Questions of Judgment in the Newsroom:
A Journalistic Instrumental-Value Theory for Media Ethics
Patrick Lee Plaisance
Assistant Professor
Colorado State University
Department of Journalism and Technical Communication
C 236A Clark Building
Fort Collins, Colorado 80523
Phone: (970) 491 6484
FAX: (970) 491 2908
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Questions of Judgment in the Newsroom:
A Journalistic Instrumental-Value Theory for Media Ethics
Abstract
Current media ethics theorizing remains preoccupied with building competing
normative philosophical frameworks, yet does not often focus on the
construction and operation of human value systems - which arguably are the
engines that drive most ethical deliberations. This study uses social
psychology research on value systems to construct a profile of journalistic
values using a modified version of the Rokeach Value Survey. A nationwide
probability-sample survey of 600 newspaper journalists produced a response
rate of 59 percent (N = 355). Survey results, together with a series of
in-depth interviews, suggest that 1) journalists may have an inadequate
conceptualization of journalistic autonomy; 2) the field suffers from an
excessively wide range to which journalists embrace the goal of transparent
deliberation; and 3) the journalistic mission to "minimize harm" requires
clarification within the profession.
Questions of Judgment in the Newsroom:
A Journalistic Instrumental-Value Theory for Media Ethics
The controversial forces shaping contemporary journalism have drawn
enormous attention from media theorists, practitioners and outside
observers (Goldberg, 2001; Kuypers, 2002; Alterman, 2003). Indeed, several
critics have argued that journalism is "in crisis" and that the fate of the
profession depends on the outcome of the struggle between its traditional
core principles and the trend of corporatization (Kovach & Rosenstiel,
2001). "[T]his is a pivotal moment in which the scales are hanging in the
balance," according to one recent book. "We do not know whether quality
journalism or schlock sensationalism will prevail" (Gardner,
Csikszentmihalyi & Damon, 2001, p. 152). The profession appears to be at an
ethical crossroads; a disturbing 63 percent of journalists recently
interviewed perceived a decline in values and ethics within their field
(Gardner et al., p. 128). The last two books mentioned dwell extensively on
the role of values in guiding the work of journalists; indeed, in their
protocol used to interview journalists, Gardner, Csikszentmihalyi and Damon
were interested, as this study is, in exploring the values, standards and
beliefs that journalists say inform their work (p. 259-262). Obviously,
many different forces will continue to shape the journalism that we see -
forces of technology, economics and corporate ownership, of cultural norms
and the diverse demands of various audiences. But the values embraced by
the profession also will help determine what kind of journalism will
"prevail" in the future. It is more critical than ever to have a precise
understanding of the values claimed by journalists.
Literature Review
The media ethics literature is filled both with calls to more clearly
define the values that govern media practitioners and with claims about
which values ought to drive good journalism. A large number of media
ethicists have responded by trying to document the ethical policies of
journalists (Black, Barney & Van Tubergen, 1979; Singletary, Caudill,
Caudill & White, 1990; White & Pearce, 1991; Voakes, 1997) or promoting
broad, normative frameworks for ethical behavior (Klaidman & Beauchamp,
1987; Merrill, 1990; Lambeth, 1992; Christians, Ferr‚ & Fackler, 1993). But
the public-perception gap and low morale in the field suggest the need for
an examination of more fundamental philosophical processes underlying such
recurring questions as at what point does a reporter begin intruding on a
subject's privacy and how to handle sources insisting on anonymity. The
values that we hold, or the philosophical principles on which we base our
reasons for doing things - claims to truth, social justice, fairness -
constitute the engine that drives discussions of ethics. Michael Stocker
and other philosophers refer to the challenges and implications of multiple
human values: "[P]lural values are the rule rather than the exception .
[and] many, if not most, ordinary choices involve plural values; and
thus.if plurality engenders problems of judgment, then even our ordinary
life at its most ordinary is, contrary to appearances, problematic" (p. 178).
The problem of applying competing or conflicting values continues to
intrigue media ethicists. "Journalists frequently lay claim to broad
principles, such as a commitment to truth. Yet they offer little insight
into how to move from that principle to practice, such as deciding whether
absolute accuracy or clear meaning (through editing) is more important to
the `truth' of quotations" (Boeyink, 1992, p. 110). There is little
question over whether ethical frameworks are used in journalistic
decision-making. The most substantive discussions revolve around the
factors that influence that process (Shoemaker, 1997; Voakes, 1997) or the
philosophical underpinnings of a democratic free press (Kidder, 1995;
Merrill, 1997; Christians & Traber, 1997). Others have sought to explore
the journalistic applications of particular philosophical applications
(Baker, 1997; Cunningham, 1999). Much of the media ethics literature seeks
to weigh broad, philosophical approaches against each other in the search
for a normative system, often concluding with compelling but vague calls
for "pluralistic" thinking (Lambeth, 1992; Christians, Ferr‚ & Fackler,
1993). However, few can be considered mutually exclusive, and many share
fundamental philosophical principles or values, such as autonomy or
universality or social welfare.
Yet virtually nowhere in the field has social psychology research into the
nature of values been brought to bear on this discussion. The proposed
journalistic instrumental-value theory argues that the conventional
applications of philosophical approaches in media ethics research are not
comprehensive enough to explain - and therefore predict - journalistic
behavior. Rather, social psychology research suggests that media
practitioners operate by constantly reassessing the primacy and relevancy
of each within a set of fixed, so-called instrumental values as they are
applied to diverse ethical questions.
Issues of media ethics subsume questions of fact into the search for
appropriate responses and policies that are value-based. Rokeach's
definition of value has informed much contemporary value analysis: "More
formally, to say that a person `has a value' is to say that he has an
enduring belief that a particular mode of conduct or that a particular
end-state of existence is personally and socially preferable to alternative
modes of conduct or end-states of existence" (1968, p. 550). Values,
research suggests, are relatively stable over time for members within a
given group.
Lazarsfeld and Merton (1948) argued that the media maintain cultural
consensus by reaffirming norms. Nearly two decades later, Breed (1964)
elaborated on the complexity of the dynamic of media socialization
involving values (p. 187). As Voakes said, the common denominator for all
philosophical approaches is the concept of values, which are important in
describing one's moral orientation (1997, p. 20). Elliott argued that our
moral development depends upon an "assumption of universality" of shared
values (1997, p. 69). Lambeth proposes a system of moral reasoning based on
the weighing of five principles he has derived from philosophical ideals,
codes of ethics and practices among journalists. In these and other
instances, researchers have sought to boil down of philosophical writings
to a refined series of guidelines for journalism ethics.
Linking media ethics and value theory research.
Research into values has an extensive history in sociology and social
psychology and has culminated in a body of theory that suggests individuals
conduct their social lives according to a "value system" - "a hierarchical
arrangement of values, a rank-ordering of values along a continuum of
importance" (Rokeach, 1968, p. 551). Research also has produced
sophisticated assessment instruments used in value analysis, most notably
the Rokeach Value Survey that has been widely used since the early 1970s.
