Journalism is in crisis both economically and professionally. The traditional business models are no longer viable, the journalistic values and practices are changing. The driving force of this transformation is the development of digital media, which is changing how the news is produced, distributed and consumed by the audience. The negative effects of the mentioned processes fall on the journalist, who is left with the main burden of the crisis, since he has to, within unstable working conditions and while using new tools, produce more content for less money. We argue that the combination of detrimental working conditions and the degradation of journalistic profession is fundamentally changing the circumstances for carrying out journalistic work and is pushing journalists away from journalism. Despite the fact that the journalistic profession has always been considered as demanding and competitive with high fluctuation of personnel, we can establish that the conditions for performing journalistic work have additionally worsened in recent years. The master’s thesis is set going on three levels of research, the subject of the study being ex-journalists. We are interested in their reasoning for leaving the profession, the continuation of their career path and their relationship with journalism. The circumstances that define contemporary journalistic work are detailed in the theoretical part of the thesis, which also includes the intersection of contemporary empirical research of foreign authors. We have also expanded the research territory to the Slovenian media landscape with practical analysis in the form of in-depth interviews. On the one hand, we have established that the localized research mirrors the findings of foreign research to a large extent, but on the other hand also uncovers some national specifics and original results, which can serve as starting points for additional research of the subject matter. The latter will, in view of described trends, most likely become ever more relevant.
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