Making Local News: An organisational ethnography investigating news values within Local Digital Television Programme Services (L-DTPS)

Abstract

This study of the production of British broadcast journalism, rather than its finished products, reveals the ways in which the organising and financing of journalism have traceable consequences on the ways in which news is selected and constructed, supporting the critical political economy perspective. Using a comparative ethnographic approach including interviews and observation of professional practice in three local television newsrooms, studios and other production spaces, this study represents a rare opportunity to gain insights into the ways in which events, issues and sources are selected by journalists, editors, producers and others engaged in the production of British broadcast news and how material is shaped into news bulletins and other programming. Drawing on news value theory (Galtung and Ruge 1965; Golding and Elliott 1979; Harcup and O’Neil 2001, 2016), the study offers a new model of news value analysis, the ‘News Value Matrix’, which takes account of the interplay between two key categories of news values, organisational pragmatics and perceptions of audience appeal. The study will be of interest to local broadcast journalists, editors and producers, to policymakers concerned with media and cultural policy, and to those wishing to develop a greater critical understanding of the professional practice of journalism.