More of the Same or a Different Breed Altogether?: A National Comparison of Role Perceptions and Ethical Stances among Finnish Political Journalists

Comparative journalism studies have become increasingly popular at a time when the news media is suffering from several intense and interrelated crises in audience, technology, economics and workforce – most acutely in the US, but also elsewhere in the Western world (Barnhurst 2011). One strand of such research has focused on journalistic roles, values, and ethics in different environments during this time of change. A prime example of such comparative work is the Worlds of Journalism Study (WJS) project, whose members have, since its inception in 2007, produced numerous analyses assessing the professional understandings of journalists at both international and national levels (for a list of publications, see WJS 2017a).

In the Nordic countries, such studies have also increased in popularity. For example, national-level studies have been published in Sweden (Asp 2007, 2012), Denmark (Albæk et al. 2015), and Finland (Pöyhtäri, Väliverronen & Ahva 2014), and a recent comparative article (Ahva et al. 2017) highlighted the many similarities in self-understanding among Nordic news journalists.

To date, however, specialised journalists have received less attention in the scholarly debate. Of particular interest in this article are political journalists, who are traditionally seen as the representatives of the “most ‘sacred part’ of journalism” (Neveu 2002: 23). Their prominent position seems to be reflected in the self-understanding of journalists in the Nordic countries as well, as examples from Denmark (Skovsgaard & van Dalen 2013) and Sweden (Odén 2007) indicate.

Similar comparative work remains to be done in Finland. The practical ethos of political journalists has been the subject of a study by Kantola (2013), but their views have not been compared with other journalists. By investigating the professional role perceptions and ethics of Finnish political journalists vis-à-vis other Finnish journalists, this article aims to fill this gap in the literature.

This study is based on the WJS project, and thus adopts the WJS’s idea of both journalism and the news media as being discursively (re)created social institutions (WJS 2017b). As social institutions, journalism and the news media serve a variety of functions and have crucial social responsibilities (e.g. Kunelius 2000). To serve these diverse functions, journalists rely on various cues, ranging from explicit rules to conventions and practices, upon which they base their actions (Cook 1998). Journalists learn these cues through occupational socialisation during their studies and work, and adopt them in order to follow a “logic of appropriateness” (Cook 1998: 61).

Deuze (2005) argues that, in the Western context, the cues have long been based on ideal professional values that are largely shared among journalists from different countries, such as objectivity, autonomy, public service, timeliness, and ethicality. These values were established mainly in the post-World War II period, when journalism, aided by its relatively secure financial position and monopoly on information dissemination, embraced the ideas of social responsibility and provision of objective information (Waisbord 2013). In this climate, the ideal values offered journalists a viable common goal for developing professionalism (Deuze 2005), although they were never interpreted uniformly. As shown by Hallin and Mancini’s (2004) study of media systems in Western countries, differences in countries’ socio-political and (media)historical backgrounds influence journalists’ practical interpretations. Hallin and Mancini therefore distinguished between countries characterised by liberal, democratic corporatist, and polarised pluralist media systems.

The (media)historical background is important since it shows how the cues form a varied discourse rather than a fixed construct (Carpentier 2005; Hanitzsch 2007). The battle over what is appropriate is waged between different actors – not just journalists, but also journalistic sources, targets, and audiences – who all fight for authority in the field of journalism (cf. Bourdieu 1998). In this field, however, the power to determine the discourse is divided unequally. For instance, among journalists, discourses put forward by practitioners of the so-called “serious news” (Hovden 2016) have dominated the discussion of what constitutes good journalism and good journalistic practice.

However, the ideological and discursive struggle in the field has arguably intensified in the last few decades. Labelled, among other things, as liquid modernity (Bauman 2000), profound societal, cultural, political, and technological transformations have called the functions of journalism in contemporary societies into question (Preston 2009). For instance, the connection between democracy and journalism has been questioned (Zelizer 2013). Moreover, new Internet-based means of undertaking journalism and publishing content (Carlson 2015) have accelerated media competition, and thereby caused financial turmoil in the industry and increased the importance of audience connection. Consequently, the nature of the journalistic profession has become more unstable and unpredictable than before, with journalism facing a growing need to “reinvent professionalism” (Waisbord 2013).

