Still something special?: A comparative study of public service journalists’ values in Spain and Sweden

Abstract

Abstract While most studies of public service media changes in European media systems focus on regulatory policies and audience markets, this article investigates the development of professional journalistic values and newsroom practices among public service journalists. Previous studies have indicated that news values among public service journalists to a large extent have been guided by the principles of public interest and social significance. However, the majority of these studies were conducted mainly in the broadcast era, where competition was less important than it is today. In this article, the objective is to analyse public service journalists’ professional values and newsroom practices in a digital age. The study is based on a comparison between Spanish and Swedish journalists working within the public service media in the two countries, but within strongly diverging public service media conditions. The article compares professional values among public service journalists in the two countries, as well as between journalists working in the public and the private media sector in each country. Methodologically, the comparison is based on nation surveys among Spanish and Swedish journalists conducted during 2010. The results show similar perceptions of news values and between public and private journalists in both countries, but public journalists are more concerned about decreasing quality of journalism and increasing commercialization.