Attribution of global ethical norms: Perceptions of journalistic independence and integrity in Serbia,Macedonia and Croatia

Journalistic independence and integrity in the global context

The norms of journalistic independence and integrity belong to universal ethical values recognized by journalists around the world as pertinent moral guidelines for professional fulfilment of their jobs (Hanitzsch et al., 2013). Independence refers to the notion of freedom from government interference, censorship and advertisers’ influence, as well as avoidance of conflict of interest (Cooper, 1990; Hanitzsch et al., 2013; Herrscher, 2002; Kovach and Rosenstiel, 2001). Independence has often been used in connection with the notion of personal integrity, which carries two connotations. The first one assumes that journalists should not have a personal interest in the causes and businesses of their sources (Herrscher, 2002), and the second one is related to practices by which journalists personally benefit from the publication of the story (Randall, 2000), such as acceptance of allowances for positive coverage or lack of negative one.

The values of journalistic independence and integrity have been identified by journalists around the world. Analysing the data collected in a cross-national study, the World of Journalism Study, between 2007 and 2009, which included interviews with 2000 journalists in 20 countries, Hanitzsch et al. (2013) found that both norms have been frequently mentioned – 153 times for independence mainly in reference to freedom from economic interests, media owners, advertisers, politics and audience; and 108 times for integrity, mainly in the context of essential attributes of good journalists. Other studies have also found the widespread reference to these two ethical norms, mainly in journalistic Codes of Ethics around the world (e.g. Jones, 1980; Laitila, 1995). References to journalistic independence and integrity have been noted in journalistic Codes of Ethics in Serbia, Macedonia and Croatia as well. In all three countries, the Codes call for journalists to resist any kind of external pressures and censorship, to abstain from accepting gifts for news reporting, and they prohibit business relationships between journalists and their sources, as well as parallel engagement of journalists in a news organization and an advertising agency, a political party or a lobbying group (Causidis and Bojarovski, 2012; Croatian Journalists’ Association, 2009; Journalists’ Association of Serbia, 2013).

Despite strict written provisions, several studies have noted that accepting money or other material allowances and privileges, or reporting in the interest of political and economic sources of power, has been found to be present in numerous countries (Hanitzsch, 2006; Kruckeberg and Tsetsura, 2003; Ristow, 2010). These breaches have been, in many cases, linked to corruptive journalistic behaviours and labelled as corruption in journalism, often studied in its sub-forms of bribery, nepotism, non-transparency, ‘envelope journalism’ or ‘cash for coverage’ (e.g. Grynko, 2007; Hanitzsch, 2005; Kruckeberg and Tsetsura, 2003; Lodamo and Skjerdal, 2009; Mwesige, 2004; Rockewell, 2002; Yang, 2012). In addition, Hanitzsch et al. (2013) have stated that when referring to the notion of integrity, participants in their study have often mentioned it in the context of ‘incorruptibility’, ‘avoidance of bribes’ or ‘bribe-taking’ and ‘zero tolerance for corruption’ (p. 36). It can be assumed that the term ‘corruption’ would especially be present in the discourse of journalistic independence and integrity among the general population of the three countries under study since in all of them, serious problems with bribery and pressures on all institutions, including news media, have been reported and often talked about in public (Anticorruption Council of the Government of Serbia, 2011; IREX, 2015; Kresic, 2012; Transparency International, 2013). For these reasons, when studying audiences’ views of ethical principles of journalistic independence and integrity, this study opted for asking the participants about their views of corruption in journalism in their respective countries.

Corruption in journalism in Serbia, Macedonia and Croatia

In Serbia, Macedonia and Croatia, various forms of corruptive news media practices have been present for decades and mainly imposed indirectly, through the postulates of the state media system, characteristic for communist and authoritarian societies (e.g. when the three countries were part of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, from 1943 to 1991), as well as through political and economic pressures on media workers (when the countries gained their independence in the early 1990s (Pjesivac, 2016). Today, despite pluralistic media markets and democratic political orientation, serious problems with journalistic independence and integrity have been noted. In Serbia, the Anticorruption Council of the Government of Serbia (2011) reported that the connection of political and financial centres of power with media has taken control over media organizations; that media owners have been ensuring positive coverage for themselves and their business associates, and that the advertising money, coming primarily from state institutions, has been used to promote the work of state officials. In addition, the owners of public relations (PR) and marketing agencies, have been often found to be members of certain political parties or their friends and supporters, who would buy out media advertising slots but delay the full payment until complete positive coverage of their clients was secured (Anticorruption Council of the Government of Serbia, 2011).

IREX’s (2015) report indicated the existence of connections between media ownership and editorial policy in Croatian private media, as is the case with business conglomerate Agrokor, owned by Ivica Todoric, who also owns Tisak, the nationwide newspaper distributor, and is the largest single advertiser in the media. The report further noted that local governments are involved in the ownership structure of a significant percentage of local media in Croatia, and that media with a local government ownership structure would generally not be prone to criticism of the authorities they live off. A Freedom House (2015) report states that both journalists and news editors are aware that their owners are connected to different lobbies and interest groups. Journalists of both public and private media complain of the persistent governmental influence on their work as well as of economic insecurities, which influence the journalists’ willingness to disown the journalistic code and author texts ordered by their editors (Peruško, 2013). Research points out that Croatian journalists have been censored by their editors, have admitted to self-censorship and that they lack common professional standards (Švob-Đokić et al., 2011).

