The analyses and the data collection was treated as part of a process going together from the start till the end of this research project as it is advocated by grounded theory approach discussed above. This procedure was established based on the following conceptual categories which themselves are developed through the processes of gathering and analyzing the data.
1 approaches to news coverage and ethical codes more or less shared by every journalist and assumed to be universal values and standards of journalism ethics,
2 instruments used to self regulate media practices like codes of conducts, 3 independence in practicing the profession and personal commitments to ethics
4 hierarchies of ethical values and principles in the views and interpretation of journalists, 5 factors influencing behavior toward ethical journalism,
6 self assessing and evaluating performance of ethical journalism,
7 descriptions of the political and legal environments for the press in the country and 8 handling ethical dilemmas
As part of the analyses procedure and on the bases of the above mentioned conceptual categories, an assumption by the researcher that the current trend of journalism practices is witnessing three broad categories will also be explored since ultimately the core goal of this project is assessing the trend in its effect for ethical journalism. These three categories of the trend are;
1 a trend to use journalism to a cause which is seeking an administration change, 2 a trend to use it to keep the status quo and
3 a trend that uses journalism to advance individual journalists cause, which is using the safest way in the political system to survive as a journalist.
The data used for analyses was gathered through the following instruments;
1 In-depth interview was conducted with the highest decision making body of the private press institutions, the editors and editor-in-chief, for the final product of their respective publications. This method is chosen for it helps explore issues in detail as the research will have an opportunity to raise follow up questions nod probing that will be a good resource for collecting qualitative data. In addition it will also ‗…put flesh on the bones of questionnaire responses‘ (Bell 1993, 91)
2 Survey through questionnaire was distributed to low level journalists from reporters to sub- editors level. The questionnaire helps to gather data from a significant portion of journalists
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which otherwise is not possible for the researcher to obtain it. In a way it did also make it possible to have a representative sample of domestic and Diaspora journalists.
3 Cases that contain stories with conflicting values and principles to handle them (ethical dilemmas) were presented to each level of the journalists seeking their views and decision on how they handle each of the cases. Here it is believed that a lot can be inferred from responses for such an ethical dilemma cases. These cases could give the opportunity to explore journalists‘ views, perceptions and interpretations of values and principles in a greater depth.
4 Content reviews on a selected time of publication with the same news topic were conducted to supplement the rest of the data. These reviews were done in order to support the analyses with latest and practical applications of ethical journalism among the Ethiopian private media. The basic assumption with regard to the state of ethical journalism was taken from the review of related literature discussed in chapter two of this paper which is a rampant unethical performance of the Ethiopian mass media. However in this content review it was planned to supplement the data in order to support the analyses process with the latest practical applications of ethical journalism among Ethiopian journalists. The review was informed by the qualitative content analyses approach of analyzing the data. Qualitative content analyses as Kazuhiro Maeshima (2007, 69) quoting Hofstetter (1981) explain it ‗the method literally investigates the texts of the media without quantifying them. Instead, qualitative content analysis explores the tone and impressions of texts. The method permits a scholar to scrutinize the nuances of a particular article or of even a particular sentence. Furthermore, qualitative content analysis permits one to investigate the underlying content in the text or to define the purpose of the text the author intentionally (or sometimes unintentionally) wants to deliver to the readers.‘(Hofstetter, 1981) The approach by Kazuhiro Maeshima in using the storylines and media frames as the key ways of analyses did also inform the content review of this research. Johnson-Cartee‘s (2005) statement quoted in Maeshima (2007) that said ‗Media frames are the narrative structures the news media provide‘ goes in line with what is being investigated in this research. That is why media frames are chosen to be used in the qualitative content review in this research. ‗The media presents frames by providing readers with a fairly common view of the major actors, events and themes. Understanding each particular media frame provides a clue to figure out ways of constructing news stories.‘(Kazuhiro Maeshima, 2007, 70). These frames will help clearly see story lines each media is following in the practice of journalism It is possible to infer the values and principles adhered by the media from these story lines. The data obtained from the contents review was used to compare and contrast the results obtained from the data gathered through the other tools and supports the analyses process to be more comprehensive in investigating the problem under investigation.
To put it briefly in this research with an aim of investigating ethical values and principles of journalism in the minds of Ethiopian Journalists, I employed survey of journalists in general, in depth interviews of editors in particular and text analyses of their editorial policy‘s ,certain
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period publications and documents and recordings on issues of journalism ethics in the country. Generally speaking qualitative analyses is the major procedures of analyses in this research. Though there are data gathered which require a quantitative analyses approach, they are only be used to triangulate the research method and will be also analyzed within the frame work of qualitative analyses approach. As Strauss, Anselm L, Corbin and Juliet M (1998) put it this research takes qualitative research as type of research that produces findings not arrived at by statistical procedures or other means of quantification. The coding of the data as the authors explain would allow this research analyses to a statistical analyses too. But the entire process is directed toward producing a nonmathematical process of interpretation carried out for the purpose of discovering concepts and relationships in raw data and then organizing these into a theoretical explanatory scheme. (Strauss, Anselm L, etal, 1998).The rationale to choose qualitative analyses for this research is again to borrow words from Strauss, Anselm L, etal (1998, 11) is ‗ qualitative methods can be used to obtain the intricate details about phenomena such as feelings, thought processes, and emotions that are difficult to extract or learn about through more conventional research methods.‘
The interview questions are designed with a specific aim of understanding why and how news decisions are made as described by journalists themselves. If put in terms of categories, the first group of question are meant to know the cultural backgrounds of the interviewee and how do they become journalists. The processes and the reasons why certain stories are chosen from various options make up the other category of interview questions. And both are typically meant for detecting the values and the value systems in the minds of the individual journalists.
