The influence of journalistic role performance on objective reporting: A comparative study of Chilean, Mexican, and Spanish news

Most comparative research on journalistic objectivity, and particularly the relation between objectivity and professional roles, has been carried out in the context of Western media systems and from the perspective of journalists’ role conceptions. However, the relation between role performance and the implementation of the objectivity norm remains unsolved, especially in countries with no clear-cut journalistic tradition of objectivity. Based on a content analysis of news stories published in Chile, Mexico, and Spain (N = 7,868), this study examines (1) the use of four objective reporting methods in newspapers from Spain, Mexico, and Chile, and (2) the influence of the performance of six journalistic roles in those methods. The results show that the materialization of objectivity varies across journalistic cultures, revealing also a significant influence of the performance of professional roles on the implementation of objectivity in news. The study sheds some light on the implication of these results in countries expected to display similar traits due to their historical and cultural affinities but which show very distinctive patterns.