Journalists do live in a parallel universe: A response to practitioner critiques of journalism academics

The Journal of Applied Journalism and Media Studies (AJMS) is devoted to research with an applied angle in which a clear link is made between the prevalent theories and paradigms that media and communication scholars work with, and the real world where media and communication activities take place. Media and journalism scholars rarely cooperate with the actors with a say in media production. The actors broadly ‘resent’ or discard scholarly work that theorizes and interprets their practice. In an attempt to bridge this gap, AJMS has been and will be open to submissions by both practitioners and academics. It has published many articles by practitioners, which broadly have been critical of academic writings about journalism as theory and practice. Dr Jairo Lugo-Ocando of the University of Leeds, who himself was a reporter and editor before joining academia, comes to academia’s defence. While not absolving academics of the blame for lack of cooperation, he believes journalists also bear the brunt of the failure in rendering scholarly material useful and relevant to their profession.