Liderazgo

With their “World Journalism Project”, Hanitzsch et al. (2011) compare the institutional role, epistemology, and the ideological identity of journalists in Germany and Australia dur-ing the period in which this research took place.

Hanitzsch et al. (2011) carried out a comparative survey of 1,800 journalists in 18 countries (p. 273). Concentrating on Germany and Australia, he asked 100 journalists working in 20 news organisations in each country, including daily newspapers, general-interest weeklies (magazines/newspapers), one news agency as well as television and radio stations (pp. 277 f.). Online newsrooms were not part of the sample (Hanitzsch et al. 2011, p. 276).

However, Hanitzsch et al. (2011) selected five journalists each with some editorial respon-sibility in the 20 newsrooms, while the other 95 journalists were selected randomly (p. 276).

The methodology used for Germany and Australia, the two countries which are of interest for this research, were telephone interviews about their institutional roles, their epistemolo-gies and ethical views (Hanitzsch et al. 2011, p. 276).

The authors started with a literature review of the three aspects (institutional roles of jour-nalism in society, journalist’s epistemologies and ethical ideologies) (Hanitzsch et al. 2011, pp. 275 f.). Hanitzsch et al. (2011) first identified three dimensions of journalistic institu-tional roles: 1. Intervention, illustrating two types of journalists who are either involved, socially committed, assertive and motivated, or uninvolved, dedicated to objectivity, neu-trality, fairness and impartiality, 2. Power distance referring to either a journalism that is a

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“fourth estate”, which challenges those in power, or opportunistic journalists, who see them-selves as partners of the ruling elites, 3. Market orientation referring to the target audience in their role as a citizens/consumers, which is represented by journalistic cultures that either give priority to public interests or emphasise political information to create an informed cit-izenry (p. 275).

Second, epistemological underpinnings are discussed in terms of objectivity: 1. objectivism, i. e. journalists either believe that there is an objective truth, which can be reported, or all representations are inevitably selective and require interpretation, and 2. empiricism includ-ing a journalistic culture which either emphasises observation, measurement, evidence and experience, or accentuates reason, ideas, values, opinion, and analysis (Hanitzsch et al. 2011, p. 276).

Third, for the ideological identity, Hanitzsch et al. (2011) use the two dimensions of ethical ideologies which the psychologist Forsyth published in 1980. These are: 1. relativism which refers to journalists who have either the opinion that ethical decisions are dependent on the context or that journalists should rely on moral absolutes regardless of the context, and 2. Idealism which refers to journalists who are either highly idealistic and means-oriented or less idealistic and goal-oriented (p. 276).

A master questionnaire, based on the findings in the literature review and developed collab-oratively to guarantee intercultural validity, was first developed in English and then trans-lated into the relevant languages, using simple wording to reduce potential translation prob-lems (Hanitzsch et al. 2011, p. 278).

The first list of 12 items, which was designed to measure the institutional roles of journalists, includes five possible responses: “extremely important”, “very important”, “somewhat im-portant”, “little imim-portant”, and “not important at all”, the second list of 14 items designed to identify journalists’ epistemological beliefs and ethical ideologies includes the options

“strongly agree”, “somewhat agree”, “neither agree nor disagree”, “somewhat disagree” and

“strongly disagree” (Hanitzsch et al. 2011, p. 279).

First, the findings of Hanitzsch et al. (2011) in terms of the institutional role show that, in Germany, there is “a fairly strong emphasis on the motivational potentials of journalism…”

(p. 281) which includes values, such as “…non-involvement, detachment, monitoring the government, as well as providing political and interesting information to motivate the peo-ple…” focusing on political information (pp. 281 f.). Australian journalists have the same institutional role, but they focus on what they think is “interesting information” (Hanitzsch et al. 2011, p. 282). So, political issues are of great significance in Germany whereas, in

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Australia, newsworthiness is not connected with politics. This is why it is of considerable interest to compare the news values of Germany and Australia, an aspect which is discussed in Chapter 3.4.4.

Hanitzsch et al.’s (2011) findings about the second aspect, journalism epistemology, show that the most important issue for German journalists is to publish only material which is verified (p. 283). For Australian journalists it is most favourable to provide analysis of events and issues (Hanitzsch et al. 2011, p. 283).

