Mixed Feelings: Emotional Labor in the Newsroom

Abstract

Emotion is one of journalism’s biggest dilemmas. The ideals of objectivity and neutrality impose emotional labor on journalists. Alternative newsrooms in Lebanon question notions of objectivity, neutrality and detachment, and open up a space for an alternative ethics of emotion in journalism. However, emotional labor persists in these newsrooms. In this thesis, I argue that journalists in Lebanon’s alternative newsrooms shoulder the emotional burden of their labor individually, due to the absence of structural and institutional attempts to address the problem of emotion. Through in-depth interviews with five journalists working in alternative newsrooms, I found that questioning objectivity does not automatically ease the tension towards emotion. Tactics of emotional management impact the well-being of journalists in alternative newsrooms, while a structural rethinking of emotionality is yet to be established.