Role Perception as Predictor of Editors' Job Satisfaction

One of the main attractions of the profession to aspiring journalists has been the glamour associated with the ability to influence the course of events in their community through informing the public debate on vital matters of social and economic policy, keeping a check on the government, exposing political corruption and helping to advance a progressive social agenda. Despite the primacy of the profit motive to many owners of the press, the individual editors and journalists who engage in this less-than-lucrative profession tend to still be driven, in many cases, by the grand vision of journalism's influential role in shaping public life. Previous studies of American journalists have confirmed these observations. Public service - the chance to help people - was reported by John Johnstone, Edward Slawski, and William Bowman(1) as being the top-rated factor by journalists among a list of items pertinent to judging jobs in journalism. Pay and fringe benefits, while viewed as important, were at the bottom of the list. More recent studies by David Weaver and G. Cleveland Wilhoit(2) have borne out these findings, with minor modifications. It is also clear from previous research that journalists seek to make their impact on society in a variety of ways. Depending on their professional values, journalists may seek to contribute to society as disseminators of timely and objective information, or in more active roles, as watchdogs, critics and agents of policy formation. Research has shown, furthermore, that a journalist's role perception affects his/her level of job satisfaction. Previous studies on this topic, however, have been confined to general samples of newsworkers, and no studies to date have examined this question specifically with regards to daily newspaper editors. Although at the most fundamental level both editors and reporters function as journalists, they differ on key characteristics which may influence their satisfaction on the job. By virtue of their position in the newspaper hierarchy, for example, editors may be expected to experience higher levels of power and autonomy in their job than the journalists under their supervision. Given the importance of autonomy as a factor in job satisfaction, different patterns may hold for editors and journalists with regards to the relationship between role perception and job satisfaction. Against this backdrop, the purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between professional role perceptions and level of job satisfaction among American daily newspaper editors. Review of literature The preponderance of research evidence on job satisfaction points to the importance of what may be termed the human dimension, as a primary determinant. Such factors as level of autonomy, respect for the leader/supervisor and intrinsic interest and challenge of the job far outrank such material factors as salary, resources and job comfort as predictors of job satisfaction.(3) Research in mass communication has generally confirmed these findings. Not only the Johnstone et. al. study,(4) but also the more recent studies by Weaver and Wilhoit have shown that helping people (61 percent) and autonomy (51 percent), continue to be considered by the majority of journalists as being very important factors in determining their happiness on the job.(5) Salary, on the other hand, continues to remains on the bottom of the list, with only 20 percent of journalists ranking it as an important determinant of their satisfaction.(6) In their 1993 study of the relationship between newsroom policy and job satisfaction among journalists, Keith Stamm and Doug Underwood found that emphasis on profits in the newsroom was negatively correlated with job satisfaction, while such policies as serving the community, serving readers as citizens and reporter autonomy increased job satisfaction.(7) A study of the correlates of job satisfaction among public relations workers showed that self-actualization and autonomy were much more strongly correlated with level of job satisfaction than job comfort, material support and financial reward. …