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Setting the Journalist Agenda: Influences from Journalists' Individual Characteristics and from Media Factors
Wolfram Peiser Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 2000 77: 243 DOI: 10.1177/107769900007700202 The online version of this article can be found at: http://jmq.sagepub.com/content/77/2/243

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SETTINGTHE JOURNALISTAGENDA: INFLUENCES JOURNALISTS INDIVIDUAL FROM CHARACTERISTICS AND FROM MEDIA FACTORS
By Wolfram Peiser
The journalist agenda (issuesjournalists consider personally important)
has received no attention in research about agenda setting and media

content creation. However, the discussion about diversity in newsrooms seems to imply that journalists differ in their personal agendas and that these agendas influence media content. Drawing on data from Germany, this study investigated how the agendas of journalists depended on individual and media factors. Some systematic variations were found among journalists working in different media and departments, and between men and women.As journalistsagendasprobably have relevance to their news judgments, results seem important to newsroom-diversity issues and media agenda-setting research.
In previous research on agenda setting, three different agendas have been studied: the media agenda, the public agenda, and the policy agenda.l While research about influences by the mass media on the public agenda (public agenda setting) and research about influences on the policy agenda (policy agenda setting, also called agenda building) have a comparatively rich tradition, influences on the media agenda (media agenda setting) have received much less attention? Although a large number of factorsactually or potentially influencing media content-i.e., the media agenda-have been identified so far, it seems that the question of what issues journalists themselves consider important has been largely overlooked? These personal agendas of journalists might well have some impact on the media agenda. Taken together, they may be termed the journalist agenda. It is the purpose of this study to investigate the journalist agenda more closely, looking at a number of factors that potentially influence personal issue-importance or issue-salience(and that also account for differencesamong various groups of journalists). Basic Considerations. Surveys of journalists in many countries have investigated backgrounds and demographic characteristics, working condiImplicitly or explicitly, this line tions, and professionalvalues of this of research derives its importance from potential effects of journalists characteristics on media content and on audiences. As Weaver puts it in the introduction to his collectionof findings fromstudies of journalists in twentyone countries: The major assumption is that journalists backgrounds and
Wolfram Peiser is an assistant professor at the Institut fdr Publizistik, University of Mainz, Germany. The author wishes to thank Klaus Schonbach (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands)for making the data used in this study available to him.

Influences on Journalists News Judgments

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ideas have some relationship to what is reported (andhow it is covered)in the various news media around the world, in spite of various societal and organizational constraints, and that this news coverage matters in terms of world public opinion and policie~.~ In keeping with this assumption,research has examined severalbackground characteristics of journalists. In general, two issues arise. First, do individual characteristics of journalists influence their news decisions and thus the medias news content? Second, do journalists (as a group) deviate from the general public with respect to characteristicsthat are influential in the above sense? If the answer to both questions is yes, then news content might be regarded as biased, at least if judged against the values and opinions of the general public. While little research has been done that is directly linked to journalists personal issue-importance, a number of studies have investigated somewhat related subjects. In the international literature, the discussion centers on journalists ideological position, cohort membership (or age), and gender. Ideological Position. Journalists differ from the population in their ideological values and political leaning. In many countries, research has found that journalists are somewhat more liberal and more likely to lean to the left than to the right, and that they tend to support leftist rather than conservativepolitical parties, as compared to the general public? Journalists also seem to perceive themselves as more liberal than their news audience. In a recent study, Raabe found that German journalists differed systematically from the general population with respect to their backgrounds. In particular, journalists were far more likely to belong to the liberal and postmodern milieus? All these deviations may have important implications for media content. There is some evidence that journalistsown opinions and ideological positions are relevant to their news decisions? Although this link has not been investigated by a sufficientnumber of studies, it appears to be at least plausible.O Cohort Membership. Whether a specific event or issue is considered newsworthy may also depend on journalistscohort membership. In crosssectional studies, cohort membership (or generation, a term used interchangeablyin this context)is indicated by chronological age, and surveys of journalists in many countries have shown that this professional group is younger on average than the generalpublic.12Thus, journaliststend to belong to more recent birth cohorts (or generations). The question arises, then, whether cohort membership bears upon news decisions. There is reason to believe it does. Earlier born and more recently born generationsof journalists appear to have unlike collectivememories and may thus differ in their news judgments.13 For example, journalists born before World War I1 might consider the reunification of Germany more important because they personally experienced the period before Germany was divided. Compared with the youngest journalists, even those born in the postwar years might view Germanysreunificationas more significantbecause they, too, witnessed the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 (which consolidated the division of Germany).Indeed, in their 1989survey of West Germanjournalists,Lang and his colleagues found that 82 percent of journalists born in 1950 or earlier remembered the construction of the Berlin Wall as a significantevent; in fact, that event was one of the most important from a list of thirty-four historical eventsthat occurredbetween 1940and 1986.In contrast,journalistswho were born after 1950 were more likely to remember ecologicaldisasters as signifi-

