I was sitting in a dinner table with a couple of media friends in Guangzhou. I should say, these media people are not ‘those media’ types. Look at them. One wears a black T-shirt printed with the stark words, ‘Caution: police and government!’ He is a blogger, a 100% self-employed internet activist. The other wears a white hat with ‘Twitter’ printed on the top. Apparently he is a guy writing on Twitter. They are new media people and just from their appearance you can sense something called ‘oppositional’. So that’s why we had a conversation that is otherwise impossible to have with traditional media people. That is, how arrogant the (traditional) journalism could be under the disguise of ‘professionalism’.

Most often the people I meet are journalists from the traditional media. They tell me proudly how high a level of ‘professionalism’ they have reached or have wanted to reach, and how important their journalistic ‘professionalism’ is for the public and the society. But to the new media people, ‘professionalism’ is simply not a very decent claim. Its purpose is not for the good of the society, but rather to play down the impact of the attempts in journalism by those in new media. Whatever the bloggers write, many in the traditional media seem to say, ‘Hey, do not listen to them. Listen to us. We are the professionals. They have no professionalism and are not to be trusted.’

‘Isn’t this too arrogant?’ my new media friends at the dinner table asked.

Yes. Indeed, this is not a new discovery. Journalism academics have told us that ‘professionalism’ is developed as a way for journalists to claim authority and a monopoly over the work they do. And when facing challenges, they employ a mechanism called ‘news repair’ to redefine news and to reclaim authority. So when facing the challenges of new media, many journalists from traditional media would exaggerate the inadequacies of those involved in new media in getting the right information and being professionally trained.

This encounter made me think about the development of the idea of ‘professionalism’. Their question seems not quite new. But still, it is a surprise to know that they are aware of the tactic of so-called ‘professionalism’, and the many vivid examples they offered raise an important issue about definitions of professional journalism and the implications of such definitions.