Reporting the News from the World's Rooftop

Abstract

Modeled partly after Weaver and Wilhoit's study of the American journalist, this study provides a profile of Nepalese journalists at an interesting time in Nepal's history, when democracy has been restored and media freedom has been prevalent for almost a decade. The profile covers demographic, work-related and attitudinal variables from a convenience sample of 132 journalists in Kathmandu and Pokhara representing all the major newspapers and radio stations and the government television station. The questionnaire was borrowed from an earlier study carried out in post-independence Tanzania because of its fit to Nepal's media context. A quantitative analysis of the roles the journalists perceived for themselves revealed four factors: development journalism (positive coverage of leaders, country, events); citizen education (inform and educate public on political matters); public advocate (investigate leaders and give voice to people); and culture (entertain, provide cultural fare). Another interpretation of development journalism (focus on development projects and welfare of diverse oppressed groups) emerged as a role in answers to an open-ended question about other functions of the press. As Nepalese society is in transition from a monarchy with a government-controlled press that defined a role for the media in national development to a multi-party democracy with a free press, its journalists are balancing the roles that they have been socialized in with those of a free press.