Journal. Media, Volume 7, Issue 3 (September 2026) – 2 articles

This paper examines how conversational daily deep dive news podcasts build journalistic authority and legitimacy through what we call the “journalist-as-guest” (JAG) format. Applying a deep analytical listening methodology that honors the aurality of the medium and positions listening as a core analytical method, we analyzed eight daily deep dive news podcasts from Canada and Australia, attending to how sonic elements interact with conversational performance to produce podcasting’s characteristic intimacy and parasocial listener bonds that support authority and legitimacy claims for journalism. Our findings expand on our previous identification of the JAG format as a key element of explanatory-type daily deep dive podcasts. Here, we reveal how it operates through three key mechanisms: recurring self-referential speech that reinforces journalistic cultural belonging; intentional unpacking of the reporting process to reveal behind-the-scenes work; and the careful construction of journalists as subject-matter experts. Together, these mechanisms transform performative conversation into metajournalism, creating a space in which journalistic expertise is displayed and validated through colleague-to-colleague dialogue. We term this dynamic “intimate authority.” We argue that the JAG format capitalizes on podcasting’s affordances for intimacy, parasociality, and extended metajournalistic conversation to invite audiences into the news-making process while positioning journalists as credible experts and sense-makers. In doing so, it functions as a mechanism for establishing authority and legitimacy claims in digital media environments. As daily news podcasting becomes increasingly central to remediation efforts aimed at restoring trust in journalism, both legacy and independent news podcasters appear to be counting on the JAG format as a strategic response to concurrent crises of news avoidance and relevance. Full article

Spanish journalists do not suffer from work-related anxiety because they lack resilience; they suffer from it because they work in environments structurally designed to produce it. Based on this premise, this study develops the first empirically grounded multilevel governance model to reduce work-related anxiety among journalists, drawing on 23 in-depth interviews with Spanish professionals who have experienced it through either a diagnosis or self-report, analyzed using reflective thematic analysis. The findings are organized into three interconnected levels—micro, meso, and macro—and identify, respectively, pre-existing protective factors, reactive coping strategies, and advice and recommendations aimed at structural change. Anchored in Job Anxiety Theory and evidence from equivalent complex interventions, the model demonstrates that individual resources only produce sustainable effects when the organizational and sectoral levels actively support them. The asymmetry between the density of the micro level and the precariousness of the meso and macro levels constitutes the study’s central finding. Our model redefines anxiety in journalism as an institutional design challenge and offers a scalable, modular, and contextualized architecture for the Spanish media ecosystem. Full article