Accountability and Transparency of Journalism at the Organizational Level: News Media Editorial Statutes in Portugal

ABSTRACT

Editorial statutes are standardizing documents that organize and structure the media. They are a legal provision allowing them to define their ethical principles and conduct, establish their identity and ideology, and create a communication pact with their audiences. Editorial statutes can thus be considered mechanisms of media responsibility, accountability, and transparency. In Portugal, such statutes are legally required and are often perceived as formal, general, and bland documents. This paper presents a study of sixteen editorial statutes of the Portuguese press, designed to understand the issues and values of these documents. Thirty-eight categories were identified across three key dimensions: self-definition, normative values, and ideological elements. While these dimensions seek to address the requirements set out in the Portuguese Media Law, this analysis defies the common concepts of superficiality and homogeneity of editorial statutes.

KEYWORDS:

• Accountability
• content analysis
• editorial statutes
• journalism
• Portugal
• transparency

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Joaquim Fidalgo and Maria João Silveirinha for their support.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 As stated by Fengler (2019, 1), media accountability is based on a concept that is broader than transparency, “however, media transparency partly overlaps with instruments of media accountability”.

2 In Portugal, a recent document published by the Portuguese Regulatory Authority for the Media (ERC) appeals to “encourage transparency at various points in the news chain—from news production to dissemination”, given that, “in today’s digital environment, the news media strive to achieve the highest level of credibility among the public” (Carvalho, 2019, 51).

3 The creation of editorial statutes is also provided for under the Portuguese Radio Law and Television Law. However, in these cases, the editorial statutes comprehend all programming and not just news products.

4 On the basis of this assumption, two Portuguese journalists invoked the conscience clause, requesting termination of their contracts and claiming compensation for damages as a result of a change made to Focus magazine’s editorial line just a few months after they were invited to join the editorial board.

5 The statutes of weekly newspaper Sol and of Jornal “I” differ only in their name and the typographical errors contained in the latter. The similarity between these two charters cannot be dissociated from the change of ownership of the newspapers, in 2015.

6 In particular, in item 1 (rigor, factuality and distinction between information and opinion); item 2 (fight against censorship and refusal of sensationalism); and in point 3 (restrictions on freedoms of expression and information).