In Macedonia, Trpevska and Micevski (2014) note that the government is almost in full control of traditional as well as online media and that it appears as one of the biggest advertisers in the news media sector. On the other hand, financial reports of the political parties to the State Audit Office showed that broadcast media give large advertising discounts to political parties, especially to the ruling party, during election campaigns (Jordanovska, 2014; State Audit Office, 2013). In a 2013 study, Macedonian journalists and other media workers confessed that they have been repeatedly censored and self-censored and that they received direct bribes when third-party companies pay for their cellphone bills or their per diems when covering news events (Georgievski, 2014). Similarly, IREX (2014) reports note that Macedonian journalists ‘have been forced, by combined pressures from political centers of power and media owners (with strong political ties themselves), into taking clear sides and moving from journalism into outright political propaganda’ (p. 73).

The above literature review shows the existence of breaches of journalistic ethical norms of independence and integrity in the form of existing corruptive practices of news media professionals in Serbia, Macedonia and Croatia. ¹ Although studies have dealt with corruptive practices of media workers in these three countries as well as in other transitional and developing countries (e.g. Elahi, 2013; Florentino-Hofilena, 2004; Hanitzsch, 2005; Hasty, 2005; Kasoma, 2009; Lo et al., 2005; Lodamo and Skjerdal, 2009; Mwesige, 2004; Ndangam, 2006; Ristow, 2010; Rockewell, 2002; Shafer, 1990), almost none of the studies have looked at audiences’ perspectives. Exceptions include Transparency International’s study (2013), which measured the levels of perception of news media corruption. In that study, Serbia had the second highest score of news media corruption perception, 4.0 on a 5-point scale; Macedonia scored 3.5 and Croatia 3.4, all above the global average of 3.1. However, the Transparency International study (2013) measured the levels of perceived news media corruption in a broader sense of perceived corruption in all institutions. Thus, it stays unclear in which way the audiences understand the breaches of journalistic independence and integrity in the forms of perceived news media corruption, a process that might be explained by the Attribution Theory.

Attribution of ethical norms in journalism

Attribution theory stems from Heider’s (1944, 1958) early work in social psychology, which dealt with the causal attribution of one’s own and other people’s behaviour. The theory represents a set of explanations of the processes by which an observer reasons backward from the actor’s observed behaviour to the unobserved causes of the behaviour. Wanting to make sense of things around them, individuals formulate reasons for human behaviour in much the same way that scientists formulate theories of how and why things work. According to Heider, people, as some kind of naïve scientists, attribute reasons for a certain behaviour to either internal reasons (such as stable individual traits) or to external factors (such as environmental or situational causes). That is, given the attitude or behaviour expressed by another person, the observer tries to determine whether other person’s act is caused by true beliefs or by some situational constraint (Hansen and Scott, 1976). Jones and Nisbett (1972) then posited that actors tend to attribute the causes of the same actions to situational requirements, whereas observers tend to attribute the same actions to personal dispositions. This tendency is commonly known in social attribution as the ‘actor–observer hypothesis’. Later, Ross (1977) coined the term Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE) to describe a process in which individuals ascribe actions of other people mainly to personal dispositions, rather than to situational factors. Several studies have shown that observers are notably insensitive to the effects of social roles on behaviour and simply exhibit a tendency to attribute the outcome of the situation to the personal traits of the actor. Even in situations in which contextual factors had an enormous impact on the actor’s behaviour, observers still based their attributions to actors’ personalities (Gilbert and Jones, 1986; Jones and Harris, 1967; Ross et al., 1977). FAE usually concerns interpersonal relations, but may be extrapolated to generalized other in mass communication or to a generalized occupational disposition. Applied to journalism, FAE would predict that audience members would not see very well the contextual factors involved in a given situation, but would describe journalistic breaches of independence or integrity by explanations such as ‘That’s what journalists are like’ or ‘That’s just what journalists do’ (Voakes, 1997).

