What Is Newsworthy and What Is Not? A Comparison of U.S. and Latin American Gatekeepers.

Since gatekeepers have the ability to inform the public about international affairs, it is important to understand gatekeepers' news values and perceptions of the role of the press in society. A study hypothesized that these problems could be subsumed under two dimensions, freedom of the press and development. In a mail survey, subjects, 118 United States and 17 Latin American editors, evaluated the importance of a list of world press problems. Results showed (1) both the United States and Latin American editors believed that a press free of government pressure was important; (2) Latin American editors were more supportive of the developmental concept of the press than the United States editors; and (3) United States and Latin American editors showed no differences in their evaluations of news coverage of and by developing nations. Results suggest that despite the possibility that the two groups of editors would interpret the developmental concept differently, there was a surprising degree of agreement. (Two tables of data are included, and 66 references are appended.) (MS)