The Rokeach Value Survey, which assesses the respondent's rank-ordering of
18 values in two distinct categories, has been independently validated and
used extensively to compare the value systems of individuals as well as
diverse cultures. Values, research also suggests, are relatively stable
over time for members in a given group.
Using the Rokeach Value Survey, researchers have examined the influence of
values on television viewing behavior (Becker & Conner, 1981; McCarty &
Shrum, 1993), the value systems of city planners and managers (Edwards &
Galloway, 1981), and how values guide the ideological outlooks of social
workers (Koeske & Crouse, 1981). The value survey also has been used to
examine how specific instrumental values and internalized messages work
together when individuals self-assess their behavior (Smith, Ellis & Yoo,
2001).
The value-theory research of sociologists has not been widely utilized by
media theorists, who have largely focused their work on cognitive
psychology and on normative frameworks drawn from philosophical approaches.
Black and colleagues (1992) examined how the content of an ethics course
alters the value systems of journalism students. Viall (1992) proposed
applying a modified Rokeach survey to explore journalistic values, but only
in a notably constricted approach. This study adds six values to the list
of 18 instrumental values included in the Rokeach Value Survey. Other
researchers using the Rokeach Value Survey (Braithwaite & Law, 1985) have
noted that the value list does not adequately represent "basic human
rights" such as dignity, privacy and protection from harm (p. 260); the
values added to the instrument for this study should help to close that gap.
This study explores the suggestion that the conventional applications of
philosophical approaches alone do not adequately explain journalistic
behavior. Rather, social psychology research suggests that media
practitioners operate by constantly reassessing the primacy and relevancy
of each within a set of fixed, so-called instrumental values as they are
applied to diverse ethical questions. Despite the body of literature,
little research has sought to identify the values at work as journalists
deliberate over ethical issues. Nor has research attempted to examine the
interactive dynamic among these values within various journalistic ethical
frameworks in a way that illuminates the decision-making processes of
journalists. This study is motivated by the following research questions:
RQ1: What is the value system of journalists?
RQ2: In what ways do journalists' value systems reflect normative ethical
frameworks?
RQ3: In what ways do their value systems suggest that journalists have an
inadequate grasp of ethical principles?
Method
The survey.
This project is based on a nationwide random-sample survey, stratified by
state, of 600 newspaper journalists conducted in early 2002. The
individual journalists constitute two groups: newspaper reporters and
newspaper editors, with one of each drawn from each newspaper in a
stratified random selection.
The number of newspapers needed from each state for proportional
representation was calculated, with a target total of 300. A table of
random numbers was used to select the established number of newspapers. To
prevent the large number of small daily newspapers from being
overrepresented, major metro dailies with circulations of 150,000 or more
were weighted.
A single middle-tier editor (team editor, metro editor, city editor, etc.)
and a single reporter were selected using a table of random numbers applied
to each group on each newspaper's staff list. These staff lists are
commonly available on newspaper Web sites. Phone calls were made to verify
the presence of each selected journalist when necessary.
The survey instrument was paper-based and was mailed. A key characteristic
of the original Rokeach Value Survey is its interactive element using
adhesive tabs. Each value has its own tab, which respondents manipulate and
rank. The modified value survey used for this project mimics this feature
as much as possible, using a two-page label sheet. A license to use a
modified version of the Rokeach instrument was obtained from Consulting
Psychologists Press of Palo Alto, CA. Rokeach found that the value survey,
when conventionally presented on paper, had a "somewhat lower" test-retest
reliability than the gummed-label version (1973, p. 33).
The initial mailings were sent in mid-January 2002, and the second wave of
mailings was sent during the third week of January. Follow-up phone calls
to non-respondents were made before the second wave was mailed. The
complete instrument was sent in second and subsequent waves. A third wave
of mailings was conducted during the first week of February.
The interviews.
To supplement the quantitative data generated by the survey, this study
conducted a series of in-depth interviews with a small selection of
respondents to flesh out the value motivations and thought processes
underlying the survey responses. The survey instrument provides information
on the extent to which journalists embrace certain values more tightly than
others.
Since the research questions at the heart of this study are concerned with
journalists' perceptions of their values and how they articulate the
deliberative process, loosely structured interviews were chosen as the most
appropriate method. This decision implies a constructionist approach aimed
at discovering, as Silverman said, how subjects actively create meaning
(2001, p. 95). How journalists struggle to articulate the dynamics of
values in their work is presumed to be as important as what they actually
say about those values.
The interview subjects were selected with the aim of maximizing
variability and diversity of perspectives. The values that we hold as
individuals are naturally intrinsic to our identity constructions and
necessarily reflect our unique experiences, exposures, opportunities and
backgrounds. To ensure that interviews encompass the widest possible
variety of value perspectives, selection of subjects proceeded so that the
broadest possible ranges of ethnic, educational and job-experience
backgrounds were sought, while simultaneously maximizing use of travel time
and expenses. While the limitations of geographic distribution of
respondents, individual consent and availability are acknowledged, the
selection of interview subjects also had the aim of achieving a diversity
of subjects based on gender, age, newspaper circulation size and journalism
experience. The demographic data obtained in the survey instrument were
used to help select interview subjects to achieve diversity on all these
dimensions. As Bogdan and Biklen (1998) suggested, interviews are useful
"in conjunction with" other techniques to develop a deeper understanding of
how subjects are interpreting and reasoning through their own environments
(p. 94).
Fifteen journalists were interviewed at six newspapers of varying sizes in
New Jersey, North Carolina and California in March and April 2002. Subjects
included veteran reporters and editors as well as some younger subjects new
to both capacities.
For this study, the journalists' efforts to come to an understanding of
values, their meanings, and their functions, proved as valuable as their
literal utterances on the subject. Rather than merely documenting
journalists' claims about values or fleshing out the quantitative survey
data, the interviews served to explore what Mills (1940) referred to as
"vocabularies of motive," and to uncover what Gilbert and Mulkay called
"the patterned character of participants' portrayals of action" (1983, p. 24).
Results
The survey: A profile of journalistic values.
The survey elicited 355 usable responses, or a response rate of 59
percent. Respondents ranged from neophyte reporters at small rural papers
just on the job for a few months to veteran executive and managing editors
at some of the country's largest metro dailies. Of the responses, 171, or
48.2 percent, were from editors of some kind - executive editors, managing
editors, metro editors, business editors and other section editors. Writers
and reporters responsible for a variety of beats - general assignment,
politics, sports, education, city government, etc. - accounted for 184 of
the responses, or 51.8 percent (Table 1).
The results of this study provide an empirical basis that has been lacking
in such discussions, offering for the first time a generalizable hierarchy
of values of newspaper journalists across the country. This journalistic
value profile suggests that, far from working in a moral vacuum,
journalists bring to bear a number of morality-based and competency-based
values on their everyday ethical decision-making. The resulting value
profile appears to be dominated by a concern for journalistic credibility,
given the highest-ranked values, including "Honest," "Responsible" and "Fair."
Three respondents did not rank the values but completed other sections of
the survey, giving the value rankings a total of 352 valid responses.
