Media Accountability and Journalists: To Whom Do Spanish Professionals Feel Responsible?

ABSTRACT

This paper analyses to whom Spanish journalists feel responsible. To achieve this objective, we sent out a survey to Spanish journalists to ascertain their opinion on this question. The journalists’ point of view was then compared with that of the general public though six focus groups consisting of Spanish citizens from six cities in Spain (Barcelona, Castellón, Madrid, Sevilla, Mondragón and Santiago de Compostela). Lastly, five in-depth interviews were conducted with journalism experts (e.g., directors of professional journalist associations). The main results show that the journalists feel particularly responsible to their conscience, the journalism code of ethics and their sources. The citizens, in contrast, believe that journalists should be responsible to the audience. We contextualised the Spanish finding in the European context by comparing our results with those derived from a study among European journalists.

KEYWORDS:

• Citizens
• conscience
• journalists
• media accountability
• responsibility
• Spain

Acknowlegements

The authors thank Mark Lodge for the translation.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study is part of a research project MediaACES. Accountability and Media Systems in Spain: Real impact and good practices in Spanish Media, funded by Ministry of Economy, Science and Competitiveness of Spain (MINECO/FEDER, UE, ref: CSO2015-66404-P). The data from Europe belong to a research project MediaAcT, Media Accountability and Transparency in Europe, funded by the European Commission under Grant 7th FWP– 244147.