Article Corresponding author: James Curran, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK Email: cos01jc@goldsmith.ac.uk Crime, foreigners and hard news: A cross-national comparison of reporting and public perception James Curran Goldsmiths, University of London, UK Inka Salovaara-Moring University of Helsinki, Finland Sharon Coen Canterbury Christ Church University, UK Shanto Iyengar Stanford University, USA Abstract The Finnish media devote more attention to hard news than the British media, yet Finns are less interested in politics than the British. The principal reason for this difference in news values is that Finnish TV is more subject to public service influence than British TV, and the Finnish press is more strongly influenced by a professional journalistic culture than its British counterpart. While a number of national differences contribute to different levels of public knowledge, the Finns are better informed about hard news topics partly because they are better briefed in these areas by their media. Keywords british journalism, comparing media, Finnish journalism, hard news, public knowledge Introduction Comparative analysis can provide a way of investigating the wider influences that shape media content that is not always apparent in nation-bound studies. It can also throw up larger questions about the consequences of organizing the media in different Journalism 11(1) 1–17 © The Author(s) 2009 Reprints and permission: http://www. sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermission.nav DOI: 10.1177/1464884909350640 http://jou.sagepub.com