西方媒介专业主义的历史脉络，源自市场经济的勃兴，并蕴藏“进步运动”所发展 出来的“恒久价值”，在理念上带有温和渐进民主改革的精神，在技术上则强调事实与 意见分开。美英媒介目前面临专业主义低潮的调整过程。西方激进派对媒介专业主义的 乌托邦式批评原具有进步的意义。但若不分青红皂白地跨文化移植，而在匮乏媒介专业 主义的社会否定媒介专业主义，则无非是犯了“具体错置的谬误”。

Media professionalism evolved historically as a response to the rise of market economy in the United States, thus emphasizing the separation of facts from values to maximize the audience. It also embodies the democratic reform impulse, traceable to the “enduring values” of the Progressive Movement. Media professionalism, at a low ebb, is undergoing difficult transition in the West. Radical critique of media professionalism may be of progressive implications in the West. However, it is nothing but a “fallacy of misplaced concreteness” if such critique is exported uncritically to deprive media professionalism of its raison d’etre in societies where media professionalism does not exist.