Markham, Tim (2012) The uses and functions of ageing celebrity war reporters. Celebrity Studies 3 (2), pp. 127-137. ISSN 1939-2397.
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Abstract
This article starts from the premise that recognition of professional authority and celebrity status depends on the embodiment and performance of field-specific dispositional practices: there’s no such thing as a natural, though we often talk about journalistic instinct as something someone simply has or doesn’t have. Next, we have little control over how we are perceived by peers and publics, and what we think are active positioning or subjectifying practices are in fact, after Bourdieu, revelations of already-determined delegation. The upshot is that two journalists can arrive at diametrically opposed judgements on the basis of observation of the same actions of a colleague, and as individuals we are blithely hypocritical in forming (or reciting) evaluations of the professional identity of celebrities. Nowhere is this starker than in the discourse of age-appropriate behaviour, which this paper addresses using the examples of ‘star’ war reporters John Simpson, Kate Adie and Martin Bell. A certain rough-around-the-edges irreverence is central to dispositional authenticity amongst war correspondents, and for ageing hacks this incorporates gendered attitudes to sex and alcohol as well as indifference to protocol. And yet perceived age-inappropriate sexual behaviour is also used to undermine professional integrity, and the paper ends by outlining the phenomenological context that makes possible this effortless switching between amoral and moralising recognition by peers and audiences alike.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Keyword(s) / Subject(s): | Star reporters, age-inappropriate behaviour, generational professional interaction, pleasures of judgement, (mis)recognition |
| School: | Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Creative Arts, Culture and Communication |
| Research Centres and Institutes: | Birkbeck Interdisciplinary Research in Media and Culture (BIRMAC) (Closed) |
| Depositing User: | Tim Markham |
| Date Deposited: | 21 Jun 2012 08:50 |
| Last Modified: | 09 Aug 2023 12:31 |
| URI: | https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/4806 |
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