journalist
Pluraljournalists
- 1A person whose occupation is journalism, originally limited to writing for the printed press.
The journalist spent months investigating corruption in the city council.
Many journalists began their careers writing for small local newspapers.
Similarreporter, correspondent
Note
At first the occupation was tied to print. Agatha Christie's The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920) can curse "every paper in the country" and "all journalists" in one breath, because the two went together. The word has since widened beyond the printed press, though its link to newspapers still colors it. Gazetteer is a rarer equivalent for the same trade.
- 2A professional who reports on news and current events for the public.
A journalist on the scene described the rescue as it unfolded.
Foreign journalists were sent to cover the conflict firsthand.
Similarreporter, correspondent
Note
Here the focus narrows to the person who gathers and reports the news. It often stands as a bare title before a name, lowercase and without an article: "as journalist Ashley Rindsberg described it," in Larry Sanger's 2025 essay. It also pairs naturally with nationality, as in The Economist's British journalists, who "savage the mighty, or rummage through their bins."
- 3Someone who keeps a personal journal and writes in it regularly.
A devoted journalist, she had filled a dozen notebooks with daily entries.
Victorian journalists often recorded their private thoughts in elaborate leather-bound volumes.
Similardiarist
Note
The word's first meaning, built from journal plus the agent suffix -ist: simply someone who keeps a journal. It came before the newspaper trade took the word over. Today a reader will assume the professional sense unless the context clearly points to private notebooks, as in a devoted journalist with a dozen volumes of daily entries.
Practice
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Origin
Formed from "journal" combined with the suffix "-ist".