This study is based on a survey of 13 mass media and 152 journalists in Taiwan in 2002. In a nutshell, the amount of journalists that left mass media is more than that entered in last year. This led to the increase of working burden and the high rate of employee ’s mobility. Meanwhile, the typical working conditions of Taiwanese journalists are low income, overwork, no support from employer, no training, being asked to purchase particular facilities, no union, etc. Consequently, both the average evaluations of "job satisfaction" and "perceived autonomy and professionalism" by the respondents are below 60 points in a 100-point-scale, by which means that journalists are not gratified with their work in terms of the two indexes. According to the results of survey on journalists, this research also establishes a "three-category model," which explains the specialty of journalistic labor process and analyzes the factors resulting in the different working conditions among journalists. The finding suggests, first, that the "skill\\reputation" is the major source of journalists ’ autonomy and an important category of variables influencing some working conditions, including income and employment aspiration. Second, the "characteristics of news work" is the category of variables that relates to the journalists ’ overwork and high pressure. This model reveals the fact that the journalist is a laborer rather than a profession and provides an approach in analyzing journalists through the laborer ’s perspective.