Mutual Expectations – The Relationship between Journalists and Politicians in Germany

Journalism is paramount for western democracies. A considerable proportion of media coverage addresses politics and policies. Against that background, it is obvious that there are many relations between journalists and politicians. Both professions need each other to function properly. However, their relationship is not always a smooth one. Politicians are at times not satisfied with journalism, e.g., when they feel that media coverage lacks neutrality or is unfair or biased. An approach from at least two perspectives is required to shed light on this complex relationship. The present paper aims to delve into the questions of what politicians expect from journalists in terms of professional standards and what journalists expect others to expect from them. The basis for our analyses consists of two large scale surveys among 752 Journalists in Germany and 583 Politicians from national, state, and local levels of German politics. The journalists were recruited from various media (print, broadcasting, and online), various departments (from news to health) and from different levels of command authority (boss to freelancer). Both surveys are not intended to be representative of any base population. They were intended to include a considerable variety of subjects from both professions. The surveys were conducted online (Unipark) after asking media organizations (journalists) and parties and polity institutions (politicians) for assistance in contacting the respondents. Journalists were asked what they perceive to be important professional goals in journalism (e. g. “to inform the audience in a timely manner”, “to separate opinions from facts”, or “to influence the political agenda”). Using the same set of items, politicians were asked what they expect journalists to do and what they think journalists think about themselves. This leads to four sets of variables: (1) What journalists think of themselves in terms of professional goals, (2) what journalists expect others to expect from them in said terms, (3) what politicians expect from journalists, and (4) what politicians believe journalists to think about themselves. Results show that various items yield different proportions of agreement from the different points of view of the participating journalists and politicians. 93 percent of journalists strive to “inform the audience as neutrally and as precisely as possible.” The same proportion of politicians (93 percent) expect exactly that from journalists. 91 percent of journalists expect others to expect them to inform the audience in such a manner. There appears to be a great deal of agreement with respect to this particular item. However, only 41 percent of politicians believe that journalists strive to do that. The journalists’ reputation falls behind their own as well as their perceived expectations. Other cases of more or less agreement between professional goals, expectations, and expected expectations are presented and discussed with consequences for political communication in Germany in mind: We interpret the relationship between the three concepts as indicators for the state of the normative system that integrates journalism and society.