Scholars addressed the career environment in which journalists worked, delineating howrnjournalists perceived their identities through values, ethics, roles and socialization patterns.rnThe main aim of this study was to survey the socio-demographic background of journalistsrnand the professional orientation of Ethiopian journalists who work in news media ofrngeneral interest based in Addis Ababa. Data were collected through questionnaires thatrnwere designed, translated into Amharic, tested and distributed to 100 journalists workingrnin private as well as government media. In addition, in-depth interviews were conductedrnwith 10 key informants who were purposely selected as representing the population.rnAnalysis of data was made by SPSS using descriptive, mean procedure with eta and etarnsquared measure of association. The descriptive and mean procedure showed thatrnEthiopian journalists valued the multi-role of the media, showed respect for ethical valuesrnof journalism. Ethiopian journalists more valued the professional aspects of their job thanrnthe material aspects and the image toward their audience hung around a favorable image,rnunlike the assumptions by some scholars that journalists perceived their audience asrnâ€˜narrowâ€“mindedâ€™. The mean procedure depicted, while government journalists gave morernvalue for development role, private journalists gave more value to the adversarial role of thernmass media. Unlike their counterparts in the west journalists in Ethiopia gave greater valuernfor journalism education and they had deep interest for the importance of accreditingrnjournalism courses and licensing the career and the professionals. The typical Ethiopianrnjournalist in mid 2006 was male, educated, married and worked for government media.rnrnBased on these findings, the researcher prefers to inspire other studies hoping thisrndocument give a benchmark for later studies.