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cant events." This suggests that journalists' personal agendas probably also vary according to their cohort membership (and thus differ by age in crosssectional data). Gender. Communicationscholars as well as news people have argued that news content reflectsthe demographicstructure of the newsroom staff.15 This problem has been discussed in particular with respect to women andat least in the United States-to ethnic minorities. Although their proportion has been rising more or less steadily, women are still underrepresented in Many people in communication science and in journalism believe that media content will change according to the changing gender composition of newsrooms. Much of the discussion in this area seems to imply that the issues journalists consider personally important are relevant to their news decisions.As far as gender is concerned,the following reasoning applies: Women journalists (in some cases) assign importance to other issues than their male colleagues. They introduce these issues into their newsrooms and thus ultimately into the news or other media content. In this way, the media concerned will become more interesting to the female part of the population and thus more likely to adequately perform their function in society. The implication seems to be that women journalists represent the perspectiveor the agenda of the female audience,just as one might argue that male journalists tend to put more emphasis on men's issues. Considering the importance of these points, the amount of research done in this area seems rather limited. While several studies have investigated systematically if women journalists select and report differently, as compared to their male colleagues, the results tended to be somewhat inconcl~sive.~~ appears to be no direct evidence as far as personal There issue-importanceis concerned. It is true that there are numerous examples showing that women journalists have indeed transformed news in U.S. media, and in particular have introduced new issues.l8So one might argue that differentialissue-importancemust play some role. Only one study seems to have addressed this question more directly. In their analysisof journalists' selfselected examples of their "best work," Weaver and Wilhoit found that women used more female sources on average than men did. As to the specific media roles evident in the stories, women journalists put less emphasis on getting the story to the public quickly. Most important to the present study, there was also some evidence that female and male journalists differ with respect to the issues they are concerned about. Women journalists' stories were more likely to deal with socialproblems and protests, as compared with the stories of male journalist^.'^ However, more research is certainly needed to establish the existence of such gender differences more clearly. Individual and Media-Related Factors. In sum, journalists deviate to some extent from the general public with regard to demographic and ideological characteristics.Moreover, there is reason to believe that some of their characteristics (backgrounds, world views, opinions, etc.) influence their news judgments and hence manifest themselves in news content. As Gist puts it: "Whether the issue is race, cultural diversity, gender, age, sexual orientation, economic class, or religion, the determination of what is news is highly subjective. Thus news judgment inevitably reflects the perceptual biases and interests of those making the judgment."" However, there are a number o factors working toward a homogeneity of news decisions, includf ing newsroom socialization, organizationalroutines, and other constraints.21 These factors may be stronger than the effects of journalists' individual characteristics on news content.22Still, influences from journalists' backk l 7 N CT H E ~ o u R N A u s T ~ E N D A

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grounds and values probably do exist, and perhaps they also pertain to journalists personal agendas. However, it seems appropriate to consider organizational or media factors as well. They, too, may be useful in understanding and explaining individual differences among journalists. Research has shown that journalists characteristicsvary considerablyamong media sect0rs.2~For example, German journalists in public-service radio or television differ from those working in commercial stations in their backgrounds and in their professional val~es.2~ various media are geared to audiences that disagree in The their values and interests. Therefore,journalistsnews decisions may also be to some extent unlike in different types of media. B similar reasoning, y journalists working in different departments (each serving particular audience interests:politics, business, sports,etc.) might also diverge in their news judgments. Finally, the position a journalist occupies within a media organization would seem important, too.Journalists are not equal regarding their editorial influence. Obviously, upper-level managers (with potentially diverging personal views or judgments) will have more influence on the news than journalists in lower positions. In particular, the question is who has a say in the general determination of content, that is, who decides what is covered.= Given the probably greater media agenda-setting power of journalists with managerial responsibilities, it would be interesting to know whether and how far position is related to personal issue-importance. In conclusion, then, both individual background characteristicsand media-related factors seem relevant to the journalist agenda. However, we should not expect to find too much variation among journalists. After all, in their role as members of the media audience (the public),journalists will be subject to public agenda-setting effects, too (whether the media agenda reflects real-world developments and events or not). On the other hand, it seems highly plausible that a journalists personal agenda is influenced by his or her professional role; also, some differences among journalists from various backgrounds might seem expectable. Thus, it remains an empirical question to what extent such influences or differences exist, a question that is important to the issue of pluralism in the newsroom and is also relevant to the discussion about external versus internal media diversity?6 So far, research has not undertaken a detailed examination of the agenda of journalists (in particular with regard to differences between variousgroups of journalists).While Schneider,Schonbach, and Stiirzebecher measured the journalistsagenda in their comprehensive survey of German journalists, they only looked at aggregated data of journalists working in East Gerrnan~?~is the purpose of this study to investigate systematically It how far journalists from different backgrounds, but also from different media or departments, disagree in their personal issue-importance.Particular attention was devoted to the question of whether women journalists differed in their agendas from their male colleagues.