Attribution theory has been widely used in social psychology, but also in communication disciplines, such as interpersonal communication (e.g. Rittenour and Kellas, 2015; Young, 2004), health communication (Vishwanath, 2014), advertising (Hansen and Scott, 1976; Sparkman and Locander, 1980), crisis communication (Coombs, 2007; Jeong, 2009) and political communication (Sirin andVillalobos, 2011). Having in mind that most of attribution theory research has focused on the context of interpersonal relationships, the studies in the area of mass communication are less dominant. One of only a few such studies has analysed the occurrence of the FAE in perceptions of fictional characters from audio-visual media – namely, the participants of Tal-Or and Papirman’s (2007) experiment attributed more negative traits to a television drama actor after watching him play the role of a negative character, which indicates that the viewers attributed the character’s behaviour to the actor’s personality despite the existence of a clear situation constraint (i.e. the script). Another study that applied Attribution Theory to the area of mass communication has linked the Third-Person Effect to the FAE. The pattern of findings in McLeod et al.’s (2001) study suggested that FAE, as the tendency to use different criteria for inferring causes of behaviour of others when inferring causes of one own behaviour, might be a useful framework for understanding third-person perceptions of media effects, according to which individuals tend to underestimate media effects on oneself and overestimate such effects on others. In the area of journalism, only one study available to the authors has applied the Attribution Theory to the context of journalism and connected it to the ethical principles in journalism. Voakes (1997) conducted a telephone survey of 376 residents and 60 daily journalists in a US midwestern county and found high agreement between journalists and the members of the public in terms of unacceptability of ethically controversial actions, such as the publication of a juvenile’s name. It is interesting that in Voakes’ (1997) study, members of the public believed that journalists’ ethics are primarily guided by journalists’ occupational norms and competitive pressures, whereas journalists cited organizational policies, relevant law and individual reasoning. This suggests that public respondents might have committed to the FAE of failing to see situational factors as influences on journalists and, instead, attributing journalistic ethics to generalized occupational disposition, such as competitive and occupational influences, in significant contradiction to journalists’ beliefs. Voakes’ (1997) primary goal was to compare journalists’ view of ethical standards with audience’s views of ethical standards in the United States, whereas this study uses the Attribution Theory to examine audiences’ understanding of breaches of two specific ethical norms: independence and integrity in three countries of Eastern Europe. Although previous studies have found that when understanding others’ behaviour observers mainly based their attributions on actors’ personalities (Gilbert and Jones, 1986; Jones and Harris, 1967; Ross et al., 1977; Voakes, 1997), they did it mainly in the experimental setting and did not delve deeper into how audiences approach the entire attribution process. In order to address this problem, this study asks two overarching questions:

Method

In order to achieve an understanding of news media corruption perception in three countries, we collected 61 in-depth, semi-structured interviews. The method enabled the researchers to access the mental world of individuals and reach for their understandings of the phenomenon (McCracken, 1988) of corruption perception among people of three post-Communist societies.

Participants

In total, 20 individuals from Serbia, 21 from Macedonia and 20 from Croatia were interviewed. The study followed the tenets of qualitative research that allowed for small samples, even single cases, as its purpose was to reach for the depth rather than the breadth of the phenomenon (Patton, 2002). The participants were selected using a snowball method. The first participants were individuals known to the researchers, and were selected from the researchers’ circles of acquaintances. The rest were selected based on their recommendations. The exact number of participants was determined when the point of redundancy was reached in data collection. In other words, when saturation was attained and no new information was emerging from interviews, the researchers stopped recruiting new participants (Patton, 2002).

The number of participants per age group was as follows: Serbia: 19–24 (3), 25–35 (8), 36–45 (2) and 46–62 (7); Macedonia: 18–24 (3), 25–35 (8), 36–45 (4) and 46–75 (6); and Croatia: 19–24 (1), 25–35 (6), 36–45 (5) and 46–77 (8). Among Serbian participants, there were 13 women and seven men; in the Macedonian sample, there were 12 women and nine men; and in the Croatian sample, there were 14 women and six men. All of the participants from Serbia live, work or study in Belgrade, the capital of the country, although some of them were not born in the city. Most of the Macedonian participants also live, work or study in the capital, Skopje; two of the participants live in the eastern part of Macedonia, and one is from the western part of the country. Most of the Croatian participants also live, work or study in the capital, Zagreb; three of the participants live in the eastern part of Croatia. The educational level in all samples ranged from high school diploma to various college degrees (associate, Bachelor’s, Master’s and doctorate). In Serbia, there were nine participants with high school diplomas, four with Associate degrees, four with Bachelor’s degrees, one with a medical school degree, one with a law school degree and one with a dental school degree. In Macedonia, there were three participants with high school diplomas, 13 with Bachelor’s degrees, four with Master’s degrees and one with a PhD. In Croatia, there were eight participants with high school diplomas, one with an Associate degree, 10 with Bachelor’s degrees and one with a PhD. In terms of professional occupation, in the Serbian sample, there were five students, two civil engineers, an architect, a physical therapist, a construction technician, an office assistant, an economist, a marketing director, a medical doctor, a dentist, a retiree, an accountant, a lab technician, a security analyst and an electro-technician. In the Macedonian sample, there were five unemployed participants, three students, three retirees, two PR consultants, a pharmacist, a worker in a textile factory, a marketing assistant, a university professor, a media analyst, an interpreter and a teacher. In the Croatian sample, there were five teachers, three economists, three retirees, a student, a nurse, a cook, a private businessman, a farmer, a worker in the textile industry, an engineer, a pharmaceutical representative and an unemployed participant.

Interview guides

Three researchers, the authors of this study, conducted interviews, each a native speaker in one of the countries. The researchers worked from interview guides that were the same for all three countries. The questionnaire was part of a larger study. It started with asking the participants to state which news media they follow, to what extent and why, and then to describe the process of building trust in news media. Finally, the researchers asked the participants about their thoughts in terms of corruptive news media practices in their countries. The interview guides also contained questions about trust in other people and trust in institutions that were not included in this study. The interview guide was designed by the first author of this study and contained open-ended questions that were designed to indirectly access participants’ constructions of corruption perception. The open-ended nature of the qualitative interviews allowed for exploratory, unstructured responses which were essential for reaching deep understanding of the phenomenon in question (McCracken, 1988).

