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'Objectivity' is one of the core professional values of journalism. However, there are many different definitions and interpretations of the term in the profession. These notions have changed over time in one country, and they differ between journalists in different cultural and political settings. In this paper we present comparative results of how journalists in different countries look at the term objectivity. The data are gathered from an international study of news journalists in democracies. In this survey, representative samples of reporters and editors who are involved in daily news decisions were interviewed with the same questionnaire. We show how journalists differ in their notion of objectivity and in the subjective importance which the professional value of objectivity has for them. Besides showing country-to-country differences, we try to assess what factors contribute to different professional attitudes towards objectivity within a single country. In a final part, the paper discusses the consequences of the different notions of objectivity for the audience's perception of reality and for the influence of the news media on public opinion.

An important concept to apply in describing how journalists in different cultures and media systems understand their work and its social function is role perceptions . These can have a strong influence on journalists' professional behavior and thus can explain differences between news cultures. The term “role” originates from theater, and sociology adopted the term to designate the whole set of expectations that other people have of the holder of a certain social position. Those expectations then create the perceptions that the holders of the roles have in their social environment and accept as legitimate, and consequently their perceptions guide their attitudes and behaviors. Thus, journalists' role perceptions can be defined as generalized expectations which journalists believe exist in society and among different stakeholders, which they see as normatively acceptable, and which influence their behavior on the job.

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This article is about causal explanations for the way journalists report the news. In its first part, the article reviews traditional and current models or theories of journalists’ news decisions, concentrating on news factors, institutional objectives, the manipulative power of public relations by news sources and the subjective beliefs of journalists. It comes to the conclusion that most of these approaches do not explain the underlying processes leading to news judgements. Starting from these shortcomings and from the assumption that most of journalists’ work is about perceptions, conclusions and judgements, it then attempts to apply psychological theories to news decision-making. The author holds that two general needs or functions involving specific psychological processes can explain news decisions: a need for social validation of perceptions and a need to preserve one’s existing predispositions. Empirical data from several surveys and studies among journalists are used to demonstrate the appropriateness of this approach to journalists’ behavior.