"Honest" was ranked the most important value by most journalists by far -
more than one-third of all journalists ranked it No. 1, and another 62
journalists ranked it at No. 2 (Table 2). More journalists ranked "Honest"
in either one of those positions than all other positions combined.
"Honest" was followed by "Fair;" roughly half of all journalists placed
this value in one of the top three spots. Those two morally oriented values
were followed by two values that Rokeach related to the concept of
competency: "Responsible" and "Capable." Nearly one-half of the journalists
ranked "Responsible" at positions 2 through 5.
When testing his original list of instrumental values on different
populations, Rokeach said the average intercorrelation among the rankings
for all the instrumental values was -.06, which suggested that each of the
values could be considered discrete, valid measures for different concepts.
While several of the original values do significantly correlate with each
other due to an intrinsic parallelism of the concepts involved (i.e.,
"Responsible" and "Self-controlled"), the intercorrelations for the
rankings of the original values by journalists in this project mirror those
of Rokeach. More importantly, the six journalistic-oriented values added by
this project also show negligible intercorrelations with averages ranging
from -.03 to -.059, which suggest that each of the added values is in fact
measuring additional concepts and not simply other dimensions of values
already listed.
Just as valuable as the top-ranked values are the middle-rank values.
Since research has shown that middle-ranked values "exert little
differential effect on behavior" (Mahoney & Pechura, 1980, p. 1009), this
can indicate which concepts journalists may give lip service to as valuable
but that don't necessarily influence their work. Most notable among the
values stuck in the middle of the pack is "Minimizing harm," ranked at No.
14 - one of the six values added by this project to the original list of 18
instrumental values from Rokeach. The fact that journalists consistently
refused to rank this value among the most important contradicts the
emphasis on minimizing harm in much of the media ethics literature. Only 40
journalists ranked this value among their top five. The same can be said
for another of the six added values, "Empathetic," which was ranked just
below "Minimizing harm" by journalists at No. 15 (Table 2).
The lowest-ranked values ("Clean," "Loving," "Obedient," "Cheerful" and
"Forgiving") understandably have the least relevance for most journalists.
Ranked seventh from the bottom is "Civic-minded," another of the six added
by this project to the original list of 18 values. The journalists' overall
rankings suggest that if the six added values instead replaced the
bottom-ranked values deemed least relevant to journalists, "Civic-minded"
would have been ranked at the bottom. The dismissal of this value by
journalists may well be considered a confirmation of the fears of many
journalists who argue that taking "community building" as the goal of local
journalism amounts to little more than boosterism. However, the low ranking
of the value also contradicts some media ethicists (Klaidman & Beauchamp,
1987; Christians et al., 1993; Pasquali, 1997) as well as other writers
(Fallows, 1997) who argue that the contemporary American media refuse at
their peril to embrace a more communitarian outlook. The value label,
however, may have triggered possibly negative associations with the
controversial practice of civic or public journalism for many respondents.
The interviews: Perceptions and manifestations of values.
"There are just certain tenets that you just absolutely have to follow -
you have to be accurate and you have to be fair," said John Gryka, deputy
managing editor at the Riverside, Calif., Press-Enterprise. "And if you
don't do that, you're not doing a good job." Gryka's statement could well
constitute a mantra of sorts for the journalists who were interviewed. It
also reflects and reinforces several of the values that an overwhelming
majority of journalists ranked at the top of their lists as survey
respondents: "Honest" (No. 1), "Fair" (No. 2) and "Capable" (No. 4).
Without prompting, the top half-dozen values dominated much of the
interview discussions. Journalists repeatedly talked about the importance
of being accurate and of dealing with others - story subjects or sources -
in a straightforward way. Both of these are key components of the
top-ranked value of "Honest." The journalist's first allegiance must be to
the dissemination of accurate information, they said. This claim is
critical for the foundation of any journalistic value theory.
The third-ranked value of "Responsible" also surfaced in many different
contexts during the interviews. Most notably, journalists often seemed to
be trying to verbalize the importance of being responsible when they
referred to being guided by a moral or internal "compass." Answerability
also is an important component of being responsible; journalists repeatedly
acknowledged that they are held to account by their audiences. Often,
accountability was expressed in the context of the perennial disconnect
between journalists and the public. Audiences may define responsible
behavior in ways very different than journalists, yet this fact did not
appear to diminish the importance of responsibility for journalists
interviewed.
When Daniel Nonte, a reporter at the Greensboro News & Record, checked his
inclination to dismiss tenants noisily protesting local housing
redevelopment plans and took the time to learn about their complaints, he
said he was trying to act objectively. But he also was demonstrating the
sense of open-mindedness that many journalists likely had in mind while
ranking "Broadminded" so highly at No. 5. The ability to sense when other
sources of information and perspectives exist and the initiative to seek
them out are highly valued among journalists. The value of broadmindedness
also was suggested in journalists' discussions about their role as public
servants. The "broad middle" range of opinions often is more difficult to
get and less sexy as story material, but it is important for good
journalism, as Winston-Salem Journal reporter John Railey emphasized.
Discussion
Linking the survey results and the interviews.
The value profile raises some important questions about journalists'
understanding of several key philosophical concepts that drives many of the
claims of media ethicists. The nature of that dynamic of values appears to
be an Aristotelian search for moderation, for ways to balance the interests
of news subject, reading public and wider community, as the journalists
repeatedly indicated in the interviews conducted during this project. At
the same time, both the survey and the interviews suggest a "layering" of
journalistic values, with the top-ranked values equally supporting an
overarching principle of credibility. This layered value structure affirms
the conclusion by Williams, who suggested that it is simplistic to view
single values as reliable guides to behavior. "More often particular acts
or sequences of acts are steered by multiple and changing clusters of
values," he said (1968, p. 287). The layered structure of values suggested
by this study appears to inform journalistic behavior regardless of any
distinction among the types of ethical issues that newspaper journalists
commonly face.
Credibility: An overarching principle.
The issue of media credibility continues to preoccupy journalists.
Journalism textbooks and academic journal articles continually emphasize
the importance of cultivating credibility. In 1998, the American Society of
Newspaper Editors launched a major, $1 million "Journalism Credibility
Project" designed to identify threats to journalists' credibility and
implement strategies at participating newspapers based on the research to
"build reader trust" (ASNE, 1998, p. 2).
Concern for credibility also appears to be a subtext of the value rankings
of this study. The values that survey respondents ranked at the top of
their lists - "Honest," "Fair," "Responsible," "Capable," "Broadminded" and
"Just" - all can be considered important components of media credibility.
Honesty, fairness, balance and a sense of believability are elements of
trust, of a notion that a news organization can be held to account. The
standard deviations for all of the six top-ranked values are relatively
small, suggesting little disagreement among respondents that they
constitute a core set of values (Table 2).
These six thus appear to provide the foundation for a "layering" of
journalistic principles; "Honest," "Responsible" and "Capable" can be said
to constitute a sense of believability, while "Fair," "Broadminded" and
"Just" suggest an idea of balance. The overarching principle of credibility
will necessarily rest on all of these to varying degrees (Figure 1). The
top-ranked values are essential for the roles they play as components of
credibility, and less as isolated factors guiding decision-making - an
example of the so-called "clusters of values" to which Williams referred.
