This study examines the two dominant U.S. journalism models-the watchdog and civic-oriented professional performance-in the aftermath of the economic crises.The study, based on a content analysis of 1,421 news stories published by five national U.S. dailies, measures journalists' role conception through a content analysis of newspaper articles, examining the concept of journalistic role performance.The findings indicate different contextualizations of the two roles: The civic journalism performance was