Business influence on media news processing: A comparison of journalists’ perceptions in the Czech Republic and South Africa

Abstract

How do journalists in two formally authoritarian countries, the Czech Republic and South Africa, perceive the potential of media owners and other business people to infl uence their work? Multinomial ordinal regression analysis was applied to data collected in the Czech Republic and South Africa for the present 50 country-wide Worlds of Journalism (WoJ) Project. A total of 291 journalists in the Czech Republic and 371 journalists in South Africa were interviewed according to the WoJ protocol. Th ree aspects of media freedom, as perceived by the respondents, a r e discussed, namely the freedom journalists have to select news stories; to emphasize certain news aspects; and to participate in editorial discussion and decision making (news coordination). Th e results suggest that media owners as well as business people curb, but also support, journalists’ freedom in dealing with the news. In the Czech Republic, a country in the global North and a former member of the Soviet bloc, the results show the infl uence of media owners and business owners supports the freedom of journalists in selecting their own stories. More infl uence of business people is associated with more freedom of journalists in aspects emphasized in the stories and in the frequency the journalists participate in newsroom coordination. In South Africa, a former white minority-ruled country in the global South, the results suggest that the infl uence of media owners seems to lessen journalists’ freedom to select news and to emphasize certain news aspects, and coordination. Moreover, the perceived level of infl uence of business people in South Africa did not statistically signifi cantly relate to all three aspects of journalists’ freedom.