A “Fine Amalgam” of a Style: How French-speaking Canadian and Belgian Journalists Perceive Objective Newswriting

This article examines how journalists in two French-speaking sub-national media systems, Quebec in Canada and Wallonia-Brussels in Belgium, perceive and operationalize the norm of objectivity in their professional practice. Drawing on 16 semi-structured interviews balanced across gender, experience, and newsroom backgrounds, the study explores how professional journalists understand objective newswriting in their training, newsroom culture, and daily routines. While objectivity remains a valued professional ideal, most interviewees describe it as unattainable, instead treating it as a guiding aspiration rather than a realistic standard. This skepticism is particularly pronounced among Belgian journalists, whereas Canadian respondents report a stronger emphasis on objectivity during their journalistic education. In both regions, objectivity is often implicitly embedded in newsroom expectations rather than explicitly discussed. Interviewees describe their media systems as comparatively less polarized than those of France and the United States, attributing this to small market size, cultural norms, and structural constraints. Quebec journalists portray their style as a hybrid of Anglo-American factual reporting and French analytical traditions, whereas Belgian journalists emphasize neutrality shaped by political and media structures. The findings highlight the value of examining media systems at regional and linguistic (rather than national) levels to capture their cultural specificity.

Affiliations

UCLouvainSSH/ILC/PCOM - Pôle de recherche en communication

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Escouflaire, L., Descampe, A., & Fairon, C. (2026). A “Fine Amalgam” of a Style: How French-speaking Canadian and Belgian Journalists Perceive Objective Newswriting. Journalism Practice, 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2026.2700656 (Original work published 2026)