The standard deviation of "Honest," the top-ranked value, puts it in a
category by itself: The difference between the standard deviation of
"Honest" and the next value, "Fair," is considerably larger than the
differences of the standard deviations of any of the other top six values
(Table 2). The profession routinely invokes truthfulness as its gospel, and
the survey results, as well as the interview data, reflect this.
An irony of this preoccupation with media credibility is that the concept
is not a static one. Journalists cannot simply invoke the top-ranked values
in their
work and then claim to be credible. The essence of credibility is found in the
interaction between the media and the audience. Credibility emerges from
the interactive process of communication - of sending messages, having
those messages received, and then having the receiver assess or respond to
those messages. Thus, credibility is defined not only by the content of
what is communicated, but also by the nature of the transmission and of its
reception. High media credibility implies a process in which messages are
communicated effectively and received by an audience that assesses the
message - and hence the sender - in a positive way. However, cognitive
psychology research has shown that we are liable to mistakenly assess
messages - or fail to receive them entirely - through simple inattention,
failure to perceive given cues, or an inability to provide a mental context
for a projected situation. Gunter (1987) showed that audiences misinterpret
news stories if television news segments are poorly packaged. And other
research has shown that our memory for information may vary not only with
the difficulty of the material, but that different cultural and social
groups of people may remember information in different ways.
Thus, conflicting perceptions of credibility by an audience can result in
the rejection of a generally "credible" journalist or news organization.
This caution should serve to temper journalists' fixation on gaining
credibility. While the cultivation of credibility is a valuable goal, its
pursuit should not overshadow a journalistic emphasis on service.
Journalistic instrumental-value theory: A prescription.
While the survey results and interview data present a much-needed and
compelling profile of journalistic values, the intent of this study is to
point to ways in which the field of media ethics can move beyond
description and to begin building a theory of values that ought to guide
journalistic decisions. We have seen what the value hierarchies of
journalists actually are and how those values appear to be expressed and
embodied in their work. But are these values the appropriate ones to be
used to guide behavior and shape decision-making? Are the values on which
journalists place the highest priority the right ones? Do some values
appear to be mistakenly dismissed, perhaps because of misunderstanding of
the philosophical concepts involved?
As has been discussed, the cluster of top-ranked values constitutes
critical components of the broader principle of credibility, and, as long
as the above-noted cautions are acknowledged, this is appropriate. The
credibility of a news organization is the source from which its power and
effectiveness stems. To see the importance of credibility so uniformly
underscored by journalists nationwide should be gratifying to fellow
journalists and skeptical readers alike. However, the fact that values such
as "Ambitious," "Imaginative" and even "Capable," generally were ranked
above values such as "Independent," "Aboveboard" and "Minimizing harm"
suggests that there are several inadequacies in this value profile. The
respondents' rankings - and their articulation of values in the interviews
- suggest that journalists may have an insufficient grasp of certain key
philosophical concepts that should be more prominent in a normative ethic.
The central role of autonomy.
The code of ethics published by the Society for Professional Journalists,
coming in at fewer than three pages, is not a lengthy document. But one of
the prominent principles is the directive to "act independently." Media
ethics textbooks and journals offer numerous case studies to illustrate the
damage that occurs when journalistic independence is compromised by certain
interests. This independence from interference or influence is clearly
fundamental to the idea of credibility that survey respondents appeared to
emphasize. If journalists or news organizations are perceived as presenting
news and information for the benefit of particular interests, credibility
is quickly destroyed. And yet the same survey respondents appeared to
dismiss the value "Independent," giving it the inconsequential ranking of
13 out of all the 24 values.
Why would professional journalists, working in a field that often has
enshrined individualism and that constantly invokes its autonomy under the
First Amendment, give so little weight to the value "Independent?" There
may well be diversity in the way journalists define the term. Independent
from whom is certainly a legitimate question. If it refers to reporters'
autonomy from editors, journalists may well perceive it as much less
important than the independence from advertisers or outside political
pressures. And in an industry dominated by media conglomerates, how might
it be possible to enjoy complete autonomy from one's corporate parent, and
exactly what forms would it take? Clearly, journalistic independence
encompasses several different dimensions. However, one reason for the
relatively low priority placed on the value in this study may be that in
general, journalists have an inadequate grasp of the concept of autonomous
agency. It is entirely understandable that respondents, if the concept of
journalistic credibility was in the forefront of their minds as they
considered the list of values to be ranked, gravitated toward values such
as "Honest," "Fair" and "Just." If they had given any thought to the notion
of journalistic autonomy, they might even have concluded that it was
sufficiently implied in the value "Responsible." But, in fact, the
philosophical concept of autonomy should be considered of equal importance,
and not ancillary, to the concept of responsibility. The two are critically
linked, and thus neither can be divorced from the concept of credibility.
Philosophers have long claimed that the concepts of autonomous agency and
responsibility are two sides of the same coin. And if the relationship
between the two concepts is symbiotic in any way, autonomy must be
considered antecedent. Kant explicitly rooted moral responsibility,
expressed by the categorical imperative of universalizable action, within
autonomous agency (Copleston, 1964, p. 121). Berlin made the link between
autonomy and responsibility explicit when he articulated his concept of
"positive" freedom, which refers to our ability to shape our own lives
based on our own goals and aspirations. Positive freedom, Berlin argued,
derives from the wish "to be conscious of myself as a thinking, willing,
active being, bearing responsibility for my choices" (1969, p. 131). Haydon
said a key condition for being a responsible agent is the possession of
"certain normal psychological capacities of understanding, reasoning and
control" over one's behavior (1978, p. 47). Buchanan even suggested that we
have a moral responsibility to appreciate the autonomous agency of
individuals apart from the effects of their actions, or their state of
accountability:
To a certain extent and within certain limits, to respect a person as a
person - as an autonomous chooser of ends and former of beliefs - is to set
aside consequentalist considerations in order to give due consideration to
the fact that they are his beliefs and that it is he who is responsible for
them (1979, p. 554) [author's emphasis].
More recently, in his landmark work on moral responsibility and obligation,
Scanlon argued that our capacity to exist as autonomous beings is what
allows us to value freedom of choice. This freedom, consequently, provides
the basis for our understanding of moral responsibility:
Once we understand the positive reasons that people have for wanting
opportunities to make choices that will affect what happens to them, what
they owe to others, and what others owe to them, we can see also how their
having had such opportunities can play a crucial role in determining what
they can reasonably object to (1998, p. 251).
What Scanlon refers to as our "judgment-sensitive attitudes" stem from our
rational agency, and we are only substantively responsible for our actions
when they can be clearly linked to opportunities we have had to make choices.
If survey respondents presumed that ranking the value "Responsible" highly
adequately implies the concept of journalistic independence, there is a
problem with how journalists have come to understand autonomous agency.