In this state of flux, new visions and interpretations of the constituent parts of journalistic professionalism have emerged (Carpentier 2005; Hanitzsch 2007). The WJS project is based on one such vision, also followed by this article: the idea of journalistic culture. Like other forms of culture, journalistic culture exists at the three levels of ideas, practices, and artefacts. In the project, the focus has been on the first two; that is, journalistic cultures “become discernible in the way journalists think and act; they can be defined as particular sets of ideas and practices by which journalists legitimate their role in society and render their work meaningful for themselves and others” (WJS 2017b). The project is, in other words, interested in journalists’ own discursive formations of journalism.

In the WJS, the formation of the discourse of journalism is observed at two levels: intrinsic dimensions (journalistic roles, journalistic ethics and journalistic trust) and extrinsic dimensions (perceived influences and editorial autonomy). These dimensions are then assessed in relation to different contextual forces – individual, organisational, and societal – to explore varieties of journalistic culture in different environments (WJS 2017b). This study concentrates on the intrinsic dimension – that is, on journalists’ self-understanding of their roles and ethics – in one national setting, Finland. It attempts to shed new light on the culture of journalism in Finland through a comparison between an elite group of political journalists (Kantola 2013) and others, in a time when Finnish journalism is undergoing several changes (Pöyhtäri, Väliverronen & Ahva 2016). Before moving on to the analysis, the article presents a brief historical contextualisation of developments in Finnish journalists’ role perceptions and ethics.

Similar to the other Nordic countries, the self-understanding of journalists in Finland has formed in close connection with the national political system, which has given political journalists a privileged position in Finnish newsrooms (Kantola 2013). In the democratic corporatist tradition (Hallin & Mancini 2004), politicians and journalists shared an understanding of the development of the welfare state (Syvertsen et al. 2014) and political parties had a dominant position in journalism. This influenced journalistic roles: until the 1960s, journalism was seen, initially, as a mouthpiece of the political parties, and then as an arena for parties to communicate their agenda freely (Ørsten et al. 2008). Indeed, journalistic ethics were still in their infancy, with some ethical rules – although of very limited scope – having been published in the late 1920s and late 1950s (Koljonen 2013).

In line with developments in Sweden and Denmark (cf. Jonsson 2002; Thomsen & Søllinge 1991), journalistic professionalisation and differentiation from the political system began in the 1960s. At this time, formal education in journalism expanded; a new self-regulatory mechanism was introduced and newspapers increasingly began to cut their formal ties to political parties (Salminen 1988). However, unlike in Sweden and Denmark (Bondebjerg 1993; Djerf-Pierre & Weibull 2001; Jonsson 2002), increasing professionalisation did not lead to notable changes in journalistic self-understanding in Finland, as the 1970s were marked by party politicisation and the “Finlandisation” debate (Forsberg & Pesu 2016).

Forsberg and Pesu (2016: 474) refer to Finlandisation as “a foreign policy strategy where a smaller state adapts its policy to the interests of a bigger neighbouring country, typically a Great Power”. In the case of Finland, the reference was made in relation to the Soviet Union.

The trend of “overpoliticization” (Hemánus 1988: 459) was also visible in the press. Although politically aligned newspapers lost ground more quickly in Finland than in Denmark and Sweden (Nord 2008), 60 to 80 per cent of the news material published in the press in the 1970s came from the political machinery, whether politicians, state administration, or related organisations (Salminen 1988). Under these conditions, journalists adopted the role of deferential reporters who focused on giving citizens information about the elites (Salminen 1988; Väliverronen 2012). From an ethical perspective, such an approach meant a strong focus on the publication of correct facts and/or quotations (Koljonen 2013).

In the 1980s, changes in society began to alter the mood. In politics, President Urho Kekkonen’s resignation in 1981, after 25 years in power, ushered in a more parliamentary mode. A more competitive market economy (Alasuutari 2011), combined with technological developments, led to deregulation in broadcasting. This included, for instance, the introduction of commercial radio stations in 1985. Such changes diversified the media, boosted competition between outlets, and increased journalists’ autonomy from politics (Aula 1991; Salminen 1988).

