PRESS FREEDOM | Informing citizens, ensuring accountability
09 July 2008
What Is the Job of a Journalist?
Survey asks Arab journalists to cite their primary mission
When asked to describe the job of a journalist, news consumers likely would answer that journalists should provide reliable, factual and fair information to the public.
But when the question is posed to the journalists themselves, the answers are somewhat different. This graph shows responses to a 2007 survey of 601 journalists in 13 Arab countries in North Africa, the Levant and the Arabian Peninsula.
The survey was conducted by Lawrence Pintak, director of the Kamal Adham Center for Journalism Training and Research at the American University in Cairo, and Jeremy Ginges, an assistant professor of psychology at the New School for Social Research.
It shows many Arab journalists see themselves as working to promote political and social change in their countries, and to stand up to undemocratic regimes.
According to their research, among the top 10 cited missions of Arab journalism are political reform, human rights, poverty and education. Pintak and Ginges say these issues can outweigh even specific regional challenges such as the situation in Iraq and longstanding concerns such as the Palestinian issue.
The survey results also reveal a certain amount of self-criticism. Only 26 percent said they felt their fellow Arab journalists “act professionally” and only 11 percent said they were truly independent in their work, perhaps because many Arab news outlets are state-owned. But the researchers conclude that journalists are “more powerful and free today than at any time in history.”
The full graph accompanies a May 25 op-ed by Pintak and Ginges that appeared in the New York Times. An abstract of their related magazine article and information on obtaining the full text of the report is available on the International Journal of Press/Politics Web site.
