Student journalists exhibit different mindsets but agree on the need for truthful reporting

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the ethical orientations journalism students bring to the profession they seek to enter. Using Q methodology to explore the participants’ subjective conceptions of journalism, we map their attitudes and beliefs about journalistic norms and ethics. Participants (n = 54) sorted 28 statements about journalism from ‘most like’ their journalistic mindset to ‘most unlike.’ Factor analysis identified two distinct mindsets among the participants, one expressing a traditional journalistic mindset, the other embracing a more involved, vocal journalism. Yet both factors expressed strong support for many facets of traditional journalism and embraced an orientation towards the search for truth and the need for truthful reporting.

KEYWORDS:

• College press
• journalism norms
• journalism ethics
• journalistic mindset

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Greg Munno

Greg Munno spent 13 years as a reporter and editor at the Syracuse Post-Standard before joining the faculty of Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications as an assistant professor. He teaches writing, reporting, ethics, and data journalism. He has an Executive Master of Public Administration from SU's Maxwell School and a doctorate in mass communications from the Newhouse School.

Megan Craig

Meg Craig is a newspaper and magazine writer and editor who teaches journalism ethics and reporting at Syracuse University's Newhouse School. Formerly a reporter and national/foreign content editor for the Chicago Tribune, she now works as a government affairs reporter for the Syracuse Post-Standard and as an instructor at Newhouse.

Alex Richards

Alex Richards is an assistant professor who teaches data journalism at Syracuse University. He previously worked as a reporter and editor for the Chicago Tribune, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and the Las Vegas Sun. Richards was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2011, and his reporting has been honored with the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, and the Taylor Family Award for Fairness in Journalism, among others.

Mohammad Ali

Mohammad Ali researches journalism and strategic communication as a doctoral student in Mass Communications at the Newhouse School of Syracuse University. A former journalist in Bangladesh, he has master's degrees in Communication at the University of Texas at Tyler and in Public Administration at the University of Dhaka.