All interviews with the Serbian participants, except one, were conducted in person, in May 2013, in Belgrade, Serbia, in locations convenient for the participants, and lasted from 35 minutes to 1 hour. All interviews with the Macedonian participants were conducted via Skype, an online service that allowed for long-distance video and audio communication, in August and September 2013. The interviewer was in the United States, while the participants were in Macedonia. The interviews lasted from 30 to 90 minutes. Interviews with the Croatian participants were conducted in person in June and July of 2014, in the capital, Zagreb, and in a small village in Eastern Croatia, in locations convenient to the participants, and lasted from 25 to 75 minutes. The interviews in Serbia and Croatia were taped on a digital audio recorder and transcribed by outside, professional transcribers (Serbia) or by the researcher (Croatia). The interviews with Macedonians were video-recorded using Skype’s recording option, and were transcribed by the researcher. The interviews were transcribed in three different languages, while the translation to English occurred during the analytical process. Each researcher was in charge for translations from her native language.

Data analysis

The data were analysed using comparative thematic analysis, a method for identifying, analysing and reporting patterns (themes) within data. In conducting the thematic analysis, the researchers followed the six steps suggested by Braun and Clarke (2006). They first got familiarized with the data (interview transcriptions) by engaging in repeated readings of the data, actively searching for meanings and patterns. They then generated lists of ideas of what was in the data. In Step 3, the researchers sorted the different ideas into potential themes and collated all the relevant coded data extracts within the identified themes. A theme was considered as one if it captured something important about the data in relation to the research question and represented some level of patterned response or meaning within the dataset. The prevalence of the theme was considered both on the level of the entire dataset (all the transcribed interviews) and individual data items (individual transcribed interview). In Step 4, the researchers refined the themes, determining whether there was enough data to support a particular theme, as well as whether the themes had internal homogeneity (whether the data within a particular theme cohered together meaningfully) and external heterogeneity (whether there were clear and identifiable distinctions between themes). This was first done separately for each dataset by each researcher individually. Then, the themes from the three countries were comparatively analysed by looking at similarities and differences between them. The three researchers grouped together and comparatively analysed the themes. If enough evidence was found, similar themes from the three countries were collated under the same theme, whereas different ones were left to stand alone. Finally, the researchers defined and named the themes (Step 5) and wrote the comparative analysis (Step 6).

Analysis

When asked whether they thought there were some corrupt practices in their news media systems, most participants reacted strongly. Phrases such as ‘Yes, there is corruption. For sure!’ (P8_s), ² ‘Absolutely yes!’ (P5_m), ‘Of course there is corruption!’ (P19_m), ‘They are all corrupt and dependent on somebody else!’ (P11_m) and ‘There is corruption in the media and the examples are everywhere’ (P6_c) appeared, painting a picture of conviction among the members of the public in the existence of news media corruptive practices in the three countries. All participants, except two from Macedonia, two from Croatia and one from Serbia, perceived their news media as corrupt, naming media owners, media managers, news editors and journalists as corrupt media personnel. The participants’ general position towards the perceived corrupt behaviour of their news media is reflected in the statements of Participant 11 from Croatia and Participant 13 from Serbia:

They [journalists] do not investigate stories in depth and most of the time they serve the politicians more than the public. I know sports journalists very well, it is the same story, they write the stories based on who pays them and how much. (P11_c)

For some small interests, or for small honoraria, journalists are simply ready to write whatever. (P13_s)

Descriptions of various forms of perceived corrupt news media behaviour appeared also in the answers to questions about trust in news media in the three countries, which preceded the direct question about the possible existence of news media corruption, as well as in the answers to questions that asked the participants to describe the work of journalists and their organizations. Only two participants (P7_s and P4_m) had witnessed first-hand the corrupt behaviour of media professionals. Others made their conclusions based on what they inferred from news media professionals’ behaviour and their news coverage (e.g. P6_s, P13_s, and P1_c) or on what some of their friends who work in the news media had told them (e.g. P11_c and P7_s). Only a small number of participants said they didn’t know whether corruption was present among media professionals in their countries: two from Croatia (P14_c and P15_c), two from Macedonia (P8_m and P20_m) and one from Serbia (P14_s). ³ In their answers, the participants also described why they thought news media corruption existed in Serbia, Macedonia and Croatia and how they came to the conclusion that news media corruption exists.

