In Ethiopia, where development is a big agenda, the mass media intervention is veryrnsignificant to sustain development and achieve societal quality of life. To shaperndevelopment needs and to raise community participation in development activities of therngovernment the state-owned media also play an important role. This, in fact, isrndetermined by the capacity of the news media agenda setting practice. The mass mediarngive appropriate prominence to development priorities of the public and transmit thernsalience concepts and practices of positive development achievements.Accordingly, Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) issues should also be consideredrnas development challenges and media agenda. This is because it is confirmed that 60% ofrndiseases in the country are due to water, sanitation and hygiene related, and the mediarnalso have social responsibility to make the situation media agenda to influence the public.rnThis research focuses on the views of government media professionals on agenda settingrnwith respect to WASH issues. The study focused on Ethiopian Television and AddisrnZemen newspaper practice of agenda setting pertinent to WASH issues.rnThrough a series of in-depth interviews and focus group discussions, the researcherrnanalyzed how journalists work with the media agenda setting theory and relatedrnliteratures. Editorial policies and guidelines were observed in to the analyses andrndiscussion of the study.rnThe findings of this study indicated that journalists views, both editors and reportersrnworking in Ethiopian government media outlets, perceived as practicing agenda settingrnwith respect to WASH issues. Journalists from ETV and Addis Zemen recognized theirrnmedia agenda to be government policies, laws and strategies. The findings also showedrnthat in the government media houses WASH issues as media agenda mostly set by toprnlevel media managers; and it was driven by events. In this regard, the participation ofrnreporters in agenda setting process was very limited according to the findings of thernstudy.rnThe research also indicated that most of the study interviewees and discussantsrnknowledge on WASH issues were very low.