Clearly, autonomy is an explicit requirement for responsible action;
without it, responsibility is rendered as little more than some vague idea
of good behavior whose definition can be manipulated to suit the moment. In
a normative ethics, the link must be prominent, explicit and significantly
more informed.
Transparent deliberation: An essential goal.
All worthwhile analyses have at least one aspect in common: They never
lose sight of the basics of the field on which the analysis is focused.
Ethics is fundamentally concerned with our search for quality in our
justifications of what we deem "right." It addresses the nature of our
deliberation and the strength of the rationales that we arrive at for a
given question. In journalism ethics, this is particularly important to
keep in mind; in many cases, the final decision to run or not to run a
story, to grant anonymity or pass up a source, really does matter less than
the justification for the decision. This is because so many such decisions
are likely to be endlessly contested. Journalists and their audiences come
to the story already equipped with their sense of what's "right."
Our ability to have this debate as rational beings depends on the notion
of full disclosure or transparency. This may seem deceptively simple, a
mere rhetorical device. But it lies at the heart of what it means to live
as moral beings. Bok (1999) argued that when we use deception or stop
short of full disclosure in efforts to justify our actions, we fail to
treat others with the requisite dignity and respect. We fail as moral
beings, in effect. Davis (1991) made a similar case, warning that we risk
relying on an unacceptably narrow sense of respecting others if we embrace
the claim of deontologists, those who study the nature of moral
obligations, that what constitutes a "right" action is intrinsically linked
to what is "good" (p. 212). Transparent interaction is what allows us as
rational, autonomous beings to assess each other's behavior. Our
motivations, aspirations and intents are fully set forth for examination.
"Moral communication," McShea wrote, "is possible among us to the extent to
which we share . a common view of the facts" (1990, p. 221).
For journalists, working in a perennially adversarial atmosphere and
confronted by an often hostile public, transparency is more than an
academic platitude; it is an essential element of credibility. Journalistic
decisions lack transparency - and thus undermine the journalist's
credibility - when they serve primarily to protect selfish interests or
political power, when they are justifications rooted in defensiveness.
Journalists who explicitly value transparency demonstrate that they are
continually engaged in the process of examining whether their coverage has
fully taken into account the interests of all involved in or affected by
their coverage. In other words, only through transparent deliberation can
we determine whether all the stakeholders have been accounted for, and thus
be able to assess whether the interests of each have been fairly weighed.
Good, credible journalism requires transparency on many fronts: with
sources, with story subjects and with audiences. Several journalists
interviewed acknowledged that people who deal with the press have a
legitimate complaint when they feel they have been misled or even deceived
about the true intent of a journalist or news organization. Kovach and
Rosenstiel even offered what they call "the Rule of Transparency," which is
analogous to the scientific method in which tests and results are publicly
detailed so that the reliability of the work can be assessed through
replication:
The Rule of Transparency involves the journalist asking for each event,
`What does my audience need to know to evaluate this information for
itself? And is there anything in our treatment of it that requires
explanation?' (2001, p. 81).
They suggest full disclosure and explanations any time journalists use
deceptive practices to get a story, justifying that the significance of the
story to the public interest merits deceptive practices, and making sure
that such practices are the only means of getting it. Disregard of this
need for transparency can have severely damaging results, particularly in
the media's use of hidden cameras and other such tactics. "[T]ransparency
means embedding in the news reports a sense of how the story came to be and
why it was presented the way it was," Kovach and Rosenstiel wrote.
Insisting on transparency "will help over the long run to develop a more
discerning public. This is a public that can readily see the difference
between journalism of principle and careless or self-interested imitation"
(p. 83).
Transparent behavior is as much of a mainstay of credibility as honesty and
fairness. Respondents who gave the value "Aboveboard" relatively little
weight compared with the top-ranked values may not have equated it with the
concept of transparency or may have had an insufficient understanding of
the concept, which should play a central role in any normative media ethics
theory.
Clarifying the mission to minimize harm.
In the Code of Ethics distributed by the Society of Professional
Journalists, "Minimize harm" is the second of four directives. However, one
of the items listed under this heading has very little to do with
"minimizing" anything. The code states: "Recognize that gathering and
reporting of information may cause harm or discomfort." This could be taken
as a warning for the public about the activities of the journalists in its
midst. It also is a call for journalists to think about the different kinds
of harm that could be posed by their work. Both survey respondents and
journalists who were interviewed appear to express a similar ambiguity
about what it might mean for journalists to "minimize harm." The SPJ code
notwithstanding, the relatively low ranking given to the value "Minimizing
harm" by the survey respondents may be appropriate, but the meaning
journalists are assigning to this value is unclear. The diversity of
perceptions regarding what constitutes harm and what exactly should be done
to minimize it clearly needs to be explored before clearer policies can be
developed that would be useful to all journalists. Questions of harm most
commonly take the form of how to balance claims of individual privacy with
claims to disclose information that is arguably of public interest or some
social benefit. Generally, journalists use a welfare utilitarian approach
for these kinds of questions: the idea that one must determine what is
"right," or of greatest utility, to the broadest number of interests, as
opposed to simply gauging the utility of an act according to people's
preferences. This is an important distinction and an appropriate one for
journalists. But to what degree should journalists base their acts on
utilitarian theory? Theorists such as Goodin (1991) have said that it is in
the realm of public policy where utilitarianism becomes most useful; it
helps us identify the "right" action, which "maximizes utility (however
construed) summed impersonally across all those affected by that action"
(p. 245) [emphasis added]. But this brings us to the dichotomy of the role
of journalism in democratic society: It is a practice rooted in the
autonomous agency of individual journalists and news organizations, yet it
is at least in part a fundamentally communitarian endeavor.
Debate on the particulars of its public-service role continues, but the
community-building role has historically been implicit. This dichotomy is
complicated by the entrepreneurial priorities of our rights-based society,
which often places a premium on the claims of the individual. A residual
effect is an overwhelming emphasis on that which benefits the welfare of
the individual, which in turn shapes the way journalists perceive the
concept of harm. Privacy of the individual often dictates the extent to
which journalism's public-service mission is carried out, not the other way
around. The results of this study reinforce the notion that, while the
evolving concept of privacy is treated largely as a legal question, it
should primarily be considered as an issue of ethics.
This apparently irreconcilable conflict between the claims of the
individual and claims of the social may be tempered somewhat when
journalists resist the demand to focus on the preferences of the individual
and rely as much as possible on broader standards to help them define what
constitutes harm. When John Gryka of the Riverside Press-Enterprise talks
of trying to carry out "the better good" by taking the position of "wanting
to tell as much as we can," he is referring to the greater weight he
assigns to a policy of openness and the cultivation of a democratic forum
that is not necessarily constricted by pressures of individual preferences.
When Joanne Sills of the Newark Star-Ledger says the demands of equal
treatment often require journalists to create discomfort by going where
they're unwelcome, she, too, is talking about a more sophisticated sense of
journalistic utility than is often used. In any utilitarian theory, the
interests, or stakeholders, involved must be clearly defined, and this is
not always the case with journalists constantly pressured to use the right
of personal privacy as the only reference for assessing the potential
benefit or harm of an act. A utilitarian theory that rests on philosophical
standards of equality and democratic health, consequently, provides the
best approach to understanding the nature of the "harm" that journalists
should seek to minimize.
