Valued skills among journalists: An exploratory comparison of six European nations

Cross-national comparative studies of journalists generally focus on the demographic characteristics and/or the values and role-perception of journalists. Systematic studies of journalistic skills have been rare, however. This article reports the findings from a comparative study of journalists from Britain, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Sweden. Based on an email survey of 2238 news professionals, journalistic skills can be grouped into three distinctive dimensions: reporting, editing, and networking skills. The data also show a number of similarities, but also important differences regarding the importance journalists give to different professional skills in different European countries.