Truth Vigilance to Traditional Balance: Role Conceptions among Health Journalists

Abstract

This research investigates how health journalists conceive of their professional roles (N= 629) using data from a 2023 national US survey shortly after the conclusion of the international pandemic and amidst the proliferation of inaccurate information. Health journalists agreed that two of their most important functions are to avoid repeating misinformation and to translate scientific findings. Furthermore, data suggest that there are four roles that health journalists agreed are important: source skepticism, truth vigilance, proactive empowerment, and traditional balance. These roles are interpreted according to their loyalty to power and their degree of intervention. Findings also examine how journalists’ degrees of experience, attitude toward misinformation, and willingness to use their expertise more broadly in correcting health misinformation are associated with the four role conceptions. In general, health journalists are highly concerned about misinformation, but there is variation in whether they see misinformation and its correction as central to their role conception. Developing field-specific role conceptions across journalism cultures is key to understanding the nature of this work beyond monolithic assumptions.