Regarding ethical ideologies, the authors found that German journalists do not accept per-sonal influence, such as own interpretations of events and issues, whereas Australian jour-nalists agree to an “…interpretative but factual mode of reporting” (Hanitzsch et al. 2011, p. 284). Moreover, questionable methods of reporting are not an option for German journal-ists, as Germany is part of the “absolutist” paradigm which states that journalists “…usually follow universal rules of ethical professional conduct…” (Hanitzsch et al. 2011, p. 286).

These results are interesting, but older studies claim the opposite (see, for example, Dons-bach 1982, Köcher 1985, Kepplinger 1979). However, Weischenberg et al. (2006) also stated in his research on journalism in Germany, which is further discussed in Chapter 3.4.3, that the majority of German journalists are much more reluctant to engage in unethical practices than they were 12 years ago (p. 257). The unauthorised use of government documents is acceptable for some German journalists (25 per cent), while other practices are used vanish-ingly low (masquerading as an employer: 11 per cent, adopting a different opinion to get information: 11 per cent, pretending to be a different person: 8 per cent, paying money for information: 6 per cent, using hidden microphones/cameras: 5 per cent) (Weischenberg et al. 2006, p. 257). Admittedly, these results do not completely exclude unethical behaviour as Hanitzsch et al. (2011) does, but it shows that there might be a change of thinking in journalism in Germany.

Unlike in Germany, Australian journalists are more open to unethical behaviour. There jour-nalists say that it “depends on the situation” (Hanitzsch et al. 2011, pp. 285 f.).

Hanusch (2008), who was responsible for the Australian research on 100 journalists in the mainstream media as part of the global journalism research project carried out by Hanitzsch et al. (2011), published his findings in another journal with more detailed results about the Australian journalism culture. The basis for his survey was the aforementioned methodology and framework developed by Hanitzsch et al. (2011, p. 5).

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Concentrating on the epistemology, Hanusch (2008) says that Australian journalists claimed that “…their beliefs and convictions did not influence their reporting” (p. 7). Regarding eth-ical ideologies “…two-thirds believe there are etheth-ical principles which should always be followed” (Hanusch 2008, p. 7). Both aspects are examined together by Hanusch (2008) with the following results: 81 per cent of the participating journalists “agreed” or “strongly agreed” that “I make claims only if they are substantiated by hard evidence and reliable sources.”, 78 per cent stated that “I provide analysis of events and issues in my work.”, 69 per cent stated that “I remain strictly impartial in my work.”, 70 per cent said that “There are ethical principles which are so important that they should be followed by all journalists, regardless of what situation and context.”, and 69 per cent stated that “I do not allow my own beliefs and convictions to influence my reporting” (Hanusch 2008, pp. 9 f.). These re-sults somewhat soften the assumption of more sensational coverage in Australian journalism because of terms such as “hard evidence”, “reliable sources” and “strictly impartial”. Nev-ertheless, that Australian journalists “provide analysis” means that they interpret the findings represented in their coverage. Hanusch (2008), however, comments that journalism in Aus-tralia follows “…the traditional values of the media as the fourth estate…” (p. 8) and its journalists are “…passive, adversarial and objective reporters…” (p. 8).

Comparing the results for Germany and Australia in relation to the work attitude of jour-nalists (see Table 9), there are some major differences in how jourjour-nalists define their work.

In Germany, journalists seem to refer to strong ethical rules and regulations, which do not accept opinions in the form of interpretation and analysis of the represented facts. In Aus-tralia, a personal view on a topic seems to be acceptable as long as supporting facts are given.

These characteristics in terms of Australian journalists’ work attitude is to see as critical as also sceptical voices – i. e. journalists with a climate-change-sceptical attitude – might have a say and might spread this opinion via their medium. Facts to support climate-change-scep-tical media messages could easily be found as there exists also scientific work about the non-existence of climate change.

Moreover, the fact that German journalists concentrate on “political information” whereas Australian journalists look for “interesting information” gives rise to the assumption that there may be more articles with a focus on political actors in German newspapers than in Australian ones.

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Table 9: Subject sphere: comparison of German and Australian journalism work attitudes

Aspect of journalism work

atti-tude Germany Australia

Material must be verified High Extremely high

Special focus High

(political information) High

(interesting information) Provides analysis of events and

issues Low High

Personal opinion/interpretation Low High

Ethical principles should be

fol-lowed by all journalists High High

Values of the media represent

the “fourth estate” No information available High