PR-Driven Journalism Model: The Case of Ethiopia

Abstract

ABSTRACT Although the Ethiopian government has often claimed that state media follow development journalism (DJ) as their reporting style, broadcasting frequencies have been aggressively grabbed by public relations (PR) departments of government offices. The purpose of this research is to explore the type of journalism that has been implemented in the Ethiopian state media. The research follows a qualitative approach to conduct in-depth interviews and to do a document analysis. Apposite documents were gathered from Ethiopian Broadcast Corporation (owned by the federal government) and four regional state mass media houses. The researcher interviewed several media managers and journalists from the state media houses. The findings of the research show that PR practitioners are increasingly working as agenda-setters and gatekeepers while they deter investigative reporting, constructive criticism and ethical practices of the profession. The paper concludes that the PR-driven model of journalism is what the Ethiopian state media are practising. This paper also identifies the major features of the PR-driven journalism model. The research concludes that state media are often idealistic to implement DJ and suggests that community media needs to be considered for the implementation of DJ model of reporting.