Towards a Labour Turn in Community Journalism: Economic Precarity among Community Journalists in Favelas

This study expands on the literature on precarity in community journalism, which has been mostly focused on the Global North and few in number. Based on nine in-depth qualitative interviews with community journalists working for favela-based news projects in Rio de Janeiro, this study highlights five considerations. Journalists tolerate precarity (1) not mainly due to passion as a primary motivation but because (2) precarity is normalized within favela-based new projects and is negotiated via supplemental sources of income. To this extent, previous notions that passion takes precedence over economic security are less applicable in this context, challenging homogeneous views on community journalists' experiences of precarity. Depending on journalists' employment type and positioning in relation to mainstream news media, (3) those who lean more towards activism tend to reject market-oriented logics; however, (4) those who rely on favela-based journalism as their main job call for better salaries like their mainstream counterparts; and (5) beyond individual journalists' aspirations, news projects are inevitably moving towards professionalization to secure funding and keep talent, moving away from volunteer-based models. To this extent, we call for a labour turn in community journalism, one that places less emphasis on intrinsic motivations and recognizes contextual differences.