Abstract
It is a common assumption that a healthy democracy and a free press are coterminous, but at the same time both democracy and journalism vary from place to place, and change historically from one period to another. Herein lies the value of this book. It offers a comparative study of political journalism, showing that different conditions create different kinds of political journalism, and different contents have different consequences affecting citizens in a range of different ways. This book is based on interviews with journalists, content analysis of political news and panel survey data. It is cross-national in scope and seeks to identify the optimal mix of conditions for ensuring that political journalism makes a positive contribution to democracy and the needs of citizenship within democratic systems. This is an important book. It is methodologically rigorous and sound in its empirical findings; it develops a comparative perspective across four European nations (Denmark, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom); and it discriminates between different types of political journalism, demonstrating which are conducive to political knowledge and engaged citizenship and which are not (or are less so). The point that perhaps receives greatest emphasis is that effective political journalism requires that journalists are autonomous, remaining free from political and commercial pressures and that citizens are firm in believing that political news media are properly performing a watchdog role.