Method

Sample. The empirical investigation was carried out using data from Schneider, Schonbach, and Stiirzebechers comprehensive survey of West German journalists?* For this representative survey, 983 journalists were interviewed by telephone between 29 July and 29 September 1992. Agenda Measurement. The agenda of the journalists was measured
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using an open-ended question.First, respondentswere asked about the most important issues they thought occupied their audience: What do you think: What are the most important issues preoccupying the population and the politicians in the Federal Republic at present? Please mention everything that occurs to you. Journalists were then asked about their own agenda: Andwhat preoccupies you personallyin particular?Responsesto the latter question were coded in twenty-seven categories. For the purpose of this study, some of these were combined into broader categories(e.g., economy). Furthermore, those issues that were cited by very few journalists and could not be combined with others in a meaningfulway were assigned to a residual category. In the end, fourteen issue categories remained: German unity (reunification),East Germanys past Criticism of the Federal Government National budget General economic situation, prices/inflation, unemployment Pensions, pension policy Ecological policy Persons seeking(political)asylum, government policy on foreigners Violence against foreigners Foreign p o k y Europe (European Union, European integration) Yugoslavia (civil war, independence of former Yugoslavian republics) Third World Occupation, school, education, income Sports issues
Predictor Variables. A number of variables were used in this study to analyze variations between the agendas of specific groups of journalists. First, two categorical variables pertained to journalists working environment type of medium and department.The journalists were from five major media sectors (news agency, newspaper, magazine, radio, and television), with newspaper, radio, and television subdivided further, yielding a total of ten categories. In particular, public and private radio and television were distinguished. Unfortunately, rather few journalists worked in private television stations. However, the distinctions between radio and television journalists and between journalists working in public-service and in private broadcasting organizations were both considered important;thus, small cell sizes had to be accepted. The journalists in the sample worked in five major departments roughly corresponding to the sections of newspapers (news/ politics, local news, business/economic news, culture/arts/features, and sports). In addition, there was a group of journalists working in no specific department (including editors-in-chief); and journalists from other departments were combined in a residual category. In all, then, the department variable had seven categories. Other respondent characteristics included position, age, gender, education, degree of leftism, and image of audience. The journalists position within the media organization was coded as a 6-point variable ranging from trainee (1)to editor-in-chief (6). While age was measured in years, education was also a &point measure, ranging from junior high school (1) to university degree (6). Leftism was operationalized using respondents assessment of two political parties. The journalists were asked
SET~NGTHEJOWMLISTAGENDA
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what they thought of each of the German parties, using an 11-point rating scale, with the extreme categoriesnamed h n nothing at all of that party tik (-5) and thinka lot of that party (+5).The answers for the Social Democratic Party and the Green Party (both in opposition at the time of the survey)were combined into a summary scale indicating the degree of political leftism (a = .62)F9 Image of audience was a summary index of 17 characteristicsof the audience as rated by the journalists on a 2-point scale (applies-not applies).Most of the characteristicswere positive (e.g., critical, interested in politics, tolerant).A number of items indicating a negative image (e.g., indifferent, narrow-minded) were reversed beforeconstructingthe scale. A principal component analysis showed that the first factor (beforerotation) was a general factor, with positive loadings for the positive items, and negative loadings for the negative items. Therefore,a summary scale of all 17 items was created, indicating the degree to which the image of the audience was positive (a= . ) n.

