There are many specific jobs/tasks that fall under the umbrella of journalism.

Like many professions, a simple descriptor like journalism or journalist is a high-level description of the types of task one may accomplish.

Like saying someone works in medicine – they could be a medical doctor, a surgeon, a specialist (brain surgeon, oncologist), a nurse, a chemist (pharmicist), and so on.

Therefore journalist covers several sub-type areas, who each have their function. And of course, the same person can be performing different aspects, or different roles (wearing different hats) depending on the circumstances (or their job at that particular point in time).

To me, the basic different roles covered under journalism are:
1) reporting (e.g. news reporter);
2) Investigative reporting;
3) Analyst.

== Reporter ==
A reporter is exactly that. They are reporting what is happening, the facts. They report what the police said, or witnesses, or what they saw, he said-she said, and so on.

This is what I expect from the nightly 6pm news shows. A recounting of the facts. I would not expect any personal opinions or analysis of what’s going on.

== Investigative Reporter ==
This is where we get into someone who ‘chases’ a particular in-depth story. They interview many people over a period of time, building up a major report. These are the types of situations where I’d expect fact checking, comparisons, calling people out on lies and so on. The ones getting in people’s faces to find out the ‘truth’.

== Analyst ==
Like the title says, analyse intelligence. Where in this case it’s getting the reports from reporters, and building up a bigger picture, tasking investigative reporters to root around for them and get them information. A “bigger picture” sort of person.

Different types of businesses undertake the different types of journalism. The nightly news is mostly just ‘reporting’. The current/breaking news in newspapers also.

The current affairs businesses (60 minutes, Foreign Correspondent, time magazine, wired, TechDirt, all these types of businesses) are of the investigative reporting/Analyst type businesses. Expose’s, and so on.

All of the above ARE journalism, they are just different aspects of it.

And the same person on different days could be undertaking different aspects. Someone could be known as a hard-hitting investigative reporter, but gets hired by a local TV station freelance to quickly grab a news report of a local event for that night’s nightly news.

Or they could be doing a completely different job. Say, as a moderator at a debate.

In general, a moderator at a debate is just a referee of the debate, to make sure the debaters stick to their time limits, to pass the questions around, and so on. It is not a moderators job, unless it has been explicitly listed as their job, to analyse, report on, the statements made by the debaters. They are not performing journalism, they are performing debate moderation, which is a different job.

Hiring a journalist to be a moderator at a debate is no different to hiring anyone else famous, a movie star, a sports star, local celebrity or what have you. The purpose is to make it look good by having someone famous in the mix. And for something like a debate, it just looks better if that famous person is a journalist or similar rather than a front-rower. It’s a publicity stunt.

If you wanted journalism, analytical/investigative-type journalism, you wouldn’t hold a debate. You’d hold a series of interviews.