Holdthefrontpage readers overwhelmingly feel it is their job to be objective in their work as journalists, according to our recent survey.

Almost 82 per cent of those who took part identified it as an important part of their job.

Only 7.4 per cent said it was "very much their job" to give their own opinion.

The two-week voluntary survey took the opinions of 181 reporters, 75 students, trainees and juniors, 68 sub-editors, 53 editors and 69 other management/newsdesk people.

Daily regional newspaper staff accounted for 197 respondents, while a further 191 work in local weekly newspapers. There were 72 responses from freelances, 45 people work for magazines, with 27 from the nationals.

The results showed that 94.9 per cent feel their role is "to inform", 75.2 per cent said it was "to educate", and 60.8 felt it was "to entertain". Exactly 70 per cent said their role was to interpret events.

Questioned on whether their job was to protect the weak, the survey was undecided, yet 63.1 per cent felt their job as a journalist was to "investigate the authorities" and 60.6 per cent said it was "to hold politicians to account".

In contrast to figures which showed more than 43 per cent of readers felt they were suffering the treadmill effect at work, 57 per cent felt it was not their job to merely fill the page.

The full results are set out below.