Results

In the total sample of 983 journalists, the responses concentrated on relatively few issues.Therefore, only those seven issues that were mentioned most frequently were included in the tables below. In a first step, the agenda of the journalists was broken down by some variables that seemed particularly well suited to indicate links between personal issue-importanceon the one hand and journalists individual characteristics and their professional roles on the other. These variables were gender, medium, and department (Tables 1-3). Before proceeding with the findings, it is important to note that the journalists were allowed to provide more than one answer to the agenda question. Percentages in the following cross tabulations were always calculatedbased on the number of responses; using thenumber of journalistsas the base would have yielded biased comparisons of percentages between different groups of journalists because some groups of journalists generally mentioned more issues than others. As a consequence, these tables are based on observations that are not totally independent of each other, which precluded testing the associationin each table for statisticalsignificance.Still, to provide at least an indication of whether these findings may be generalized, chi-square tests based on the number of journalists (thusprobably somewhat biased) were conducted for each issue. Judging by these tests, most of those differences between groups that are mentioned below were statistically significant. While the priorities of male and female journalists were not too ) dissimilar, a number of differences did emerge (Table 1. For example, women tended to mention Yugoslavia and violence against foreignersmore frequently than men, while they regarded the German unity and Europe less often as important issues. Taken together, the differences found would seem to suggest that women journalists tended to emphasize issues involving humanity and human destiny, and to assign somewhat less importance to abstract political issues and to institutions, as compared to their male colleagues. In particular, they appeared to care less about the German reunification.30 There were also a number of systematicdifferencesbetween the media and, more important, between types of newspapers or broadcasting organiJOURNALISM MASS COMMUNIU~ON b QUARERLY
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TABLE 2 M s lmportant Issues of Male and Female Journalists ot (Percent of Responses)

All Journalists

Men

Women
20 8 9 10 11 2 3
37

Yugoslavia (Civil War) nt German U i y (Reunification),East Germanys Past Ecological Policy Asylum-Seekers(Persons Seeking Political Asylum) Violence against Foreigners Europe Economic Situation, Prices/Inflation, Unemployment Other Issues

17 12 11 11 7 4 4

16 1 3 12 11 5 5

4
34

34

148 ,2

1,067

361

Note: Percentages in each column pertain to all responses, not to all journalists.

zations (Table 2). Journalistsworking for popular papers apparentlytended to put more weight on issues that preoccupied large parts of the population (e.g., Yugoslavia, German unity,asylum-seekers).In contrast,press journalists from quality papers tended to put less emphasis on these issues; they assigned about the same importance to violence against foreigners, to economic issues, and to Europe. As far as the electronic media are concerned, differencesbetween public and private (commercial)organizationsseemed more pronounced than those between radio and television. Although the number of caseswas very small for journalistsworking for private television stations, it appearsthat privatebroadcastingjournaliststended to assignless importanceto social and human problems(asylum-seekers,violenceagainst foreigners)while they emphasized ecology, as compared to their colleagues working in public-serviceorgani~ations.~~ The agendaalsovaned to someextentby journaliststopicalspecialization (Table3).In particular,business/economyjournaliststended to emphasize economic issues, while they cared less about the problem of asylumseekersthantheotherjournalists.S i a r l y , sportsjournalistsput much more emphasis on sports issues (which were not among the top seven shown in the tables) than journalistsworking in other departments; and they seemed to assign less importanceto some of the hard-news issues (violenceagainst foreigners, Europe, economy). Obviously, as these two groups of hn journalists are more specialized and homogeneous t a the others, we may expect to find more clearly profiled agendas here. Overall, though, the agendas of journalists from different departments were not that dissimilar. The same was true for the comparison between journalists from different media (see Table 2). Thus, organizationalor media factors appear to have s o m e b u t not necessarily much-influence on which issues journalists
S m IRE ~OURNAUSTACENDA
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249

TABLE 2 Most Important Issues of Journalists in Different Media (Percent of Responses)

News Agency (Wire Service) Yugoslavia German Unity Ecology Asylum-Seekers Violence Europe Economy Other Issues
1 1 9 17 7 2 7 2
45 46

Daily Newspaper Small Regional

15 1 1 1 1 13 8 5 3

Larger Regional
23 12 14 10 4 4 3 30 280

National Quality
1 1 13 10
1 1 10

Popular (Tabloid)
22 19 7 17 6 2 2 25

Magazine (General Interest)

21 9 1 1 9 7 1 5 37 222

1 1 8
26 61

34
279

54

Radio Station All Yugoslavia German Unity Ecology Asylum-Seekers Violence Europe Economy Other Issues
n
13 13 7 10 6 4 5
42

Television Station Private

13 1 1 1 1 6

Public
14 14 5 14 12 5 4 32 155

All
7 15

Public
6 14 12 13 10 7 8 30 143

Private
21 21 21 -

13
12 9 6 7

3 7
49 122

37 19

31
162

277

Note: Percentages in each column pertain to all responses, not to all journalists.

regard as important. So there remains scope for influences from individual characteristics. To further investigate the effects of different factors on journalists' agendas, logistic regression analyses were carried out for the top seven issues ) (Table 4 .Multivariate analysis seemed particularly important because journalists' relevant characteristics are interrelated among one another. For example, gender is related to media sector, to department, and to position:

250

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TABLE 3

Most Important Issues of Journalists in Different Departments (Percent of Responses)

