Staying at the organizational level but focusing on journalism, media governance raises questions of self-regulation, accountability and autonomy in editorial departments, e.g. internal codes of journalistic conduct.

This paper discusses the implementation and effectiveness of media accountability systems. The degree of professionalization of journalistic practices and the implementation of self-regulation are analyzed and related to the concept of media governance. Empirically, this paper is based on a national survey of Swedish Editors’ attitudes. In the survey different kinds of media accountability systems are evaluated and ranked by the editors: internal mechanisms, external activities and cooperative systems.

This case study of Swedish editors’ attitudes towards different media accountability systems confirms that they prefer mechanisms that are not perceived as too negative. When editors pick and choose, the public relation dimension of media accountability is evident. But at the same time, their ability to exclusively select accountability options become more limited due to media globalization trends, new technology and media regulatory efforts on the international level.