Page 136 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

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The Three Models

and the Liberal systems. It is not surprising that a survey of journal-
ists in Italy, Germany, Britain, and the United States (Donsbach and
Patterson 1992) found Italian journalists substantially more likely to re-
port that pressures from senior editors or management were “very” or
“quite important” as limitations on their jobs: 27 percent of Italian jour-
nalists described pressures from management as important, as opposed
to 15 percent in Britain, 13 percent in the United States, and 7 percent
in Germany. Italian journalists were also more likely to report that their
work was changed by others in the newsroom for political reasons. Data
are also available from Spain and Greece that suggest that journalists are
often called upon to “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s.” 10

10 Greek journalists asked whether “journalists exercise their profession freely nowadays
or are they subject to intervention,” answered overwhelmingly that they were subject
to intervention: 7.9 percent said they exercised their profession freely, 65.7 percent
said that they were subject to intervention, and 24.3 percent said that they censored
themselves. Nearly 75 percent also responded that the “line taken by owners of media
enterprises” determined the “image and politics of the mass media” (see Hallin and
Papathanassopoulos 2000). For Spain, Canel and Piqu´ e (1998) report 21.9 percent of
journalists describing “pressures from my boss” an “important” or “very important”
part of their jobs, and 4.9 percent of journalists saying the same about pressures
from owners. Another survey of Spanish journalists found 69.3 percent disagreeing
that “journalists are independent of political power,” and 76.6 percent disagreeing
that they are independent of economic power (Ortega and Humanes 2000: 168).
Canel and Piqu´ e describe the 21.9 percent of journalists they found complaining
about intervention as a low rate of concern about autonomy, and point out that the
journalists in their survey felt much more constrained by deadline pressures, lack
of space, and other problems mostly related to the logistics of reporting. Do their
findings contradict the argument that journalistic autonomy is comparatively more
limited in Southern Europe? Certainly they remind us not to exaggerate the degree
of instrumentalization. In any modern media system, intervention by owners is an
occasional thing. Most of the time journalists go about their work in a routine way,
and owners, or even editors cannot be bothered to monitor what they are doing.
Tensions and conflicts over direct interference are rare, but might be said to be the tip
of an iceberg that cannot be ignored in analysis of the political role of journalism – in
every society, but probably more in Southern than Northern Europe. In part, tensions
are rare because many stories do not affect the owners’ important political interests.
Spanish newspapers can be blatantly partisan on certain stories – an example would
be the reporting of a recent conflict between judges Lia˜ no and Garz´ on, a case that
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involved proceedings against the owner of El Pa´s. On some stories their partisanship
is more subtle and on others, absent. In part, tensions are limited because journalists
accept as natural the fact that different media have different political positions to
which they must adapt. One Spanish journalist explained to us in an interview that
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a journalist is a sort of chameleon: if you work for El Pa´s youmay writeastory one
way, for El Mundo you may write it another way. This is simply part of the job. Many
journalists also share the political orientation of the news organization they work for
(this is perhaps especially true of more senior journalists) and on sensitive stories
these will be the journalists assigned.

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