The formal growth of autonomy continued and between 1970 and 1995, the market share of politically aligned newspapers fell from over 50 per cent to under 15 per cent (Nord 2008). Along with increasing professionalism, this strengthened the idea of journalistic and editorial independence, which had first appeared in a code of ethics for journalists in 1976 (Koljonen 2013). In sum, these changes led to an increasingly diverse and less news-oriented journalistic output, as well as new interpretations of journalistic roles (Hemánus 1988).

Such developments have since gathered pace. Professionalisation was solidified as the number of active journalists in Finland almost doubled from 1983 to 2011 (Hemánus 1988; The Union of Journalists in Finland 2017). Politically aligned newpapers declined to a negligible market position by the turn of the century (Nord 2008), and advancing deregulation in broadcast media since the late 1980s (Koljonen 2013) has contributed to an increasingly commercial orientation in journalism. Lately, technological developments – mainly pertaining to the arrival of online journalism – have increased the competition for audience attention, and generated financial difficulties in journalism. With declining employment figures, the number of salaried members in the Union of Journalists fell by 15 per cent between 2011 and 2015 (The Union of Journalists in Finland 2017).

Amidst all these changes, the journalistic ethos has further diversified. Although traditional reporting-based roles still form the backbone of Finnish journalists’ role perceptions, roles related to commercialism and serving audiences have gained ground (Pöyhtäri, Väliverronen & Ahva 2014). Journalists’ understandings of ethical practices have also become more diverse (Koljonen 2013).

In political journalism, however, the contextual changes have taken more time to appear, compared with other journalistic genres. Despite increasing differentiation from the political system in the 1980s, political journalists still found the Soviet Union a difficult topic following decades of the Kremlin’s influence on Finnish politics (Lounasmeri 2013). Thus, the ‘opening up’ of political journalism had to wait until the 1990s, following the fall of the USSR in 1991 and Finland’s EU membership in 1995, when more assertive and diverse political reporting emerged (Isotalus 1998; Kunelius & Väliverronen 2012). With the turn of the twenty-first century, political journalists have further increased the “liberalisation” of journalism (Herkman 2009: 81) by increasing adversarialism and efforts to influence the political agenda (Kantola 2013).

The self-understanding of other Finnish journalists is undergoing change in these uncertain times. However, how can we understand the self-perception of political journalists? This issue has so far received scant scholarly attention. Kantola’s (2013) study is the only one available and, for that work, data were collected in 2010–2011. Since then, several changes have occurred which make the undertaking of a new study necessary. Moreover, in her study, Kantola looks at the practical ethos of political journalists, based on 25 interviews. This study examines the issue from a different angle, using a quantitative survey methodology to statistically explore Finnish political journalists’ role perceptions and ethical values, while adding a comparative element, regarding other Finnish journalists, into the investigation. The study has two targeted research questions:

RQ1. What are Finnish political journalists’ role perceptions and ethical values?

RQ2. How do their perceptions differ from other Finnish journalists, and why?

These questions are investigated using data from the WJS project. In the case of role perceptions, respondents were presented with 21 different functions for journalism and asked to evaluate their importance on a five-step Likert scale (for the list, see C12 in WJS 2017c). Ethical observations were divided into two parts. In the first part, journalists’ general ethical considerations were gauged with four different statements, based on Forsyth’s (1980) distinction between absolutists, relativists, situationists, and exceptionists. Responses were also given on a five-step Likert scale (see C13 in WJS 2017c). In the second part, journalists’ practical ethical stances, in the case of an important story, were measured on a three-step Likert scale (C14 in WJS 2017c), using their evaluations of 12 controversial ethical practices.

The analysis is based on two samples: a nationally representative survey of all journalists in Finland, and a representative survey conducted among the members of the Association of Political Journalists in Finland (APJF). The APJF is the only national organisation for journalists who specialise in politics. It does not represent the whole spectrum of political journalism in Finland, but it was deemed suitable for comparative purposes because its membership data are up-to-date, while membership criteria are directly comparable with the WJS survey requirements. Table 1 describes the samples in a more detailed fashion; for more information on the national sample, see Pöyhtäri, Väliverronen & Ahva (2014).