Who they think they are benefiting from their work and the way they measure their successes or effectiveness in achieving it is also assessed through the interview questions. It is not only when they say they are effective but also the way they measure their works within the lenses of ethical values and standards and the way they evaluate others in the profession at an institutional level was also assessed through the in depth interviews. Here their evaluations about others were chosen to be at an institutions level for calling individual journalists‘ and institutions‘ names might not comfort them. It could also be easy for them to well describe others in an institution level than picking up every single case. But when situations allowed their opinions on single cases were also collected. The kind of stories they think their audiences are looking for and where does that impression come from was also investigated through the interview in the assumption that help understand their values and the perception toward it. Since the interview is done with top level decision making journalists, questions regarding their positions and its impact on their daily job with specific reference to ethical issues were asked. In addition factors which they think are affecting their profession in the context of being ethical are also investigated through the interview. Their views on the political situation of the country where they are working were assessed. Efforts have been made to get their views on the content related and content neutral rules and regulation of the land and its impact on them. Their views on the dominant and universally acceptable values and standards of journalism ethics, like verification
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of facts, truth telling, taking sides openly, trying not to harm anyone, applicability of codes of ethics, source treatments was also investigated. As part of this category they were also asked to list what they think are the most important values of their profession have also been collected from the interview. In order to get honest responses from the interviewees they were told that their names will not be used in the paper except that in the analyses phase gender might be used. However names of those who agreed to use their real names will be used.
The survey was done in two ways. It was a hand distributed questionnaire which was used to gather data from the domestic journalists in Ethiopia. This was done for it was the most convenient way of reaching the journalists in a county where internet connection was not satisfactory enough. An online questionnaire using lime survey software was distributed in order to reach the Diaspora journalists where their job is also mainly through the online web. The major task of the questionnaire was also the same with the interview but it is developed for the rest of the journalists below the editor level who are not in a position to decide what could finally be published as news. The questionnaire was designed to follow the conceptual categories developed and listed at the beginning of the discussion on the analyses procedure of this paper. In this project analyses procedure the first task was collecting responses from various questions forwarded to the journalists through the questionnaire and the in-depth interview with an aim of gathering the necessary data for the areas of focus. Ones the responses are gathered efforts were made to map out the ideological foci of the political environment of the nation through liberal and authoritarian political view glasses, and approaches to journalism ethics adhered by individual journalists within the theoretical framework of four approaches of ethics; the deontologist, teleological, virtue-oriented and Afriethics. The contents reviewed, both real news stories published and documents gathered from other sources, was also done within the framework of theoretical explanations for the more or less universally acceptable ethical standards. And of course the comparing and contrasting processes among each of the categories continued to be made until the end of the process or theory saturation point i.e. till it was possible to explore every possible option to better understand the minds of the journalists and their value systems. By doing so, it would be possible to check whether the trend in journalism practices in Ethiopia and abroad can give effect to ethical journalism or not.
In the content analyses section policy documents, meeting recording on journalism ethics, various article published and interviews given by media managers on issues of their profession, minutes from meetings of media representatives in the effort to establish a media council meant for improving ethical practices, media rules and regulation documents, excerpts taken from government officials take on the country‘s media statuses were all gathered and used as supplementary materials in the whole process including in the analyses of purposively chosen real news stories published in a chosen period of time.
The ethical dilemma category was treated by selected cases of fictiously developed stories based on real stories happened elsewhere. The cases which contained conflicting ethical values and
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principles when considered on how to go about their coverage (ethical dilemmas) were presented to each of the journalists and their reactions and handling strategies and decisions on them is detected. Once they are presented with a yes or no answer for each of the cases whether they report them or not, they will be asked to rate their level of agreements with lists of statements which are believed to be bases for their decisions. This measurement is believed to have a deeper insight into the values and principles each of the journalists hold. All the statements listed are developed on the bases of values and principles of ethical journalism that dominantly exist in various codes of conducts universally and in their own media organizations too. The statements are associated with values and principles such as responsibility to inform and serve the society, timeliness, privacy, balance, avoiding or minimizing harm to anyone, truth telling, consequences of new reports, balance, respect for rule of the land and market completion.
The following points can summarize the important points in the process of the analyses procedure;
1 Examining responses obtained from in-depth interview made with top level journalists in terms of decision making processes in general and their values and principles in particular,
2 Content analyzing selected purposively selected latest news stories reported on the leading domestic and Diaspora media outlets at the same time with the same topic.
3 examining self-reported data captured in a manual and electronic online based survey focusing on the values and principles of ethical journalism practices. The web based survey was made to Diaspora Ethiopian journalists while the survey for the Domestic press journalists was done manually.
4 examining responses from the case investigation of stories with ethical dilemmas.
5 assessing external documents and activities in the country related to the media and press freedom issues in general and with issues of journalism ethics in particular.
Sampling