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Figure 1. The "layering" dynamic of top-ranked journalistic values as
components of the principle of credibility.
Credibility
Balance
Believability
Just
Fair
Honest
Responsible
Capable
Broad-
minded
Table 1. Percentages for newspaper journalists and demographic variables.
Variables
%
Gender
Female
48.7
Male
51.3
100%
(N = 355)
Ethnicity
White, not of Hispanic origin
94.0
Black, not of Hispanic origin
3.1
Hispanic
1.4
American Indian or Alaskan native
0.0
Asian or Pacific Islander
0.0
Other/Decline to specify
1.4_
100%
(N = 355)
Title
Editor*
48.1
Reporter**
51.9_
100%
(N = 355)
Did you major in journalism in college?
Yes
53.0
No
47.0_
100%
(N = 355)
If not, did part of your education consist in one or more journalism courses?
Yes
27.0
No
20.3
Left blank
52.7_
100%
(N = 355)
Did you ever take a college course that was specifically a journalism
ethics or media ethics course?
Yes
40.6
No
59.4
100%
(N = 355)
* Category includes titles of editor, managing editor, assistant managing
editor, associate editor, city editor, metro editor, sports editor,
features editor, business editor, political editor, special projects editor
or other section editor.
** Category includes titles of staff writer, politics writer, education
writer, city reporter, county reporter, environment writer, transportation
writer, sports writer or other beat writer.
Table X. Means and standard deviations for job experience, professional
experience and local residence variables.
Variables
Mean
Standard
Deviation
N
Age (in years)
39.82
11.55
351
Years employed in present position
4.48
5.76
355
Years employed at this newspaper
7.85
9.09
355
Years working as a journalist
14.04
10.77
355
Years living in present community
13.53
13.49
355
Number of news organizations at which you have worked as a journalist
3.02
1.88
355
Table X. Means and standard deviations for job experience, professional
experience and local residence variables of female journalists.
Variables
Mean
Standard
Deviation
N
Age (in years)
37.75
11.13
171
Years employed in present position
3.12
3.28
173
Years employed at this newspaper
5.98
6.21
173
Years working as a journalist
10.90
8.59
173
Years living in present community
13.39
12.96
173
Number of news organizations at which you have worked as a journalist
2.79
1.76
173
Table X. Means and standard deviations for job experience, professional
experience and local residence variables of male journalists.
Variables
Mean
Standard
Deviation
N
Age (in years)
41.78
11.62
180
Years employed in present position
5.82
7.19
182
Years employed at this newspaper
9.63
10.89
182
Years working as a journalist
17.02
11.80
182
Years living in present community
13.76
14.12
182
Number of news organizations at which you have worked as a journalist
3.24
2.0
182
Table X. Percentages for demographic variables of female journalists.
Variables
%
Ethnicity
White, not of Hispanic origin
91.9
Black, not of Hispanic origin
5.2
Hispanic
1.7
American Indian or Alaskan native
0.0
Asian or Pacific Islander
0.0
Other/Decline to specify
1.2_
100%
(N = 173
Title
Editor*
42.2
Reporter**
57.8
100%
(N = 173)
Did you major in journalism in college?
Yes
50.9
No
49.1_
100%
(N = 173)
If not, did part of your education consist in one or more journalism courses?
Yes
30.1
No
18.5
Left blank
51.4_
100%
(N = 173)
Did you ever take a college course that was specifically a journalism
ethics or media ethics course?
Yes
40.5
No
59.5_
100%
(N = 173)
* Category includes titles of editor, managing editor, assistant managing
editor, associate editor, city editor, metro editor, sports editor,
features editor, business editor, political editor, special projects editor
or other section editor.
** Category includes titles of staff writer, politics writer, education
writer, city reporter, county reporter, environment writer, transportation
writer, sports writer or other beat writer.
Table X. Percentages for demographic variables of male journalists.
Variables
%
Ethnicity
White, not of Hispanic origin
96.2
Black, not of Hispanic origin
1.1
Hispanic
1.1
American Indian or Alaskan native
0.0
Asian or Pacific Islander
0.0
Other/Decline to specify
1.6_
100%
(N = 182)
Title
Editor*
53.8
Reporter**
46.2_
100%
(N = 182)
Did you major in journalism in college?
Yes
54.9
No
45.1_
100%
(N = 182)
If not, did part of your education consist in one or more journalism courses?
Yes
24.2
No
22.0
Left blank
53.8_
100%
(N = 182)
Did you ever take a college course that was specifically a journalism
ethics or media ethics course?
Yes
40.7
No
59.3_
100%
(N = 182)
* Category includes titles of editor, managing editor, assistant managing
editor, associate editor, city editor, metro editor, sports editor,
features editor, business editor, political editor, special projects editor
or other section editor.
** Category includes titles of staff writer, politics writer, education
writer, city reporter, county reporter, environment writer, transportation
writer, sports writer or other beat writer.
Table 2. Instrumental-value rankings of newspaper journalists.
Values
Mean
(N = 352)
Standard
Deviation
(1) Honest
(sincere, truthful)
2.93
3.22
(2) Fair
(treating others as you
want to be treated)
4.90
4.17
(3) Responsible
(dependable, reliable)
6.87
4.46
(4) Capable
(competent, effective)
7.62
4.77
(5) Broadminded
(open-minded)
8.45
5.12
(6) Just
(acknowledging others' rights)
8.77
5.05
(7) Aboveboard
(transparent, nothing to hide)
9.76
6.74
(8) Intellectual
(intelligent, reflective)
10.97
5.61
(9) Logical
(consistent, rational)
11.27
5.04
(10) Imaginative
(daring, creative)
11.57
5.48
(11) Ambitious
(hard-working, aspiring)
11.63
6.23
(12) Courageous
(standing up for your beliefs)
11.70
5.93
(13) Independent
(self-reliant, self-sufficient)
11.88
5.29
(14) Minimizing harm
(not exploiting others for
your own success)
12.47
5.57
(15) Empathetic
(caring for others)
13.29
5.60
(16) Helpful
(working for the welfare of others)
14.04
5.28
(17) Self-controlled
(restrained, self-disciplined)
14.23
4.76
(18) Civic-minded
(fostering community)
14.57
5.96
(19) Polite
(courteous, well-mannered)
14.97
4.85
(20) Forgiving
(willing to pardon others)
18.00
4.61
(21) Cheerful
(lighthearted, joyful)
18.24
4.63
(22) Obedient
(dutiful, respectful)
19.89
4.46
(23) Loving
(affectionate, tender)
21.01
4.13
(24) Clean
(neat, tidy)
21.01
3.96
Table 8. Means and standard deviations for journalists' assessments of
role-conception statements.