There are some limitations to the data, regarding different collection times and methods, as well as an over-representation of mid- and upper-level management in the Finnish national sample (cf. Pöyhtäri, Väliverronen & Ahva 2014). However, as employment position generally has a negligible effect on Finnish journalists’ values (Lauk, Harro-Loit & Väliverronen 2014), and the problems with online surveys concern mainly large-scale national samples (Chang & Krosnick 2009), comparisons were considered meaningful for this study.

The surveys were analysed using the software package SPSS. In the following, the findings are presented in two parts. The first part focuses on journalists’ role perceptions (RQ1), and the second one looks at their ethical considerations (RQ2). Based on previous studies, the following hypotheses were made for the analysis:

H1a. In Finnish political journalists’ role perceptions, the focus is on reporting, analysing, and monitoring political elites from a neutral and detached perspective. Other roles receive less support. Ethically, their stances are strongly guided by the professional code of ethics.

Finnish political journalists’ opinions largely follow initial expectations. As posited in H1a, they show strong support for their role as detached analytical watchdogs. Ethically, they base their decisions on the industry code of conduct, which further highlights their independence. These values have widespread support among other Finnish journalists too, which confirms the importance of the national background in terms of journalists’ value formation (cf. Hallin & Mancini 2004; Reich & Hanitzsch 2013). In line with H2, however, such interpretations are more pronounced among political journalists than others. Apart from the requirements of political journalism, there are two classes of reasons for this: Firstly, the privileged position of political journalists in Finland leads to relatively low external pressure on their values. Secondly, internally, the small number of political journalists is likely to be conducive to a ‘guild effect’, causing uniformity in the views of individuals (cf. Lauk, Harro-Loit & Väliverronen 2014).

However, this study lends little support to Kantola’s (2013) observation of three generations of political journalists (H1b). Although this finding is interesting, the possible biases of the different methods must be taken into account. Kantola used qualitative interviews in her work, the results of which she labelled as providing an analytical distinction, rather than a representative study. In surveys, journalists tend to show desirability bias (for a brief discussion, see van Dalen, de Vreese & Albæk 2012), which may be accentuated here by the aforementioned guild effect. The different approaches taken may also cause a discrepancy. This study has its starting point in abstract values and predetermined journalistic roles, whereas Kantola (2013) uses the perspective of individual practices and their open-ended descriptions. Because journalists may support the same abstract ideal values in a survey, but describe their practical enactments very differently in interviews, findings should be interpreted with caution.

This is not to negate the findings of either study, however. Rather, it shows that further research is needed to obtain a better picture of political journalists’ attitudes. More comparative studies are required, and methodological triangulation might help to fill the gaps and establish a firmer connection between journalists’ perceptions and actual practices (cf. Nikunen 2014; van Dalen, de Vreese & Albæk 2012).

Overall, the findings indicate that political journalists’ interpretations of their role are based on a rather narrow, and even elitist, understanding of politics. The question for the future is: how long will such an attitude be possible at a time when pressures against it are increasing from multiple sides? Firstly, desk mergers have affected all the main political news desks in Finland, in some way, in the last five years, and political journalists have already expressed concern about their own distinctive position amidst the change (Väliverronen 2017). Secondly, pressures to re-evaluate journalistic roles and ethics are not diminished by current trends in networked societies, which put forward inclusivity, transparency, activation, and a conversational style as crucial for journalism in ensuring the functioning of a healthy democracy (e.g. Min 2015), as well as its own financial future.

Although research has suggested that journalists are capable of consolidating around their key values in times of uncertainty (Wiik 2009), a reformulation of professional role perceptions and ethics seems likely among Finnish political journalists. Indeed, some hints towards potential changes are already visible in journalistic content. In the last ten years, for example, Finnish political journalism has increased its differentiation from the political system by means of stylistic changes that are taking different outlets into slightly different directions (Väliverronen forthcoming). Seeing a similar diversification in the interpretations of journalistic roles and ethics among practitioners would not be a surprise.