ABSTRACT
Media ownership matters. Content (Wagner and Collins, 2014 ), owner influence on journalists (Cushion, 2007 ), and the journalists’ perception of ownership (Nemcová Tejkalová et al., 2015 ; Hájek et al., 2015 ) evolves when ownership changes. In the Czech media market in 2015, the previously dominant foreign owners of print media were completely replaced by local businessmen, dubbed the ‘billionaire saviours’ (see Chittum, 2013 ). Based on long-term qualitative research, this case study focuses on the journalistic perception of media ownership and the shift in this perception brought on by ownership changes through an analysis of the dominant local media owner Vltava Labe Media. Particular attention is paid to the owners’ impact on how journalists perceive the owner role in the media house and how the changes in ownership impact professional journalistic autonomy. The findings suggest that respondents gradually reflected better upon the previous owners’ role in the publishing house: the journalists welcomed the new owner as a saviour, but, in the end, they became more aware of the money-saving agenda. Interestingly, journalists do not only associate these commercialization pressures just with the owners, but rather with the constantly changing management.
