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This paper analyses the pre-professional journalistic culture of Ecuador, Cuba and Venezuela based on the degree of permissiveness held by Journalism students in regard to controversial ethical practices and their views of the media and the journalistic profession. We surveyed a probabilistic sample of 1,273 students from 21 universities enrolled on their first course (Ecuador=500, Venezuela=390, Cuba=383) in 2016. The results show that future journalists are reluctant to accept questionable journalistic practices, and hold a pessimistic view as to the quality and confidence of the media and the profession. We found that the degree of permissiveness is related to the perceived risk-reward analysis in terms of the quality of journalism in Cuba and Ecuador, and that the student perceptions of ethics differ in Venezuela and Ecuador. We conclude that, despite their political similarities in terms of having left-wing Governments, perceptions in the three countries diverge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]