SPECIAL REPORT: Watchdogs under pressure: Pacific Islands journalists’ demographic profiles and professional views

While global scholarship on journalists’ professional views has expanded tremendously over recent decades, the Pacific Islands remains somewhat of a blind spot, with only sporadic research. To address this gap in our knowledge, this study reports the results of a comprehensive survey of 206 Pacific Islands journalists in nine countries, providing a much-needed update of journalists’ demographic profiles, role conceptions, ethical views and perceived influences. Our analysis finds that while journalists are now older, more experienced and better educated than 30 years ago, they are still younger and less well-educated than their counterparts in many other parts of the globe. In the digital age, some old challenges persist in relation to their roles: While journalists are committed to holding power to account and aiding in the development of their countries, they continue to face political and economic challenges that make their tasks difficult and sometimes even perilous.This study was funded by The University of the South Pacific, the United States Embassy in Fiji and the Pacific Media Centre, formerly based at the Auckland University of Technology

Ethics in a Global Society (Chapter 12 of Organizational Ethics: A Practical Approach

Globalization is having a dramatic impact on life in the 21st century. We inhabit a global society knit together by free trade, international travel, immigration, satellite communication systems, and the Internet. In this interconnected world, ethical responsibilities extend beyond national boundaries. Decisions about raw materials, manufacturing, outsourcing, farm subsidies, investments, marketing strategies, suppliers, safety standards, and energy use made in one country have ramifications for residents of other parts of the world. Organizational citizenship is now played out on a global stage. Businesses, in particular, are being urged to take on a larger role in solving the world\u27s social problems

Journalistic role performance in Poland

Several research projects in the last decade have been devoted to studying professional role perception among Polish journalists. Still less is known about how different ideals of professional roles affect journalistic role performance. This paper aims to present the findings of the content analysis of 1,130 news stories published in four Polish newspapers in 2012 and 2013. The study was a part of the international research project: Journalistic Role Performance Around the Globe (led by Prof. Clau- dia Mellado from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, in Chile and Lea Hellmueller, from Texas States University, www.journalisticperformance.org). The results indicate that the watchdog model is most commonly used in the Polish press, followed by the infotainment and civic models. However, the findings of the content analysis primarily support the general observation on the political orientations of the Polish newspapers and political parallelism of the Polish media system

Media ethics in the Pacific: Ethical challenges in the Marshall Islands

Media ethics in the Pacific Islands varies considerably among nations in practice, as shown in scholarship. This case study of 16 Marshall Islands journalists aims to provide evidence of ethical decision-making in practice in one Pacific Island nation, and demonstrate the intersection of imported journalism values and local culture. It builds on survey work of Pacific Island journalists’ roles by Singh and Hanusch (2021), the Worlds of Journalism study by Hanitzsch et al. (2019) and works by Robie (2004, 2014 and 2019). Responses from 16 journalists in the Republic of the Marshall Islands who made ethical decisions during a journalism workshop facilitated by the newly established Pacific Media Institute at the College of Marshall Islands in June 2022 were analysed. First, the participants identified ethical conflicts in carrying out their professional duties. Next, they applied standard ethics codes from democracies (absolutism), to local scenarios. Discussion centered on how to address the core value of independence because of dominance of the church and the strongly influential chiefly system in RMI. Personal relationships were also factored in their ethical decision-making because the journalists considered the perspectives of all stakeholders in reporting on Marshallese culture and society. They were keenly aware of the consequences of their reporting on their community. They offered unique, locally derived solutions from different perspectives. They often exhibited an ‘ethics of care', prioritising humanity and sometimes societal harmony

Who justifies questionable reporting practices? Answers from a representative survey of journalists in Germany

Based on a secondary analysis of representative survey data of journalists in Germany (n= 1536), this paper draws attention to two variables that are important when it comes to explain whether journalists accept questionable reporting practices, such as paying people to obtain information or using confidential government documents without permission. First, perceived role achievement is important, as journalists who do not feel able to achieve an active role tend to accept questionable reporting practices more often. Second, however, this relationship is only true for journalists having a moderate tendency to the political left. Findings are explained by means of the theory of cognitive dissonance

