Page 281 - Comparing Political Communication Theories, Cases, and Challenge

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Political News Journalists

century when liberty rather than equality was the dominant ideal. As a
result of this historical background, U.S. journalists are thought to have a
heightened sense of their rights. The American press also changed more
quickly and completely from a partisan orientation to a commercial one
(Schudson 1978). The news became a full-blown business with profits
outweighingpoliticsinthemindsofmostpublishers(Schiller1981).This
development culminated in the development of a distinctive objective
styleofreportingthatcenteredon“facts”andwas“balanced”inthesense
that it fairly presented both sides of partisan debate (Peterson 1956). As
a consequence, new professional roles were created: the reporter who is
sent out to get the news, and the editor who is responsible for the quality
of what is finally printed. And “quality” meant not only factual accuracy
but also balance and fairness to those who were covered in the news. The
journalist became mainly a broker of relevant information.
ThesetendencieswerenotuniquelyAmerican,buttheymayrunmore
deeply among U.S. journalists. Consider briefly the contrasting history
of German journalism. From its beginning the German press was dom-
inated by a strong belief in the superiority of opinion over news. Influ-
ential journalists, such as Joseph Goerres of Der Rheinische Merkur,pro-
motedpressfreedomontheideathatjournalistscollectivelywouldreflect
public sentiment (Baumert 1928). The opinionated editor and commen-
tator became the epitome of the journalistic profession (Engelsing 1966).
German journalism was influenced by the continental ideology that ob-
jective or even neutral accounts of reality are not possible (Janowitz
1975). Unlike the liberal consensus in America, European philosophy
claimed that an individual’s Weltanschauung would always determine
his or her interpretation of reality, which hindered the emergence of
the type of objectivity that typified American journalism (Rothman
1979). Studies indicate that German journalists see themselves chiefly
as social analysts and critics who seek to present a well-reasoned in-
terpretation of political reality (K¨ ocher 1986; Donsbach 1999b). To the
German journalist, objectivity is seen less as an issue of impartiality than
as a question of getting to the “hard facts” underlying partisan debate.
Although American journalists would describe this type of reporting as
“subjective,” German journalists would defend it as more “realistic” and
in this sense more “objective” than the American style.
Journalists in the British, Swedish, and Italian news systems employ
interpretive styles that rest between the American and German styles.
The Swedish style, for example, combines the interpretive qualities of
the German model with the less partisan tone of the American model.

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