NoSpec. News Local Business Culture Sports Other

Yugoslavia Germanunity Ecology Asylum-Seekers Violence Europe Economy Other Issues

9 15 11 9 4 4 8 40

17 12 8 12 9 6 4 32

20 11 13 11

6
4 3 32

15 14 12 7 7 2 12 31

15 11 15 11 7 3 4 34

23 10 13 11 2 2 39

16 11 12
10

7 4 3 37

157

384

415

59

71

61

277

Note: Percentages in each column pertain to all responses, not to all journalists.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~~

Women journalists are less likely to work for news agencies, they are more likely to work for magazines, they are underrepresented in the upper-level positions, e t ~In each of the regressions, the dependent variable was a . ~ ~ dichotomy indicating whether the respectiveissue was mentioned (1)or not mentioned (0). This variable may be regarded as an indicator of personal issue-importance. Besides gender, medium, and department, predictors included position, age, education, leftism, and image of audience (which were all treated as metric variables). In addition, the number of issues mentioned by each journalist was controlled because it was correlated with some of the predictor variables (eg., department), and it was also related to the dependent variable (if a journalist mentions a larger number of issues, each single issue is more likely to be mentioned by that journalist).The effects of this control variable (which were throughout positive and significant, as would be expected) will not be given further attention. The results indicate that both media factorsand journalists' individual characteristics contributed to personal issue-importance.However, only for two of the seven issues differences among media and among departments were statistically significant. Some of the discrepancies that were already mentioned played a role here, too, an examplebeing the importance assigned to economic issues by business as opposed to sports journalists. Of the remaining predictors, the majority was important at least to some issues (educationand leftism were throughout not significant).Journalistsranking higher within their media organizationput comparativelymore emphasison Germany's unity, but assigned less importance to the problem of asylumseekers. As would be expected, older journalists mentioned the German unity significantlymore often than did those who were born more recently. They
G " %
THE JOURNALISTAGENDA
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251

TABLE 4 Predictors of Most Frequently Mentioned Issues

(Logistic Regression Analyses)
Yugoslavia UNty Number o Issues f Position Medium Department Age Gender (Female) Education Leftism Image of Audience Pseudo R2 .52*** .01 *** ** &&***
.14*

Ecology

Asylum Violence Europe .75**'

Economy
.83*** -.05 n.s.
w

a***
-.02

Q***
-.15 n.s. n.s. -.03**
-.08 .06

.go***

-.w**
n.s. n.s.
-.02

n.s. n.s.
.02**

-.oo
.22 -.11

-.50**

ns. n.s. -.01 -39

.06

-.04
.02 .01
.09

-.M
.01

.03 -.05*
.09

-.37 .12 -.01

a*** -BY*
.ll

-.lo ns. n.s. .02

.M*'
.14

-.oo
.14

.03 .05

.03* -.17 .02 -.03

-.02

.8 0

.21

.19

Note: * p < 20; ** p < .Q5;*** p < .01(two-tailed).n = 935 for each of the models. The numbers in the table except Pseudo Rzare additivelogit coefficients. For medium and department, the two categorical predictors, only the overall significance is given (indicating whether there are significant differencesbetween the categories).The Pseudo R2used here is the proportiono deviance f accounted for by the model (defined as the reduction in -2 log-likelihood after entering the model predictors, divided by the initial value o -2 log-likelihood). f

also seemed to be less concerned about violence against foreigners, which may reflect a general tendency of older people to emphasize national values and home, and to be more critical of immigration and multiculturalism. However, some of the results for journalists' age (or cohort membership, which was not separable from age in this cross-sectional study), were not according to expectations. In particular, age should have been relevant to journalists'assessment of ecologicalissues since concerns about the environment appear to be more widespread among the younger birth cohorts of the German population. One reason for these unexpected findings might be that today's young German journalists are generally less political than the older lo generations of journalists.33That could perhaps a s explain why journalists belonging to younger cohorts did not assign more importanceto Yugoslavia (i.e., the civil war) than journalists from earlier cohorts. Turning to differencesbetween male and femalejournalists,we can see that gender was one of the more important predictors of personal issueimportance (however, not even this predictor was signhcant for the majority of the seven issues). Women journalists significantly less frequently mentioned Germany's unity and Europe, but they assigned more importance to violence against foreigners.The differenceconcerningYugoslavia (seeTable 1)was not significanthere, suggesting that it partly reflected higher or lower female representation in specific media and departments (these two factors were significant predictors for this issue). Finally,journalists who had a positive image of their audience tended to emphasize the problem of asylum-seekersmore often than other journal-

