Researcher seeks merit-based newsroom recruitment

United States-based Nigerian researcher, Kemi Busari...Photo Credit: The Cable

A United States-based Nigerian researcher, Kemi Busari, has urged media owners to focus on merit-based factors when recruiting new reporters in the newsroom.

Busari, a doctoral student at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland, USA, said studies on hiring criteria were limited in the journalism literature.

He maintained that the perspectives of media owners were notably absent from debates on who qualifies as a journalist.

The scholar stated this in an article titled, ‘Beyond the degree: Entry criteria and the influence of journalism education in Nigerian news organizations’ hiring practices.’

Busari clarified that, despite this gap, some studies had explored newsroom employment practices, revealing varied and sometimes contested factors that shape decisions about who enters the profession.

Drawing on history, Busari pointed out that newspaper employers consistently emphasised experience as the foremost criterion for hiring reporters, with secondary importance given to salaries, editorial skills and journalistic values.

He said, “While studies on journalism recruitment criteria exist, they are generally limited, and they focus primarily on Western newsrooms. There is a notable lack of research on African newsrooms, particularly in Nigeria, despite the country’s large and dynamic media sector.

“By examining hiring practices in Nigerian newsrooms, this study fills the gap, providing insights that advance scholarship on the subject and potentially inform policy debates on journalism education and newsroom hiring practices.”

“In practice, recruitment and hiring processes function as a gatekeeping mechanism through which news organisations actively negotiate and reproduce professional boundaries. By examining recruitment practices, it becomes possible to observe how journalism’s professional boundaries are enacted in practice and how particular definitions of journalistic legitimacy are privileged over others.

“While gatekeeping theory is traditionally applied to the selection and shaping of news content, its core logic—filtering and selection—can be extended to the hiring process in journalism. In this sense, editors use recruitment as a key site for determining professional inclusion and exclusion. Recruitment thus functions as an early-stage gatekeeping practice through which newsroom values, norms and competencies are shaped and reinforced.”

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Basing his latest study on the theoretical perspective of “gatekeeping,” Busari examined the implementation of professional boundaries, norms and values within journalism practice in Nigeria.

He added that the study employed a case-study, mixed-methods approach to address the research questions.

Collecting data through a demographic survey of four newsrooms, Busari said this was followed by interviews with 21 editors and quantitative content analysis of 70 reporter job advertisements in Nigeria.

“This study is part of a larger research project on journalism education, newsroom recruitment and the experiences of journalists in Nigeria. As part of that broader study, a demographic survey was conducted across four newsrooms, yielding 154 responses.

“The purpose of the survey was to map the educational backgrounds of journalists. Although the demographic survey itself is not part of the current study’s data, it served a crucial role in informing the sampling strategy. From the pool of survey respondents, editors who met the inclusion criteria for this study were identified and invited to participate in in-depth interviews,” he added.

The scholar explained that, from his study of the 21 interviewees who participated in the survey, reporters are usually hired through internships, poaching and referrals and, less often, through advertised positions.

“Recruitment into Nigerian newsrooms functions as a key site of boundary work through which professional membership and legitimate journalistic practice are defined.

“Newsrooms’ emphasis on particular norms, values and skills reflects ongoing efforts to distinguish insiders from outsiders and to maintain occupational authority in a loosely regulated professional field.

“The strong emphasis on practical skills in newsroom hiring reflects a predominantly job-focused orientation within Nigerian journalism. Editors place limited trust in the journalism education provided at universities and instead prioritise experience, adaptability and teachability,” Busari noted.