Abstract
In 1926 European journalists’ trade unions formed the Fédération Internationale des Journalistes (FIJ) as the first international organization exclusively representing journalists. Its members committed the new body to assist ‘in the work of defending the professional interests’, and to safeguard ‘in all possible ways the liberty of the Press’.1 Throughout its existence, the FIJ focused on the former. It collected and synthesized information and generated international norms furthering the professionalization of journalism in the interwar period. The focus on professionalism, however, was only possible because liberal unions from the industrialized countries of Central and Western Europe dominated the FIJ. Until the mid-1930s, this ensured not only a refusal to address political issues such as the admission of communist and fascist unions but also prevented the accession of press associations from outside Europe. The FIJ was political by shunning all but liberal politics.
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Notes
Kubka and Nordenstreng (1986) Useful Recollections, Part I: Excursion into the History of the International Movement of Journalists, p. 53.
A short presentation of the FIJ and its successor the IOJ is included in Beyersdorf and Nordenstreng (2015) ‘History of the International Movement of Journalists: Shifting Drives of Profession, Labor and Politics’.
Herren (2009) Internationale Organisationen seit 1865: Eine Globalgeschichte der Internationalen Ordnung, pp. 53–58;
Löhr and Herren (2014) ‘Gipfeltreffen im Schatten der Weltpolitik: Arthur Sweetser und die Mediendiplomatie des Völkerbunds’, pp. 413–419; The League of Nations and the Press: International Press Exhibition (1928), pp. 7–31.
Tworek (2014), ‘Journalistic Statesmanship: Protecting the Press in Weimar Germany and Abroad’, pp. 571–576.
Lange (1991) Medienpolitik des Völkerbundes. The author of this chapter also has a study in preparation on the League’s and UN’s media policy.
Beyersdorf (2015) ‘Freedom of Communication: Visions and Realities of Postwar Telecommunication Orders in the 1940s’;
Headrick (1991) The Invisible Empire: Telecommunications and International Politics 1851–1945;
Pike and Winseck (2007) Communication and Empire: Media, Markets, and Globalization 1860–1930.
Valot (1938) ‘L’organisation Internationale des Journalistes et la Liberté de la Presse’, pp. 370–371.
Silberstein-Loeb (2014), The International Distribution of News, pp. 211–215.
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© 2016 Frank Beyersdorf
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Beyersdorf, F. (2016). First Professional International: FIJ (1926–40). In: A History of the International Movement of Journalists. Palgrave Studies in the History of the Media. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137530554_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137530554_4
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