Historically, the role of journalism in society is bound to the prevailing conceptualization of the freedom of the press, specific societal, institutional, and material conditions of news production. This study explores self-perceptions of journalists working in the period of socialist Yugoslavia and synthetizes their recollections of journalistic orientations, analyses journalistic performances with respect to journalism’s place in society, and explores the professional autonomy of journalists. The study is based on the in-person history interviews with former journalists, who worked also as editors and foreign correspondents from late 1950s to 1990s at the news agency Tanjug, which was considered the information backbone of the federal media system in Yugoslavia and had considerable international relevance.

Non-probability: Respondent-assistedNonprobability.RespondentAssisted

Face-to-face interviewInterview.FaceToFace