Joaquim Fidalgo

The media for democracy monitor applied to five countries: a selection of indicators and their measurement

For the present inquiry of the performance of the news media as watchdogs of democracy in five countries (the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Portugal, Lithuania), the bulk of the data was collected via desk research. Additionally, the researchers sought to fill any remaining gaps with complementary information gathered from interviews with media professionals, from a variety of publications such as official government documents, scholarly articles, and websites of the media institutions investigated in the study. Overall, the year of reference for the evidence collected was 2006. Furthermore, in the spring of 2008, expert interviews were conducted with key people whose inside knowledge has helped the researchers to evaluate and comment on a number of indicators. The picture that results from the following country-specific section is far from complete, as only a small selection of indicators (three indicators for each of the five respective countries) is discussed in detail. Within the principle of freedom, the F3 freedom indicator ‘internal rules for newsroom democracy’ looks into the autonomy of the individual members of the editorial staff. There can be no objective reporting of the news if the newsroom’s freedom is restrained. The F3 indicator applied to the media situation in the five countries studied here seeks to ascertain whether any formal rules have been established within the editorial team. An example of such a rule might be a regular procedure for appointing the editor-in-chief: Is a democratic arrangement in place that takes the opinion of all the reporters on the staff into account? Furthermore, it is relevant to investigate whether the procedure, if any, is correctly followed.