Variables
Mean
Standard
Deviation
N
Getting information to the public quickly*
4.48
.58
328
Providing analysis and interpretation of complex problems*
4.41
.63
328
Providing entertainment and relaxation*
3.57
.76
328
Investigating claims and statements made by the government*
4.41
.61
328
Staying away from stories where factual content cannot by verified*
3.99
1.01
328
Concentrating on news that is of interest to the widest possible audience*
3.69
.81
328
Discussing national policy while it is still being developed*
3.80
.83
328
Being less critical of public officials during a national crisis*
2.29
.95
328
Developing intellectual and cultural interests of the public*
3.46
.85
328
Being constantly skeptical of actions taken by public officials*
3.71
.98
328
Being constantly skeptical of actions taken by business and corporations*
3.70
.96
328
Setting the political agenda*
2.56
1.04
328
Giving ordinary people a chance to express their views on public affairs*
4.35
.72
328
Influencing public opinion*
3.13
1.11
328
* Responses were coded: 5 = extremely important, 4 = important, 3 =
neither important nor unimportant, 2 = unimportant, 1 = extremely unimportant.
Table 9. Independent t-tests for role-conception statements by newsroom
position.
Newsroom position
Variables
Editor
Means
(SD)
(N = 158)
Reporter
Means
(SD)
(N = 170)
t value
df
significance
Getting information to the public quickly*
4.54
(.57)
4.44
(.59)
1.61
326
ns
Providing analysis and interpretation of complex problems*
4.40
(.67)
4.42
(.59)
-.36
326
ns
Providing entertainment and relaxation*
3.72
(.75)
3.44
(.75)
3.37
326
p < .01
Investigating claims and statements made by the government*
4.40
(.65)
4.42
(.57)
-.28
326
ns
Staying away from stories where factual content cannot by verified*
4.06
(1.01)
3.94
(1.00)
1.09
326
ns
Concentrating on news that is of interest to the widest possible audience*
3.88
(.75)
3.51
(.82)
4.30
326
p < .01
Discussing national policy while it is still being developed*
3.75
(.82)
3.85
(.83)
-1.09
326
ns
Being less critical of public officials during a national crisis*
2.32
(.95)
2.26
(.96)
.61
326
ns
Developing intellectual and cultural interests of the public*
3.42
(.82)
3.49
(.88)
-.75
326
ns
Being constantly skeptical of actions taken by public officials*
3.74
(.96)
3.69
(.99)
.49
326
ns
Being constantly skeptical of actions taken by business and corporations*
3.70
(.92)
3.71
(1.00)
-.09
326
ns
Setting the political agenda*
2.77
(1.00)
2.38
(1.05)
3.44
326
p < .01
Giving ordinary people a chance to express their views on public affairs*
4.47
(.58)
4.24
(.82)
2.99
326
p < .01
Influencing public opinion*
3.37
(1.03)
2.90
(1.13)
3.95
326
p < .01
* Responses were coded: 5 = extremely important, 4 = important, 3 =
neither important nor unimportant, 2 = unimportant, 1 = extremely unimportant.
Table 10. Hierarchical regression analysis of demographic variables, value
rankings and interpretive-role statement "Influencing public opinion."
Variable blocks
Standardized
beta
R-square
change
Total
R-square
Adjusted
R-square
1. Demographic variables
-- Age
.052
-- Years in journalism
.172a
.047b
.041
2. Ranked values
-- Capable
.042
-- Civic-minded
.157b
-- Imaginative
.015
.025a
.072
.057
ap < .05
bp < .01
Table 11. Spearman correlation coefficients for value and demographic
variables.
Variables
Age
Years in present position
Years employed at paper
Years in journalism
Years in community
Number of news organizations
Aboveboard*
.187b
(348)
.114a
(352)
.139b
(352)
.170b
(352)
.093
(352)
.042
(352)
Ambitious*
-.216b
(348)
-.166b
(352)
-.140b
(352)
-.122a
(352)
-.046
(352)
-.079
(352)
Capable*
-.018
(348)
.001
(352)
-.075
(352)
-.039
(352)
-.119a
(352)
.000
(352)
Cheerful*
-.074
(348)
-.080
(352)
-.137b
(352)
-.146b
(352)
-.076
(352)
-.032
(352)
Courageous*
.201b
(348)
.158b
(352)
.136a
(352)
.197b
(352)
.033
(352)
.054
(352)
Honest*
.121a
(348)
.018
(352)
.064
(352)
.120a
(352)
.017
(352)
.049
(352)
Imaginative*
.010
(348)
-.030
(352)
-.043
(352)
.017
(352)
-.113a
(352)
.121a
(352)
Intellectual*
-.155b
(348)
-.100
(352)
-.166b
(352)
-.091
(352)
-.164b
(352)
.150b
(352)
Just*
.117a
(348)
.032
(352)
.064
(352)
.051
(352)
.021
(352)
.040
(352)
Obedient*
-.139b
(348)
-.127a
(352)
-.105a
(352)
-.122a
(352)
-.098
(352)
-.112a
(352)
Polite*
-.111b
(348)
-.080
(352)
-.038
(352)
-.125a
(352)
.045
(352)
-.125a
(352)
Responsible*
.016
(348)
-.003
(352)
.054
(352)
.030
(352)
.118a
(352)
-.058
(352)
Self-controlled*
.064
(348)
-.049
(352)
.060
(352)
.066
(352)
.152b
(352)
-.104
(352)
* Values were given a numerical ranking between 1 and 24 by respondents.
a p < .05
b p < .01
Table 12. Pearson correlation coefficients for role-conception statements
and demographic variables.
Variables
Age
Years in position
Years employed
Years in journalism
Years in community
Number of organizations
Getting information to the public quickly*
0.046
(325)
-0.042
(328)
-0.01
(328)
0.017
(328)
0.034
(328)
-0.063
(328)
Providing interpretation of problems*
-0.027
(325)
-0.023
(328)
0
(328)
0.069
(328)
-.114a
(328)
.142b
(328)
Providing entertainment and relaxation*
0.073
(325)
0.047
(328)
0.097
(328)
0.083
(328)
0.07
(328)
-0.059
(328)
Investigating government claims*
-0.053
(325)
-0.08
(328)
-0.064
(328)
-0.027
(328)
-0.102
(328)
0.068
(328)
Staying away from stories that cannot be verified*
0.012
(325)
-0.011
(328)
0.02
(328)
0.043
(328)
-0.036
(328)
-0.059
(328)
Concentrating on news for widest audience*
.177b
(325)
.135a
(328)
.133a
(328)
.167b
(328)
.175b
(328)
-0.027
(328)
Discussing national policy as it's developed*
-0.068
(325)
-0.015
(328)
-0.031
(328)
0.026
(328)
-0.086
(328)
.110a
(328)
Being less critical of officials during a national crisis*
0.077
(325)
0.098
(328)
0.078
(328)
0.002
(328)
.120a
(328)
-.177b
(328)
Developing cultural/intellectual
interests*
-0.006
(325)
0.011
(328)
-0.069
(328)
-0.04
(328)
0.001
(328)
-0.006
(328)
Being constantly skeptical of public officials*
0.039
(325)
0.047
(328)
0.063
(328)
.128a
(328)
-0.016
(328)
.110a
(328)
Being constantly skeptical of business*
0.019
(325)
0.038
(328)
0.044
(328)
.109a
(328)
-0.059
(328)
0.106
(328)
Setting the political agenda*
0.082
(325)
0.013
(328)
0.058
(328)
.126a
(328)
0.012
(328)
0.052
(328)
Giving ordinary people an outlet for their views*
0.047
(325)
0.022
(328)
0.048
(328)
0.064
(328)
-0.024
(328)
0.001
(328)
Influencing public opinion*
.193b
(325)
0.087
(328)
0.078
(328)
.216b
(328)
0.036
(328)
0.103
(328)
* Responses were coded: 5 = extremely important, 4 = important, 3 = neither
important nor unimportant, 2 = unimportant, 1 = extremely unimportant.
a p < .05
b p < .01
Table 13a. Spearman correlation coefficients for role statement and value
variables.