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ists; and they mentioned ecological issues less frequently.While there is no ready explanation for the whole pattern, journalists having a positive attitude toward their audience might be more humanitarian in general and thereforetend to be more concernedabout the problemsfacingpersons who seek asylum in Germany.There were also some rather unexpectednegative findings.For example, politicalleftismhad throughout no effect on personal issue-importance,not even for issues as the German unity or ecology.
This study found that West German journalists partly disagreed regarding the issues they consideredpersonally important. Although there were many similaritiesas well, journalistsdid not appear to sharea common agenda. This study did not investigate whether and how far journalists personal agendas translate into their news decisions and thus into media content.But, assuming this l n exists (andwe have reason to believeit does), ik the findings of this study provide further indications that the composition (demographicand other) of newsrooms matters. The results of this study suggest that there are influences from media factors.To some extent, the variations among media appear to parallel both audiencestructureand media content.It seemsthat journaliststend to assign significance to those issues that are most important to them in their daily hs work. Several of the differences among departments also point in t i direction. In effect, then, some of the same factors (news sources, social reality) that influencethe media agenda apparently also contributeto setting the individual journalists agenda.%Depending on their area of specialization, somejournalistsare exposed to more or less specific influences (events, news sources, etc.). Ultimately, though, differencesamong departmentsor types of media remain difficult to interpret. On the one hand, they may be taken to indicate that journalistspersonal agendas depend on their professional role, on their area of specialization,and on externalinfluencesfrom that area. On the other hand, it is possible that these differences still reflect journalists personal issue-importance.After all, if a journalist specializes in a specific area, selfselection is involved to a considerable degree. For example, many sports journalistsprobably have been particularlyinterested in sports before starting their careersin j~urnalism?~ Clearly,a much more refined survey would be needed to separate these potential influences from one another. Not only because of these problems of interpretation, differences between journalists that are due to individual characteristics seem more interesting than those associated with media factors. Compared to the audience,journaliststend to be younger and better educated;and they tend to support liberal rather t a conservativevalues. Moreover, in journalism hn the proportion of women is lower than in the general population. Thus, if journalists personal agendas have some impact on their news decisions, media content may become biased, reflecting to a stronger degree the views held by young, liberal males. The results of this study indicate that the journalist agenda may indeed reflect journalists backgrounds to some extent. As implied in much of the discussion about diversity in newsrooms, women journalists appear to differ in part from their male colleagues with respect to personal issue-importance. The overall pattern found suggests that women assign somewhat more importance to social or humanitarian issues than men. This seems to be consistent with Weaver and Wilhoits

Discussion

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finding that women journalists stories were more frequently about social problems and protests than those of male journalists.%The gender differences observed in the present study are particularlynoteworthybecause they do not pertain to classic womens issues such as equal rights or abortion. Hence, a higher proportion of women in newsrooms could lead to more fundamental changes in overall news judgments and media content than one might gather from the discussion of this topic (which has often tended to center around typical womens issues). The finding that political leaning (leftism) had no effect on what journalists mentioned as personally important issues is somewhat surprising, at least at first sight. In particular, one would have expected a correlation between leftism and the importanceattached to the German unity. Traditionally, reunification has always been more important to older Germans and to those who tend to the right side of the political spectrum. While older journalists indeed assigned more importance to Germanys unity, there was no such effect by political leaning. However, leftism may be relevant not so much to the question of whether or not people consider a specific issue important (evenif it is controversial)but rather to the question of which side they take or which policy they support concerning that i~sue.3~ The results of this study are subjectto a number of general limitations. First, the journalists mentioned only few issues on average, and their responses concentrated on a relatively small number of issues. Hence, only the top seven issues were analyzed in some detail. Second, differencesbetween specificgroups of journalistswere statisticallysignificantonly for some of the issues (which may also be due to the limited size of the sample, particularly in the case of the categoricalpredictors).Third, it is possible that at the time of the survey, differences among groups of journalists were less (ore more) marked than during other periods. For these reasons, the generalizations offered above remain somewhat tentative.

Conclusion

While agenda-setting studies have mostly dealt with public agenda setting (effects of the media agenda on the public agenda), research has increasingly focused on explaining the media agenda itself. Based on the results of the present study, there is at least some reason to believe that the journalists agenda-and the agendas of particular groups of journalistsmay contribute to our understanding of the media agenda. And perhaps differences between journalists and the population in terms of issues regarded as important can explain deviations between the media agenda and the public agenda. In this way, research on journalists personal agendas could provide justification for applying the agenda-setting concept to research on media content creation (media agenda setting), justification which Becker, in critically commenting on Reeses move in this direction, found Further research is needed to explore the links between the journalist agenda and traditional lines of agenda-settingresearch. NOTES
1. See James W. Dearing and Everett M. Rogers, Agenda-Setting (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1996); Everett M. Rogers and James W. Dearing, Agenda-Setting Research Where Has It Been, Where Is It Going?, in Communication Yearbook11,ed. JamesA. Anderson (NewburyPark, C A Sage,

