Beyond anthropocentrism: how journalists make the more-than-human world visible in Spanish written media

Non-human animals are systematically excluded from public narratives, rarely recognized as sentient subjects, and instead framed within anthropocentric narratives of production and consumption; efforts to challenge this pattern and make the more-than-human world visible often encounter editorial resistance and structural constraints. This study examines how anti-speciesist journalists in Spanish written media navigate such resistance to make non-human animals legitimate subjects of news. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with nine self-identified anti-speciesist journalists, analysed through reflexive thematic analysis, the study identifies strategies organized across four non-mutually exclusive categories, namely, discursive, relational, framing, and structural, ranging from self-censorship and strategic language use to coalition-building and the creation of independent platforms. Findings reveal a key distinction between visibility strategies, which succeed in securing publication, and root-level strategies, which challenge the carnist and anthropocentric assumptions structuring newsworthiness itself. These practices reveal the pragmatism, creativity, and resilience of journalists working under structural, ideological, and normative constraints, while also highlighting the limits of anti-speciesist reporting within mainstream media. The study contributes to Critical Animal Media Studies, environmental communication, and journalism research by illuminating the intersection of ethical advocacy, professional strategy, and counter-hegemonic practice and offers recommendations for expanding coverage of the more-than-human world across ideological, editorial, and structural divides.