ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the first influencing factor of journalism: the principles of journalism. In this context, principles refer to fundamental propositions about journalism’s relation to the public, and the chapter opens with a review of some of the most important ways researchers have tried to model the relation in the past. The review covers both models that have geographical reach – like the Four Theories of the Press and the three Media Systems models – and models that might have more relevance for individual journalists but are more limited to specific continents or even countries. After the review, the chapter proceeds to develop a new model. This model, termed ‘the journalistic compass,’ is based on two key dimensions. The first dimension describes the purpose of journalism, which builds on a dichotomy between passive and active journalism. The second dimension describes the perspective of journalism, which is based on a dichotomy between journalism with a representative focus and journalism with a deliberative focus. When connected, the two dimensions – and the two sets of dichotomies – point to four corners of the journalistic world that journalists can potentially navigate toward, and the compass also delineates four roles. The chapter concludes by discussing the similarities and differences between the four roles in the compass and the importance of these roles as an influencing factor of journalism.
