In this article, we define the notion of ‘celebrity news’, emphasizing the fact that the portrayal of film stars embodies the imitable and the inimitable and, consequently, points towards values. In that context, we discuss the results of a thematic content analysis of a wide corpus of the daily and weekly European, French-speaking printed media to reveal which values are highlighted in celebrity news; we also compare these results with the contemporary values which emerge from recent European and global surveys of values. We then compare the various types of printed media. Finally, we focus on a specific aspect emerging from the main content analysis: the ‘meltdown’ or ‘fall from grace’, which records the decline of a star figure. Such narratives are good examples of syncretism in values, in which very contradictory attributes in celebrities are made to coexist, yet in which the subversive aspect of such a confrontation is passed over. We conclude by showing that the widespread negotiation of different values perceptible in reporting on celebrity figures is a sign of an era of change and re-evaluation, and therefore deserving of study.

It is often stated that journalism and the media are going through some fundamental changes. In this article, we present a description of the journalists in Switzerland, based on a nation-wide survey conducted in 2015. This data gives a quantitative description of journalists in Switzerland. Furthermore, this article makes comparison between various groups of journalists, for example between the different language regions in Switzerland, in order to give a differentiated picture of who the journalists are, what their working situation looks like and how they perceive their own professional role in society.

No abstract

Celebrity news and the dark planet of contemporary journalismThere was a time when news coverage of celebrities was mostly confined to tabloids, distinctive magazines and special sections of newspapers. Today, celebrity news is an endemic phenomenon; it has found its place across the entire media spectrum where it proved its capacity to attract a wide range of publics and to drive consumption (Turner, 2010). Celebrity coverage has become omnipresent and pervasive even to the extent that it constitutes a new normality in the contemporary media world.The increasing presence of celebrity news has often been subjected to critical accounts of the media and cultural industries. Public consciousness tends to perceive celebrity coverage in terms of a dirty pleasure of sensationalist tabloid reporters who capitalize on exposing the private lives of the famous. It is considered by many to be the 'dark planet' of contemporary journalism. As a symptom of tabloidization it is seen as contributing to the dumbing down of news content and journalistic quality (Franklin, 1997). Celebrity news may well distract public attention from the important issues in public conversation, diverting public interest from the issues that really matter (Couldry et al., 2007;Postman, 1985). In this issue, Martin Conboy warns that such a cultural flattening may have a broad, if apolitical, democratic potential.The consequences of the 'discursive bleeding of celebrity discourse' (P. David Marshall, in this issue) into the political context might also be more direct. In his contribution to this special issue, Jason Wilson argues that the infiltration of the political sphere by the celebrity logic raises questions about reforming political leadership and modes of democracy in an environment where significant proportions of the population have tuned out from official politics. These questions bear enormous relevance across contemporary democracies.

This paper examines how professionals define investigative journalism, which criteria they use to assess their and others' work, and how they apply them. Based on 23 in-depth interviews with Swiss journalists, our research sheds new light on professionals' normative assumptions, and provides insights on how to think about investigative journalism more generally. Implicit and explicit professional definitions reveal a shared conception of journalism, which has strong normative implications. According to their narratives, professionals rely on a gradual and multilevel definition of investigative journalism, while often talking about it as an absolute. Rather than a discrete category, "investigative journalism" is best seen as existing on a continuum between full-fledged investigative endeavor and the most basic reporting, with the main cursor being the personal commitment: professionals value the extent of efforts provided during the investigative process, as much as other constitutive elements such as exposing breaches of public trust. They built on a mix of various elements regarding what constitutes investigative journalism. We distinguished three types of defining criteria: motive, extent of efforts and technique involved. These criteria counterbalance each other in practice. Arguably, these gradual conceptions allow for adjustments between a clear-cut ideal and the real work context.