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1988), 555-594. 2. Maxwell E. McCombs and Donald L. Shaw, The Evolution of Agenda-Setting Research: Twenty-Five Years in the Marketplace of Ideas, Journal of Communication 43 (spring 1993): 58-67; Stephen D. Reese, Setting the Medias Agenda: A Power Balance Perspective, in Communication Yearbook 24, ed. James A. Anderson (Newbury Park, C A Sage, 1991), 309-340; Everett M. Rogers, James W. Dearing, and Dorine Bregman, The Anatomy of Agenda-SettingResearch, Journal of Communication 43 (spring 1993):6884. 3. For a detailed account of the various influences on media content, see Pamela J. Shoemakerand Stephen D. Reese, Mediating theMessage. Theories of influences on Mass Media Content, 2d ed. (White Plains, NY: Longman, 1996). 4. David H. Weaver, ed., with the assistance of Wei Wu, The Global Journalist. News People Around the World (Cresskill,NJ: Hampton Press, 1998). 5. David Weaver, Introduction, in The Global Journalist, ed. Weaver with Wu, 2. 6 . WolfgangDonsbach,Journalismusversus journalism-einvergleich zum VerMltnis von Medien und Politik in Deutschland und in den USA, in Beziehungsspiele-Medien und Politik in der ofentlichen Diskussion. Fallstudien und Analysen (Giitersloh,Germany: Verlag BertelsmannStiftung, 1993), 283315; John Henningham, Ideological Differences Between Australian Journalists and Their Public, Press/Politics 3 (winter 1998):92-101; Weaver, The Global Journalist; David H. Weaver and G. Cleveland Wilhoit, The American Journalist in the 2990s. US.News People at the End of an Era (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1996). 7. Thomas E. Patterson and Wolfgang Donsbach, News Decisions: Journalistsas Partisan Actors, Political Communication 13 (October-December 1996):455-68. 8. JohannesRaabe, Journalistenaus dem Outer Space?Zur Verortung journalistischer Akteure in der Gesellschaft(paper presented at the annual meeting of the Deutsche Gesellschaft fiir Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft,Utrecht, The Netherlands, 1999). 9. E.g., Ruth C. Flegel and Steven H. Chaffee, Influences of Editors, Readers, and Personal Opinions on Reporters, Journalism Quarterly 48 (winter 1971): 645-51; Patterson and Donsbach, News Decisions; see also Wolfgang Donsbach, JournalismResearch, in The German Communication Yearbook,ed. Hans-Bend Brosius and Christina Holtz-Bacha (Cresskill,NJ: Hampton Press, 1999), 159-80. 10. Henningham, IdeologicalDifferences. 11. For a general discussion of the cohort dimensions relevance to journalists and to journalism as a whole, see Kazuto Kojima, Generational Change and Journalism-Methodology and Tentative Analysis, Studies of Broadcasting 22 (1986): 79-105. 12. Weaver, The Global Journalist. 13. Marilyn E. Gist, Throughthe LookingGlass.Diversityand Reflected Appraisals of the Self in Mass Media, in Women in Mass Communication, 2d ed., ed. Pamela J. Creedon (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1993), 104-117; Kurt Lang, Gladys Engel Lang, Hans-Mathias Kepplinger, and S h o n e Ehmig, CollectiveMemory and Political Generations:A Survey of German Journalists, Political Communication 10 (July-September 1993):211-29. 14. Lang et al., Collective Memory. 15. See, e.g., Gist, Through the Looking Glass. 16. Weaver, The Global Journalist.
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17. E.g., Carol M. Liebler and Susan J. Smith, Tracking Gender Differences: A Comparative Analysis of Network Correspondents and Their Sources, Journal of Broadcasting b Electronic Media 41 (winter 1997): 58-68; Sigman L. Splichal and Bruce Garrison, Gender As a Factor in Newsroom Managers Views on Covering The Private Lives of Politicians, Mass Comm Review 22 (1 & 2,1995): 101-108. 18. Kay Mills, What Difference Do Women Journalists Make?, in Women, Media, and Politics, ed. Pippa Norris (NY: Oxford University Press, 1997), 41-55. 19. Weaver and Wilhoit, The American Journalist. 20. Gist, Through the Looking Glass, 109. 21. Shoemaker and Reese, Mediating the Message. 22. David Weaver, Women as Journalists, in Women, Media, and Politics, ed. Pippa Norris (NY: Oxford University Press, 1997), 21-40. 23. Beate Schneider, Klaus Schonbach, and Dieter Stiirzebecher, Joumalistenim vereinigten Deutschland. Strukturen, Arbeitsweisen und EinstellungenimOst-West-Vergleich, Publizistik38 (3,1993): 353-82;Weaver and Wilhoit, The American Journalist. 24. Schneider,Schonbach,and Stiirzebecher,Joumalistenim vereinigten Deutschland. 25. For a broader discussion of power aspects, see Reese, Setting the Medias Agenda. 26. See Donsbach, Journalismusversus journalism; Denis McQuail, Media Performance. Mass Communicationand the Public Interest (London:Sage, 1992). 27. Beate Schneider, Klaus Schonbach, and Dieter Sturzebecher, Ergebnisse einer Reprasentativbefragg zur Struktur, sozialen Lage und zu den Einstellungen von Journalisten in den neuen Bundeslhdern, in Journalismusin den neuen Liindern, ed. Frank Bijckelmann, Claudia Mast, and Beate Schneider (Konstanz, Germany: Universitatsverlag Konstanz, 1994), 143-230. 28. Beate Schneider, Klaus Schonbach, and Dieter Sturzebecher, WestdeutscheJournalisten im Vergleich jung, professionell und mit Spa@ an der Arbeit Publizistik 38 (1, 1993): 5-30; for an English summary, see Klaus Schoenbach, Dieter Stuerzebecher, and Beate Schneider, German Joumalists in the Early 1990s: East and West, in The Global Journalist, ed. Weaver with Wu, 213-27. 29. While the reliability of this summary scale was not satisfying, the scale was regarded as acceptable for the purpose of this analysis. Given the available survey data, there were only few possible ways of choosing or constructing an appropriate indicator of respondents politicalposition. The third leftist party, the post-communist PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism) plays a special role in the German party system and was therefore not included in the index. However, two other measures were looked into. First, only the rating of the Social Democrats might be used. Second, a principal component analysis of the ratings of all parties was conducted. One of the factors of the 3-factor solution appeared to measure leftism, the ratings of all three left-wing parties loading highly-and with the same sign-on it. On the other hand, the ratings of the right-wing parties did not load appreciablyon this factor, thus making it a bit suspect. The decision which of the three measures to choose did not matter much, however, because the index that was eventually used correlatedhighlywith both the singlerating ( r= .85) and the PCA factor ( I = .91).