Covering the Syrian conflict : how Middle East reporters deal with challenging situations

Reporters covering the Middle East are often confronted with situations where information is notoriously hard to verify and where confrontations with witnesses' harsh realities can be extraordinarily intense. How does one deal with claims that there are no chemical weapons in Syria, for instance, if no foreign visitors are allowed to enter the neighbourhoods where the attacks allegedly took place? And how far does one go in adopting or contextualizing the story of a crying little girl blaming 'terrorists' for destroying her life if you are taken to her by a regime official, who considers every form of opposition an act of terror? Under such conditions, reporters can hardly rely upon seemingly self-evident routines, nor can they simply revert to general values such as impartiality or bearing witness without much further ado. Instead, they find themselves forced to make judgements on particular situations time and time again. Based on 14 in-depth interviews with Dutch and Flemish reporters covering Syria, this article sets out to identify, first, the challenging situations with which these journalists have been confronted, and second, how they have responded to these challenges through the use of particular professional strategies. To explore these challenges and strategies, the article develops a theoretical and methodological approach centred around situated value judgements

Ideology and culture

This chapter evaluates the role of culture and ideology in relation to journalism. Journalists cannot ignore that they are not operating in a vacuum, immune to environmental influences. A “western” (or any ideological) approach to journalism is not a neutral norm to which others need to adhere. Journalists can keep themselves and each other in check by questioning the approach taken to a story and identifying the lens they employ. Secondly, diverse recruitment within media organisations is key, not just in terms of ethnic, gender or national backgrounds but also in terms of value profiles. There is no one Nation which holds the gold standard for journalism and can be used as a reference point for all others. In other words, there is no such thing as Greenwich Mean Time journalism

Portrayals of Child Abuse Scandals in the Media in Australia and England: Impacts on Practice, Policy, and Systems

This article describes how the media have played a key role in placing the issue of child maltreatment and the problems associated with child protection high on public and political agendas over the last 50 years. It also describes how the influence of the media is far from unambiguous. Although the media has been crucial in bringing the problems into the open, it often does so in particular ways. In being so concerned with scandals and tragedies ∗ Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Bob Lonne, School of Public Health and Social Work, Queensland University of Technology, Victoria Park Road, Kelvin Grove, Queensland 4059, Australia. Electronic mail may be sent to [email protected]. in a variety of institutionalized and community settings, the media have portrayed the nature of child maltreatment in ways which deflect attention from many of its core characteristics and causes. A focus on the media is important because of the power the media have to help transform the private into the public, but at the same time, to undermine trust, reputation, and legitimacy of the professionals working in the field. This concern is key for those working in the child protection field and has been a source of tension in public policy in both Australia and England for many years

Ethics and professional orientation of Serbian journalists

Studies of ethical orientations of journalists, based on large-scale surveys of professional norms and values, generate data that are an important indicator of journalism culture. While it is true that what journalists say they do is not always the same as what they actually do, the discourse about professional roles and ethical standards is a prominent marker of journalistic culture and an element that can be and is usually compared cross-nationally (Hanitzch & Vos, 2016). This study of Serbian journalists follows this stream of scholarship, offering an empirical contribution to the discussion about journalists and their professional orientation. Based on the survey conducted in 2014 as a part of the Worlds of Journalism Study, we first present a socio-demographic profile of Serbian journalists, and then focus on the views on the role of journalists in society, perceived influences on their everyday work and journalists' perception of ethics. The study approaches journalism as a field of cultural production and adopts the community structure model (Tichenor, Donohue & Olien, 1980) to explore the link between professional orientations of journalists and the demographic characteristics of the community news media are based in. It tests the idea that the perception of the journalist's role in society might be different in smaller, relatively homogenous towns than in larger, more demographically diverse cities. The study found Serbian journalism culture to be ambiguous, related to the complex set of interactions with political and economic fields, and based on the tension between different models of journalism that have historically influenced the development of the profession in the region, 'interventionist' and 'monitorial'