Succumbing to political pressures

For a number of participants in this study, politics and political pressures were the first associations with corrupt news media behaviour (e.g. P1_c, P9_c, P10_c, P17_c, P2_s, P12_s and P4_m). Many of them were of the opinion that the government and political parties demand that the news media report in a way that would be supportive of their policies, and that, very often, journalists and news editors succumb to these pressures. For example, several Croatian participants mentioned Denis Latin, a famous Croatian television show host who, in 1993, created the political talk show, Latinica, aired on Croatian Public Television (HRT). The show was famous for covering controversial political issues, was censored several times and finally cancelled in 2011. Some of the participants thought that news directors cancelled the show because they came under pressure from the political elites:

Denis Latin was one of the rare journalists who seemed like an honest man … I don’t know the reason why they fired him, but I think it has to do with corruption and the fact that his version of freedom of speech did not sit well with some people. (P10_c)

Serbian participants considered that ‘all news media are working in somebody else’s interest’ and identified those interests as mainly of the government (e.g. P9_s and P12_s) or of the political parties (P13_s):

I don’t trust them, because all TV stations and newspapers are under the influence of the government, or those who are currently in power. And they [journalists] publish literally what they are told to publish. In the last 10 years, no opposition party was allowed to appear on any television station for more than a minute. (P12_s)

These types of pressure from above are tightly connected to the perception of censorship in the news media. The participants of this study thought that being under the influence of the government and political elites, news media are highly limited in what they can publish. They believed that the censors come from politics, but that, inside newsrooms, there are also some editors and directors who act as informal censors in the name of the political elites (e.g. P4_s, P5_s and P17_s). For example, Participant 4 from Serbia, a 33-year-old construction technician, thought that a journalist might send to the editor his news report and that ‘“somebody” might simply say, “Listen this [report] cannot look like this, it must be different” or “You cannot write about that”’.

Other participants directly stated that news media are paid to report in the interests of the political parties. Participant 9 from Serbia, a 47-year-old accountant, thought that political parties pay news media to select information that will be published. Participant 1 from Croatia, a 32-year-old economist, gave an example of the type of corruption she inferred from watching Croatian television:

For example, there was an incident when Zagreb mayor drove the car drunk and caused an accident. That incident did not make into the news for months, I am sure he paid journalists not to report on it. It happened many times that certain information never made it to the public, or was broadcast months after the fact. Why was the information not broadcast? Probably because somebody paid the media to stay quiet. (P1_c)

Macedonian participants said they thought that their country’s government paid news media professionals directly to prevent any critical coverage:

Latas [a Macedonian journalist] publicly said that he works for VMRO [the ruling party] and that he gets his salary from them. So if he can say that publicly, why should I think there are no other journalists like him? Or if not journalists, then editors who take a share or depend on somebody [from the government]. (P7_m)

Hidden advertising

Participants from Macedonia and Serbia thought that advertisers influence, directly or indirectly, news media coverage. Participant 18, from Macedonia, a 40-year-old non-governmental organization (NGO) consultant, who used to work as a journalist, explained that the problem is not that the news media accept money for content that is clearly labelled as commercial, but that journalists and news editors write and produce news items that are supportive of their advertisers and then publish them in their regular newscasts or on the regular news pages in newspapers without labelling them as advertising. He called this practice the ‘selling of editorial policy’ for advertising money. The practice also implies that news media professionals are not allowed to investigate potential controversial stories, if they come from their major advertisers:

There was a scandal involving the Telecom [major telecommunication company in Macedonia] and if you analyze the stories that appeared in the media, you will notice that the scandal was present only in the media where the company has not been advertising. (P18_m)

Participant 7 from Serbia, a 41-year-old marketing director from a big company, explained that most private news media would only cover company events if that company were their advertiser. As he stated, the event would then be published in a regular business news section and not labelled as advertising:

You have to pay for the ad if you want to have your event covered in the news segment. Once, my company organized a big event and I called my friend Biljana [a journalist] and asked her to put that news in her newscast and she said: ‘Unfortunately, I am not allowed to’. It means that you have to be their advertiser, if you want them to cover your event. So, I realized that they must be doing that with all other news, as well. (P7_s)

Advertising, government and media owners

Participants from Macedonia explained that in their country, the biggest advertiser in the media is the government itself. Participant 9, a 26-year-old unemployed man, explained that by controlling the advertising market, the government channels the bulk of the money to news media that are supportive of its policies while keeping the critical ones out of advertising income:

Yesterday I saw in the news that … most of the money went to Sitel [a government supportive TV station], while Telma [a more critical TV station] got only 6 percent, I think. For me, that is a form of corruption because the government keeps those media on a leash. (P9_m)

Participants from Macedonia also thought that corruption in the news media exists on the level of connections between ownership and politics. Participant 19, a 33-year-old lawyer, explained that the owner of the television station Sitel has been in the government for the last 20 years and that he uses his TV station to spread the views of his political party. Several Serbian participants said that media owners direct which information will be published. According to these participants, journalists are either getting paid more to publish favourable information or simply have to obey their employers’ wishes without any monetary reward (e.g. P1_s and P16_s):

I read the other day in the newspapers that one girl celebrated her birthday, and how many people came to her party. The owner of that medium is her father. So some private media have a self-serving purpose. (P1_s)

Acceptance of bribery for positive coverage

Participants from Macedonia revealed that journalists in their country often accept small allowances in the form of ‘appropriate presents’, such as food, or small presents like mugs, nice-looking pens or free weekends, when covering certain events (e.g. promotional events of companies and different press conferences). Participant 4 from Macedonia, a PR professional, described that small presents are intended to secure positive coverage of the sponsoring side and that he himself paid journalists:

I am embarrassed to say that we in PR give money for publishing information and that the money is being accepted. Journalists sell themselves for 100 euros and that’s the price for something serious. When the issue is not so big they go [sell themselves] for a coffee. (P4_m)

The same participant went on to describe that journalists also get free travel with all expenses paid when covering certain events abroad and suspected that they even got bigger allowances:

Reporters or news editors are invited to go on 7-day-vacations in, for example, Bansko, Bulgaria, or to visit a factory abroad with all the expenses paid. And certain people [alluding to editors] are bought with apartments and cars. (P4_m)

Participants from Serbia also thought that journalists get direct money payments from those who they put in their stories. Thus, Participant 11, a 20-year-old medical student, believed that everybody who appeared as a guest on a TV show must have bribed a journalist. She also believed that ‘money is in play’ whenever somebody appeared on the first page of a newspaper.

Participant 7 from Serbia, a 41-year-old director of marketing and sales from a big company, said that he had personally given small allowances and gifts to selected journalists:

In each news medium, you have a journalist to whom you send gifts. Not to every journalist, but to selected ones. For example, you take him or her to drinks, to lunch, you know what that person likes. You send him a bottle of scotch for his birthday, or something like that. It’s like in sales, you have a target market and you go after it. (P7_s)

Participant 7 from Serbia further explained that some news media take money for positive coverage, but that they also take money for launching attacks on their sponsor’s enemies. He named the tabloid, Kurir, as a newspaper that is ‘paid to defame whomever is on its plate’. One participant from Macedonia mentioned that some news media professionals literally extort money from people for positive coverage. Participant 14, a 30-year-old designer, described that media owners and managers offer their services to anyone who can pay for them:

They blackmail people. They tell them, if you want me to tell your story, it will cost you that much. I haven’t witnessed that personally, but I have friends who work in the media and they told me about it. It’s a public secret, but what can they do? They just want to keep their jobs. (P14_m)

Nepotism

Some participants from Croatia and Serbia recognized involvement in nepotism as a form of corruption among their journalists. They thought that journalists get their positions because of who they know, not necessarily because they are good at what they do (e.g. P1_c, P9_c and P8_s):

I think a lot of journalists get hired through family connections. These people were all working odd jobs and all of a sudden they get promoted without any particular reason. I don’t think a college degree, or knowledge, or experience matter, it is important who you know if you want to succeed in any business, not just journalism. (P1_c)

If corruption is everywhere, it must be in the news media as well

When asked how they knew about the existence of corruption in news media, only one participant from Serbia (P7_s), a marketing and sales director in a big company, and one participant from Macedonia (P4_m), a PR professional, had direct experience of offering small gifts to journalists. None of the other participants said they had witnessed actual corruption of media personnel. They mostly reached conclusions based on what their friends who work for news media told them (e.g. P14_m and P11_c), while others reached conclusions based on news media performance. However, a large number of participants implied the existence of corruption in news media from the existence of corruption in other institutions, without actually seeing it (e.g. P2_c, P3_c, P4_c, P7_c, P17_c, P20_c, P8_s, P11_s, P14_s, P18_s, P2_m, P16_m and P17_m):

I think there is [corruption in news media] because corruption is present everywhere else in Croatian society, so it would be strange if the media were not corrupt. (P4_c)

We are so used to corruption being present everywhere, unfortunately we have also accepted it as normal, it is an everyday occurrence. (P7_c)

I believe there is corruption because people need money, we as a nation are like this, corruption is everywhere, why would there not be any in media as well. (P20_c)

Everybody is corrupt here, starting with medical doctors, and then everybody else, so they [journalists] must be corrupt as well. I don’t think they are any different. (P3_s)

I think that if a certain information is to be published, it will be published, and the one that is not supposed to be published, will not be published … [Journalists] are either bribed or threatened … Of course, these things exist! If they exist at the level of the state, why not in the media? (P18_s)

Is there a corruption in the media? How should I know? Probably yes, there is, since there is corruption everywhere. (P2_m)

Corruption justified

Although the participants from the three countries recognized the existence and different forms of corruption among their journalists, some of them did not blame journalists for being engaged in corrupt practices. The prevalent opinion among the participants was that journalists engage in bribery and nepotism because they don’t have any choice. Participant 10 from Croatia, a 39-year-old cook, thought that journalists in her country have to report news in the interests of the powerful rather than the people because they are under a lot of pressure from different sources of power. Participant 8 from the same country, a 39-year-old information science professor, explained that if faced with pressures of losing his job, he probably would do the same:

There is corruption in Croatian media. However, if I was a journalist and if my boss tells me to lie to the public I would … I don’t think I would have had a choice, I would need to keep the job. (P8_c)

Other participants from all three countries thought that journalists are engaged in corrupt behaviour because they ‘have to’:

They are afraid of politicians and criminal groups, there were killings of journalists, so they are afraid to publish certain information that they have. (P20_s)

I do not blame journalists for being corrupt, their salaries are so low and I think they are just looking for ways to make some money on the side. (P11_c)

