journalist
Americannoun
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journalists
plural
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a person who practices the occupation or profession of journalism.
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a person who keeps a journal, diary, or other record of daily events.
noun
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a person whose occupation is journalism
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a person who keeps a journal
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of journalist
Explanation
A journalist is a person whose job involves writing nonfiction stories for newspapers, magazines, or online news sites. If you are reading or hearing a news story, you have a journalist to thank for providing that story. One type of journalist is a reporter, who researches topics and interviews people before writing a story or producing a piece for TV. Editors, photographers, and columnists can also be described as journalists, particularly if they work for a newspaper. Another kind of journalist is a person who regularly writes in a journal or diary. Journalist comes from the Old French jornel, "day" or "day's work," which became journal, "daily publication."
Vocabulary lists containing journalist
Journalism
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"Hip-Hop as Culture" and "I Am Somebody"
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This Week in Words: Current Events Vocabulary for April 1–April 7, 2023
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Infante likes using a word coined by journalist H.L.
From Salon ● Aug. 15, 2026
A former ABC News journalist is suing former colleague CBS News Chief Correspondent Matt Gutman over inappropriate remarks he allegedly made when they worked together several years ago.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 14, 2026
A productive historian and polemical journalist, Hobsbawm rarely used archival research, but he knew European history.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
Yet the journalist appears reluctant to focus on the pressures he's under, preferring instead to highlight the plight of compatriots in prison.
From BBC ● Aug. 13, 2026
She diligently read the Twelve Towns’ paper every week and followed everything their star journalist, Tiordan Whisperbrew, wrote.
From "Witchlings" by Claribel A. Ortega
As residents, activists, farmers and journalists squeezed and jostled through the crowd, holding court in one corner was Budd-Falen, the high-ranking official with the Interior Department.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 16, 2026
For cricket fans, journalists and pundits, this is also peak time for the eternal debate that rumbles on about the future of The Hundred, its relevances, and its success.
From BBC ● Aug. 15, 2026
Residents in Nagekeo, the area closest to the epicentre, raced for higher ground as the sea retreated earlier Saturday -- a possible sign of an approaching tsunami, AFP journalists witnessed.
From Barron's ● Aug. 15, 2026
But in the Kimana reserve, AFP journalists saw six carcasses on Wednesday -- some fresh, others older -- with rangers also observing partial paralysis, preventing the animals from standing.
From Barron's ● Aug. 13, 2026
Asked by journalists why he didn’t just cut American losses and leave Vietnam, Johnson repeated a pledge he had made many times: “I’m not going to be the first American president to lose a war.”
From "Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War" by Steve Sheinkin
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
