News media in Iceland lack resources to conduct quality in-depth reporting, and analysis on their daily reporting and investigative reporting is seriously hampered for lack of time and finance.
There are not many higher education opportunities in Iceland for journalists, and course attendance is low.
The watchdog function of media in Iceland has grown significantly in recent years, and some outlets and programmes have investigative journalism as their brand. Investigative journalism is, however, expensive, and media outlets are grappling with resource constraints.
Public information is accessible by law, but not always in reality. Journalists often must spend time and effort to get access.
Economic pressures mean that many experienced journalists have been laid off. Job security is low and short-term contracts common.
Information about media ownership is transparent online. Important data on the media market is, however, often lacking.
Law and internal rules protect journalists’ independence, but ownership structures indicate that political and economic interests still play a big role in some leading news media.
Self-observation by journalists in the media and public debates about journalism are not frequent, but sometimes occur in relation to specific issues. No systematic news media monitoring is done in Iceland.
Icelandic newsrooms do not have codified rules on internal pluralism, but journalists try to make sure that there is diversity in the range of voices represented.
Audience participation in news mostly consists of posting comments online through social media and letters to the editor.
The Media for Democracy Monitor (MDM) is a research project from The Euromedia Research Group. This is a network of researchers that collects and exchanges information that help to describe and analyse developments in media structure and policy in Europe.
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