Central European Journal of Communication

ABSTRACT: The multifaceted character of journalistic objectivity is historically based on different philosophical underpinnings of communication, resulting in a variety of societal roles for journalists and competing notions of news. The article approaches journalistic objectivity in the context of Slovenian press history, which is often overlooked in conceptual debates on journalistic development in Europe. Three paradigms of journalistic objectivity within the 20th century Slovenian press are identified and presented, namely (1) the utilitarian approach to journalistic objectivity in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia during the 1920s and 1930s, (2) the objectivity of self-managed journalism in Socialist Yugoslavia from the 1950s to the late 1980s, and (3) the pragmatic objectivity of high-modern journalism from the early 1990s onwards. Each concept is assessed in terms of the societal roles of journalists from monarchical to socialist to capitalist societal settings; they are then interpreted through the prism of different prevailing conceptions of reality and evolving philosophical bases of understanding communication in Slovenian press history.

Author`s note: The author would like to note that the manuscript is not an “Original Article”. An erlier version of the text was published in Slovenian in the following publication: Vobič, I. (2013) Objectivnost in pristranost: slovensko novinarstvo od moderne koncepcije tiska do interneta. Dialogi, 49 (9), pp. 54 – 73.”