Who are UK journalists? How do they work? What do they think? And how has all this changed in the last decade? My new report answers these questions. The report is based on our representative survey of 1,130 UK journalists—a follow up to our 2015 survey, the results of which were also published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. The two surveys shared numerous questions, which has allowed us to analyse changes that took place over eight years.

In the report we divided our survey findings into chapters that cover three main areas. Firstly, who UK journalists are, including their ethnic and socio-economic diversity. Secondly, how they work, including their use of technology and experience of safety threats. And thirdly, what they think, including about ethics and their roles in society.

The first chapter, led by Imke Henkel, covers UK journalists’ personal characteristics and diversity. As in 2015, our findings show that Asian and Black journalists are still heavily underrepresented. Just 4% of UK journalists are Black or Asian, compared with 13% of the UK population.

New for the 2023 survey were questions on journalists’ socio-economic backgrounds. We found that over 70% grew up in a household where the main earner had a professional occupation, and only 12% where that occupation was working-class. For comparison, at the time of our survey, about 20% of the UK workforce worked in working class jobs and about 50% had a professional occupation.

We also gathered data on the types of schools journalists attended, something that has only been done before about the 100 or so most prominent journalists in the UK. We found that 14% of all UK journalists went to a fee-paying primary school and 22% to a fee-paying secondary school. That compares with just 6% of all UK school children who attend independent schools.

The next chapter, on employment conditions, was led by Francois Nel. It shows a decline since 2015 in the proportion of journalists with permanent contracts and an increase in the proportion who are freelance. And, as in 2015, there is a still a gender pay gap.

Prompted by Covid, in this latest survey we asked about remote working and found that, on average, UK journalists now work from home three days a week. Younger journalists are less likely to do so as are broadcast journalists, for understandable reasons.

I led the third chapter, which looks at the media platforms, formats, and cultures that UK journalists work with. The results show how almost all UK journalists now produce for multiple platforms—an average of over five. Although some of the digital platforms are most frequently produced for, print is still important, with three quarters of journalists producing for it.

While these results do show journalists’ adaptability, we should also recognise the demands of multiplatform working. For example, we found that the more platforms journalists produced for the greater their concerns about their mental and emotional wellbeing.

Sina Thäsler-Kordonouri led the next chapter, on news automation. The questions focused on whether journalists worked in newsrooms that used two specific technologies: data-driven automated text production and automated news personalization. The speed that automated text production can bring seems to be something that news agencies are most likely to take advantage of.

However, news personalization was most used at publicly owned news outlets, like the BBC, perhaps because it helps them fulfil their mandate to serve diverse audiences.

Automation and AI can, of course, prompt concerns about job security and we did, indeed, find that in newsrooms where these two types of automation were used, journalists were more worried about losing their jobs.

Continuing the technology theme, Richard Fletcher led the next chapter, on the use of social media and audience analytics. Using social media for newsgathering and to promote their work is now done by 90–95% of all UK journalists, and even more so by journalists at internet-native outlets.

While social media is clearly seen as an essential professional tool, its use, we found, also carries risks. Journalists using social media to promote their work were more likely to have hate speech directed at them.

Such safety threats are the core of the next chapter, which was led by Ayala Panievsky and Lindsey Blummel. Receiving hate speech was actually the most commonly experienced safety threat, with less than a third of journalists having never experienced it. As you can read in the chapter, there was variation in how frequently each of these safety threats were experienced by journalists of different genders, ranks, and employer types. For example, women experienced more sexual assault or harassment while men experienced more legal actions against them.

Experiencing these sorts of safety threats may well influence how journalists work, and other influences on their work are an important part of the next chapter, which was led by Jingrong Tong. Here we were able, again, to compare with the results of the 2015 survey. We found that personal values and beliefs have become less influential, which might be connected to how we found that journalists, in line with the wider population, have become less religious. The proportion of UK journalists with no religious affiliation has risen by 10 percentage points since 2015.

The next chapter, led by Craig T. Robertson, examines what UK journalists believe about truth, objectivity, and interpretation, including whether they think they can withhold their personal beliefs from their reporting. UK journalists expressed a strong belief in the need for interpretation, to add context to stories. Over 80% agreed it was necessary. At the same time, they have a commitment to objectivity, nearly 70% believing it is possible in reporting. There is a question, however, about whether support for strong objectivity is waning.

This is one question that is explored in the next chapter, on how UK journalists perceive their roles in society. It was led by Imke Henkel. In the survey we asked about the importance journalists gave to various roles, including ‘being a detached observer’. Although journalists still think being a detached observer is important, it has indeed become less important since the last survey.

In the report we also show some interesting variation in the importance given to professional roles by journalists working for different types of newsrooms. For example, ‘monitoring and scrutinising those in power’ was seen as more important by journalists working for legacy employers than by journalists working for internet native newsrooms.

The tenth chapter, led by Lea Hellmueller, Glenda Cooper, and Jane Singer, is about UK journalists’ views on ethics, including the acceptability of questionable reporting practices. The same questions were asked in 2015, and we see both continuity and some change. For example, in 2023 journalists remained overwhelmingly against accepting money from sources. However, publishing stories with unverified information has become slightly more acceptable, perhaps because of the demands of online news.

The last chapter outlines our methodology.

Many thanks to my fellow authors and editors for their huge contributions to the report and also to the Reuters Institute team—especially Alex Reid, Eduardo Suarez, and Matthew Leake—for supporting the publication.