Participant 7 from Macedonia, a 33-year-old unemployed PR professional, also thinks that those who try to resist pressures are being shut down:

They [the government] closed down A1 TV because they were too critical. The government has a complete control over the media. Everything on television that concerns the work of the government is positive. If somebody is critical they will be punished. They shut the mouths of the best journalists, who are either nowhere to be seen or work in online portals. They [the good journalists] try to be quiet, not to talk too much. (P7_m)

Calling this situation a ‘fear factor’, Participant 3 from Macedonia, a 33-year-old PR officer, explains that direct bribery of journalists is a ‘thing of the past’ and that the mechanism now imposes the situation in which powerful elites, who control news media through ownership, advertising and political pressures, impose fear on news media professionals. The fear of losing a job in countries with high unemployment rates and generally low average salaries might mean the complete loss of income sources not only for the journalists, but for their families as well. Thus, the circle of dependence, as Participant 14, a 30-year-old interior designer from Macedonia, explained, is formed, in which news media professionals become dependent on media owners, politicians and advertisers for their survival.

Discussion

This study examined public perceptions of journalistic norms of independence and integrity by studying perceptions of news media corruption in the three Eastern European countries of Serbia, Macedonia and Croatia. In-depth interviews with 61 representatives of the three nations revealed that, in the public eye, breaches of journalistic independence and integrity are frequent and take different forms. The participants from Serbia, Macedonia and Croatia thought that journalists from their countries often succumb to pressures from politicians, owners and advertisers; that they receive direct bribes for positive coverage and even extort money from people; that news media are engaged in hidden advertising; and that journalists are engaged in nepotism.

Although, in our study, we did not ask participants directly to conceptualize journalistic independence and integrity, but indirectly assessed it through the conceptualization of corruption, the terms that our participants used to describe corrupt journalistic practices overlapped with the terms the participants of Hanitzsch et al.’s (2013) study used to describe journalistic independence and integrity – namely, many journalists from 20 countries in Hanitzsch et al.’s (2013) study framed journalistic independence in terms of independence from economic interests, media owners, advertisers, politics and audience. In our study, members of the public in Serbia, Macedonia and Croatia saw journalistic corruption, among other forms, in terms of news media practitioners’ tendency to succumb to pressures from political elites, advertising moguls and media owners, either for direct monetary gain or out of fear of losing their jobs. For them, this practice of ‘selling the editorial policy’ represented a sign of working in ‘somebody else’s interests’ [rather than the audience’s], which depicted the relationship of dependence between news media, politics, businesses and advertising. Under conditions of restraints, journalists were seen to sacrifice their own independence, impartiality and fairness. In addition, participants in Hanitzsch et al.’s (2013) study framed journalistic integrity as a prohibition of conflict of interest, especially in the forms of accepting money or other material privileges for positive coverage. In our study, participants from Serbia, Macedonia and Croatia also saw corruption in journalism as acceptance of bribes in the form of smaller presents (food or promotional material from companies), direct cash payments or travel. These payments were seen as a tool to secure positive coverage of the paying side or negative coverage of the enemies of the paying side. The descriptions of the practice, which implied the belief that ‘money is in place’ for every cover page of newspapers or interview on television or that ‘journalists sell themselves for 100 euros’, painted a picture of lost integrity in journalism, which, in the eyes of the audiences in the three countries, might be hard to regain, since, in their view, the corrupt practices have penetrated all other aspects of their societies. The similarities of conceptualization of journalistic independence and integrity among worldwide journalists in Hanitzsch et al.’s (2013) study, and the conceptualization of corruption among the audience members in Serbia, Macedonia and Croatia in our study, might demonstrate that journalistic corrupt practices could be considered as a component when studying breaches of journalistic ethical norms of independence and integrity at the global level. This might suggest that future studies that deal with global media ethics, especially the ones that cover Eastern European societies, might include corruption in their proposals of prototype values of a universal code of ethics.

