Studia Filologiczne UJK

Summary

Professional journalistic conduct, being governed by seemingly identical norms and standards around the world, shows tremendous variations in different cultural/national traditions. This paper attempts to explain the difference while examining the axiological foundations of professional journalistic discourse. The research is done on the example of Belarus’ and English-speaking countries’ codes of journalistic ethics – texts written by journalists to journalists about journalism. Through consistent reconstruction of a discourse portrait of a journalist generated in/by the discourse, the cognitive and behavioural patterns shared among the professionals trained within the corresponding culture are revealed. The analysis explains the crisis that Belarusian journalism faced during electoral and post-electoral period in 2020 through a clash of common human values and particular values of professional discourse (and, thus, behaviour) of journalists. The research also allows implications for improvements to educational curriculum for journalists.