Variables
Aboveboard*
Ambitious*
Broadminded*
Capable*
Civic-minded*
Courageous*
Fair*
Honest*
Getting information to the public quickly**
-.059
(325)
.145b
(325)
-.089
(325)
.125a
(325)
-.074
(325)
-.002
(325)
-.011
(325)
-.018
(325)
Providing interpretation of problems**
-.023
(325)
.038
(325)
.138a
(325)
-.113a
(325)
-.053
(325)
-.046
(325)
.074
(325)
-.014
(325)
Providing entertainment and relaxation**
-.064
(325)
.161b
(325)
-.083
(325)
-.064
(325)
.026
(325)
.008
(325)
.038
(325)
-.115a
(325)
Investigating government claims**
.055
(325)
.032
(325)
.049
(325)
-.121a
(325)
-.048
(325)
.139a
(325)
-.020
(325)
.065
(325)
Staying away from stories that cannot be verified**
-.043
(325)
.000
(325)
-.053
(325)
-.077
(325)
.066
(325)
-.007
(325)
.073
(325)
.034
(325)
Concentrating on news for widest audience**
-.041
(325)
.157b
(325)
-.084
(325)
.044
(325)
.108
(325)
-.020
(325)
-.023
(325)
-.062
(325)
Discussing national policy as it is being developed**
.090
(325)
.011
(325)
.189b
(325)
-.017
(325)
-.051
(325)
.020
(325)
-.016
(325)
.035
(325)
Being less critical of officials during a national crisis**
-.082
(325)
.120a
(325)
-.107
(325)
-.096
(325)
.001
(325)
-.082
(325)
-.136a
(325)
.042
(325)
Developing cultural/intellectual
interests**
-.061
(325)
-.017
(325)
.047
(325)
-.100
(325)
.168b
(325)
-.059
(325)
-.014
(325)
.052
(325)
Being constantly skeptical of public officials**
.145b
(325)
0.39
(325)
.148b
(325)
-.038
(325)
-.144b
(325)
.110a
(325)
-.024
(325)
-.028
(325)
Being constantly skeptical of business**
.173b
(325)
.007
(325)
.132a
(325)
-.070
(325)
-.095
(325)
.086
(325)
.010
(325)
.000
(325)
Setting the political agenda**
-.042
(325)
.038
(325)
.082
(325)
-.044
(325)
.056
(325)
.150b
(325)
-.141a
(325)
.066
(325)
Giving ordinary people an outlet for views**
-.091
(325)
.003
(325)
.044
(325)
-.092
(325)
.059
(325)
.008
(325)
-.040
(325)
.011
(325)
Influencing public opinion**
-.012
(325)
.033
(325)
-.057
(325)
.033
(325)
.177b
(325)
.142a
(325)
.002
(325)
.032
(325)
* Values were given a numerical ranking between 1 and 24 by respondents.
** Responses were coded: 5 = extremely important, 4 = important, 3 =
neither important nor unimportant, 2 = unimportant, 1 = extremely unimportant.
a p < .05
b p < .01
Table 13b. Spearman correlation coefficients for role statement and value
variables.
Variables
Imaginative*
Independent*
Intellectual*
Logical*
Minimizing-harm*
Polite*
Responsible*
Self-
controlled*
Getting information to the public quickly**
-.017
(325)
.080
(325)
-.041
(325)
.117
(325)
-.002
(325)
.160b
(325)
.098
(325)
.084
(325)
Providing interpretation of problems**
.097
(325)
.018
(325)
.098b
(325)
-.105
(325)
.087
(325)
-.106
(325)
-.132a
(325)
-.136a
(325)
Providing entertainment and relaxation**
.133a
(325)
.025
(325)
-.072
(325)
-.109
(325)
-.029
(325)
-.043
(325)
.021
(325)
-.027
(325)
Investigating government claims**
.049
(325)
.004
(325)
.102
(325)
-.034
(325)
-.029
(325)
-.043
(325)
.021
(325)
.027
(325)
Staying away from stories that cannot be verified**
-.025
(325)
-.066
(325)
-.049
(325)
.011
(325)
.055
(325)
.013
(325)
-.041
(325)
-.062
(325)
Concentrating on news for widest audience**
-.051
(325)
-.108
(325)
-.200b
(325)
.001
(325)
-.128a
(325)
.008
(325)
.084
(325)
.067
(325)
Discussing national policy as it is being developed**
.084
(325)
.031
(325)
.080
(325)
-.005
(325)
-.051
(325)
-.163b
(325)
-.048
(325)
.067
(325)
Being less critical of officials during a national crisis**
-.110a
(325)
-.144b
(325)
-.112a
(325)
.017
(325)
.021
(325)
.087
(325)
.129a
(325)
.022
(325)
Developing cultural/intellectual
interests**
-.012
(325)
-.093
(325)
-.001
(325)
-.090
(325)
-.046
(325)
-.023
(325)
-.063
(325)
-.028
(325)
Being constantly skeptical of public officials**
.102
(325)
.009
(325)
.079
(325)
.026
(325)
-.038
(325)
-.124a
(325)
-.114a
(325)
-.013
(325)
Being constantly skeptical of business**
.101
(325)
.014
(325)
.077
(325)
-.017
(325)
-.018
(325)
-.121a
(325)
-.150b
(325)
-.011
(325)
Setting the political agenda**
.076
(325)
-.102
(325)
.058
(325)
-.111a
(325)
-.086
(325)
-.005
(325)
-.023
(325)
.039
(325)
Giving ordinary people an outlet for views**
.054
(325)
.028
(325)
-.080
(325)
-.085
(325)
-.012
(325)
.048
(325)
-.006
(325)
-.012
(325)
Influencing public opinion**
-.009
(325)
-.079
(325)
-.076
(325)
-.022
(325)
-.074
(325)
-.076
(325)
-.026
(325)
.037
(325)
* Values were given a numerical ranking between 1 and 24 by respondents.
** Responses were coded: 5 = extremely important, 4 = important, 3 =
neither important nor unimportant, 2 = unimportant, 1 = extremely unimportant.
a p < .05
b p < .01
|