Furthermore, the forms of perceived journalistic corruption found in this study are extremely similar to the ones that the literature has identified as the forms of actual news media corruption in these three countries. That is to say that previous research has noted that journalists in Serbia, Macedonia and Croatia are under pressure from political and economic interests to publish information favourable to these centres of power (e.g. Anticorruption Council of the Government of Serbia, 2011; Freedom House, 2015; IREX, 2014, 2015; Trpevska and Micevski, 2014); has identified advertising money as one of the main sources of pressure on journalists in Eastern Europe (e.g. European Commission, 2015; Grynko, 2007; Tsetsura, 2005); and has found that news media professionals in developing and transitional countries take different forms of direct allowances for positive coverage (e.g. Hanitzsch, 2005; Hasty, 2005; Kasoma, 2009; Lodamo and Skjerdal, 2009; Ristow, 2010). Our study showed that the members of the public in the three transitional countries have recognized these corrupt practices and that they have been able to discern different forms of direct and indirect payments to journalists. The literature notes that corruption in journalism can be understood in many ways (e.g. involvement in favouritism, lies, deception for personal gain; acceptance of cash, gifts, favours, tips and privileges; threats of extortion; publishing information in ways that prioritize kinship relations over public interest) (Elahi, 2013; Shafer, 1990) and can exist on interpersonal (exchange of cash between individuals), intra-organizational (editor exerts pressure on journalists) and inter-organizational levels (external company pays news organization for publication of news articles) (Kruckeberg and Tsetsura, 2003). Unlike some African and Asian countries in which journalistic corruption mainly takes the form of direct bribery (acceptance of cash or small gifts for coverage) (Hasty, 2005; Hanitzsch, 2005; Kasoma, 2009; Lodamo and Skjerdal, 2009; Ristow, 2010), in Eastern Europe, a more complicated relationship among news media professionals and political, economic and advertising elites has been noted. That relationship assumes that news media professionals are connected to other elite groups through family and friendly relations and are willing, for reasons of mutual survival in a small market, to produce news content favourable to other elites or place hidden advertising content (e.g. Grynko, 2007; Tsetsura, 2005). Some authors call this practice indirect bribery (e.g. Ristow, 2010), while others have seen the relationship between political elites and news media editorial policy as a sign of political parallelism (e.g. Hallin and Mancini, 2004). This study showed that the audiences in Serbia, Macedonia and Croatia are very well aware of these connections, and are even able to name the individuals involved in this vicious circle of dependence. These findings show that ethical standards and their breaches in journalism are not cross-national only in terms of professionally and scholarly proclaimed norms but also in terms of public perceptions of them. The participants in our study were able to perceive the standards of independence and integrity in journalism and name various forms of their breach, almost identically as it has been done in the academic literature and professional codes of ethics. This study also adds to the existing literature the perceived practice that journalists extort money from sources for the purposes of positive coverage. Further studies are needed to examine whether the extortion practice exists in reality.

When attributing the unethical behaviour of journalists, the participants in our study used both personal traits and situational explanations. When asked about the existence of corruption in their countries, participants from Serbia, Macedonia and Croatia were inclined to talk about the journalistic profession in general, making the assumption that corrupt news media behaviour is some kind of professional trait. This was reflected in the statements that addressed the whole journalistic profession as generally corrupt (e.g. ‘For some small interests, journalists are simply ready to write whatever’; ‘I think journalists are hired through family connections’; ‘I don’t trust them, because all TV stations and newspapers are under the influence of the government’), or in making generalized conclusions based on individual cases (e.g. ‘You’ll see a journalist driving a car and you know who bought that car for him. Of course, there is corruption in the media!’; ‘Denis Latin has been fired because of political pressures, so all news media in Croatia must be under political influence’; ‘Latas openly said that he takes bribes, so other Macedonian journalists must be doing it too’), or, ultimately, in inferring news media corruption merely from the existence of corruption in other institutions. However, the participants in our study were also able to see the contextual factors involved in breaches of journalistic independence and integrity. These attributions to contextual factors were stated in those parts of the interviews in which the participants mainly tried to justify the corrupt behaviour of news media workers. Participants would analyse situational factors of journalistic behaviour and explain that journalists take bribes because ‘they have to’, because ‘their salaries are low’ or because they ‘will lose their jobs’ if they don’t obey their employers’ or editors’ wishes. Participants even stated that they would do the same if put in the place of the journalists. This suggests that the members of the public in the three countries did not always attribute unethical behaviour to some kind of unethical characteristic engrained in the genetic code of journalism as a profession, but also took into consideration situational explanations that might have led journalists to such behaviour. However, as the parallel existence of the trait explanation has also been found in this study, further research in the form of larger quantitative studies is needed to fully test the attribution theory in terms of perceptions of unethical news media behaviour. Future studies of this kind would be important for the examination of possible impacts of perception of unethical behaviour on media credibility. In addition, this study did not probe into the perception of corruption of individual news media organizations in order to avoid leading questions, but asked the participants to state their opinion about corruption in journalism in general. Some participants did mention individual news media organizations, and had direct associations to particular news media outlets when asked about corrupt practices in journalism. To others, however, only the impersonal category of ‘journalists’ in general came to mind. Future studies might delve deeper into the perception of corruption in particular news media organizations to further examine the impact of situational versus trait explanations in perceptions of journalistic ethical standards.

This study has been exploratory in nature. It concentrated on a fairly small sample of citizens in three countries in order to examine the understanding and attribution of journalistic norms of independence and integrity. With 61 interviews, the results are not generalizable to the entire populations of the three Eastern European countries, especially taking into consideration the qualitative nature of the interviews. Their goal was not to make conclusions applicable to the entire populations of these three countries but to make initial inquiries and to set the ground for future research.

Finally, it is important to note that this study contributes to the generally very scarce literature about audiences’ perceptions of ethical standards in journalism. The lack of it is surprising, having in mind some potential detrimental effects. For example, high levels of perceived lack of independence and integrity in news media could increase the levels of actual corruption by encouraging people to believe they must pay bribes. When individuals believe that many people pay bribes, they are prone to think that the other side would accept illegal money under any circumstances. Thus, the belief that everybody takes bribes becomes widespread, even part of the culture and accepting and receiving payments for public services becomes the norm (Čábelková and Hanousek, 2004; Pjesivac, 2016), whereas journalistic independence and integrity remain a dead letter.