This study concerns nine female journalists and their creation of their professional identity. Their stories have been written down in cooperation with the interviewer and interpreted hermeneutically (Ricoeur). The journalists position in the mass media organization is paradoxical. They are expected to act as defenders of democracy and free speech, but also to obey the "laws" of the mass media organization, such as efficiency and rationality. The thesis is that the paradoxical situation has impact on the creating of the journalists identity, often described in stereotypes such as the Pedagogue, the Storyteller etcetera. The narrative in the stories is contructed with the following elements: the step - into the profession, the confirmation and the repayment. When the journaliss take the step it turns out that everybody, except one, introduces a helper into the story: someone else told them to take the step. This can be interpreted in at least two ways; the helper takes the initiative and thereby reduces the self in the narrative, or he/she helps the journalist not to identify with a rational goaloriented (male) subject who selfconciously chooses journalism in order to changing the world, or at least save democracy, thus providing a possibility to creating another professional identity. The journalists are well acknowledged on their jobs, but the relation to the public is somewhat complicated. Finally a tentative attempt is made to find a concept that may capture their professional identities. The proposed concept is a "post-modern journalist identity", of which point of departure is not the modernist instrumental stereotypes, but the individuals constant creation of being a subject in their own stories, regardless of idols, class or gender.