework for understanding journalistic expertise, based on a revision of Collins and Evans' model. While their model maintains that a small elite of experienced and diligent journalists can become interactional experts in the respective specializations of their news sources, the current paper suggests that experienced journalists develop different degrees of bipolar interactional expertise, specializing in interactions with their sources on one hand and audiences on the other. The audience pole not only limits their expertise and fits it to the constraints of the news environment but also drives and legitimizes their focus on information that is simple and quick to obtain and convey and is ostensibly interesting and important for their audiences.