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Technological determinism is common among journalists when reflecting on changes in their profession; several studies show that journalists ascribe great power and independent agency to technology. There are at least two reasons for the persistence of technological determinism as an explanatory factor among journalists vis-a-vis their own work: first, technology is a highly integrated and therefore very tangible part of the everyday working life of journalists; and second, the technological paradigm for explaining change in journalism has deep historical roots. It is argued that analysing journalism as labour presents a way to address both the integration of technology in the everyday working practices of journalists, and the history of the inter-relations between journalism and technology. It is further argued that journalism studies as a field has not paid much attention to journalism as labour.This article is concerned with the second part of this programme for research, i.e. the historical analysis of journalism as labour. The framework of analysis is based on labour process theory, focusing on four themes in the history of journalism: (1) the importance of the separation of conception and execution of labour; (2) the increased differentiation of the labour process; (3) the use of technology to increase productivity; and (4) the deskilling of labour.

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This article is based on 63 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with professional journalists across career stages and across media in six European countries (UK, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Poland and Sweden), and is concerned with how journalists answer the question: How is what you do different from what citizen journalists do? Based on existing literature on journalistic authority and the professional project, three areas where claims to professional legitimacy and distinction from amateurs are identified: expertise, duty and autonomy. The interview data show that while claims based on expertise and duty are common when professional journalists want to demarcate the boundary between them and citizen journalism, claims based on direct reference to autonomy are non-existent. However, claims based indirectly on reference to autonomy, but institutional or collective rather than individual autonomy, are common. Indeed the key result of this study is that legitimacy claims based on the collective nature of the journalistic endeavour are very common, in contrast to earlier constructions of journalistic professionalism, which emphasized individualism and individual autonomy.

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