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30. For the summarizing interpretation of these and the following bivariate results, the overall pattern among the other seven issues from the above list of fourteen issues was also taken into account. 31. However,ti seems to be inconsistentwith the pattern observed for hs popular pressjournalistssinceprivatebroadcastingjournalists, too, might be expected to pay more attention to popular issues. 32. See Schneider, Schonbach, and Sturzebecher, "Westdeutsche Journalisten"; Schneider, Schonbach, and Stiirzebecher, "Journalisten im vereinigten Deutschland; Weaver and Wilhoit, The American lournulist. 33. There are indications that, at the beginning of the 199os, younger German journalists had a rather pragmatic professional orientation; they subscribedless to idealisticmotives,and were less interestedin communicating their own ideasto the public (seeSchneider,SchLinbach,and Stiirzebecher, "WestdeutscheJournalisten").The overall trend among all Germanjoumalists pointed in a similar direction. Compared with earlier studies, political motivations were somewhat less important in the early 199os, probably because the diverging values of the fresh cohort of journalists that had entered the profession in the 1980s (see Schneider, Schonbach, and Stiirzebecher, "Westdeutsche Journalisten"; Schneider, Schhbach, and Stiirzebecher,"Journalisten im vereinigten Deutschland). 34. For influences on the media agenda that have been investigated in previous research, see Dearing and Rogers, Agenda-Setting; Reese, "Setting the Media's Agenda." 35. A similar sort of self-selectionoccurs in news media with a strong political leaning. For example, leftist journalists will seek positions in leftwing or liberal rather than right-wing newspapers. 36. Weaver and Wilhoit, The American lournulist. 37. Thisis related to the discussionin the agenda-settingliteratureabout the limited usefulnessof studyingissues in the sense of topics, free of content or controversy.See Lee B. Becker, "Reflecting on Metaphors," in Communication Yearbook14, ed.JamesA. Anderson(NewburyPark, C A Sage,1991), 34146; Gerald M. Kosicki, "Problems and Opportunities in Agenda-Setting Research," Journal of Communication 43 (spring 1993): 100-127; D. Charles Whitney, "Agenda-Setting: Power and Contingency," in Communication Yearbook14, ed.JamesA. Anderson (NewburyPark, CA Sage, 1991), 347-56. 38. Becker, "Reflecting on Metaphors"; Reese, "Setting the Media's Agenda."

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