News Decisions Research Articles

An introduction to journalism norms and representations of politics

In addition to providing an overview of this special issue of Political Communication, this introduction identifies a preliminary set of rules that journalists use for representing politics in the news. These rules guide news decisions in keeping with underlying journalistic norms about the workings of politics and the role of the press in the political system. Such political norms must also be reconciled with professional journalism norms of fairness, and with the economic norms of efficiency and profit that increasingly drive the news business. Reconciling news content aimed at citizens in a democracy with traditional journalism standards and entertainment values has transformed the news itself. Increasingly sensationalistic narratives and dramatic production values both bridge and reflect the tensions among the various norms and practical rules that guide journalists in their daily representations of the political world.

A crisis of conscience: Is community journalism the answer?

With lost credibility, ratings, and circulation, journalism faces a crisis of conscience. One answer is participatory community journalism; journalists become activists on behalfofthe process of self-government. A veteran journalist and author of Agents of Power, Altschull questions the press's arrogance, its faith in objectivity, and its unvarying insistence on its First Amendment rights, and asks instead that the public interest be put ahead of the maximization of profit, that media help to mediate public issues, and that the public be allowed to play a bigger role in the news decision making process.

Agenda building role of news releases in corporate takeovers

This study examines how particular characteristics of news releases influence the media's news decisions. The hostile takeover attempt by Tustin, California-based MAI/Basic Four (MBF) to acquire a controlling interest in Natick, Massachusetts-based Prime Computer provides an arena in which to study journalists' use of companies' press releases. In order to measure the effectiveness of each company's press releases, the study, using an agenda setting framework, considered the number and types of press releases against subsequent press clippings in terms of length and content. Both quantity (number of column lines and average articles per company) and quality (lead and point of view) of newspaper coverage were examined. Supplementary explanatory information was also developed through interviews with the reporters who wrote the newspaper stories.

Public opinion, the press, and public policy

Public Opinion, the Press and Public Policy by J. David Kennamer The Public's Knowledge of Politics by Michael X. Delli Carpini and Scott Keeter Effective Public Opinion by James B. Lemert Interest Groups in the News by Lucig Danielian Who Sets the Media Agenda? The Ability of Policymakers to Determine News Decisions by Dan Berkowitz The News Media and Public Policy Agendas by David Pritchard Marching to the Police Beats: The Media-Source Relationship in Framing Criminal Justice Policy by Jack C. Doppelt Reporting on the Public Mind by Leonard Tipton The Spiral of Silence: Linking Individual and Society through Communication by Charles T. Salmon and Chi-Yung Moh Policymakers and the Third-Person Effect by Dominic L. Lasorsa Bibliography Index

Subjective objectivity. How journalists in four countries define a key term of their profession

'Objectivity' is one of the core professional values of journalism. However, there are many different definitions and interpretations of the term in the profession. These notions have changed over time in one country, and they differ between journalists in different cultural and political settings. In this paper we present comparative results of how journalists in different countries look at the term objectivity. The data are gathered from an international study of news journalists in democracies. In this survey, representative samples of reporters and editors who are involved in daily news decisions were interviewed with the same questionnaire. We show how journalists differ in their notion of objectivity and in the subjective importance which the professional value of objectivity has for them. Besides showing country-to-country differences, we try to assess what factors contribute to different professional attitudes towards objectivity within a single country. In a final part, the paper discusses the consequences of the different notions of objectivity for the audience's perception of reality and for the influence of the news media on public opinion.

Reporting Hostage Crises: Who's in Charge of Television?

REPORTING HOSTAGE CRISES: _____ WHO'S IN CHARGE OF TELEVISION? Edward M. Joyce ELEVisiON coverage of hostage crises has brought a new dimension to an old problem. Thanks to the technology of modern news reporting, a story unfolds hour by hour, day by day in full public view, bringing home to the American people as never before the helplessness and humiliation of their government in the face of apparently irrational, inhuman terrorist demands. Television seems such a ubiquitous feature of these episodes that the public has come to associate the attentions of the media apparatus to some degree with the motivation of the hostagetakers . Inevitably, allegations are made that television itself is a major contributor to the problem. It is claimed that television coverage of such incidents abets the terrorists' desires for publicity and manipulates the public's reactions. Many charge that, instead of being a mere observer, recorder, and disseminator of events around the world, television should more properly be considered an active participant in them and a shaping force in determining the political response to them. Any number of authoritative commentators have suggested that the role of television in hostage-taking incidents is less than salutary. After Hanafi Muslims took over the B'nai Brith headquarters in Washington in March 1977, setting off a clamor over television coverage of the siege, four psychiatrists told United Press International that "hostage-taking acts of terrorism feed on publicity and encourage similar events." According to an official at the National Institute of Mental Health, Dr. Edward M. Joyce is senior vice president of the cbs Broadcast Group, in charge of cbs World Wide Enterprises. He served as president of cbs News from 1983 to 1985. 169 170 SAIS REVIEW Calvin Frederick, "Any kind of behavior that doesn't receive any reinforcement won't continue over time." Even Ronald Reagan, when he was a weekly newspaper columnist, talked about "cutting off the source of inspiration for an untold number of loose nuts who harbor crazy ideas." And Jody Powell, White House spokesman for president Carter, described the president as having "no desire to seek legislation," but said he hoped that "those who make news decisions will themselves determine the definable boundaries of legitimate coverage."1 Subsequent to this incident guidelines for coverage of terrorism and hostage-takings were drafted independently by a number of prominent news organizations, including upi, the Louisville Times and CourierJournal , The Chicago Sun-Times, and cbs News. The guidelines all attempt to shape responsible coverage while recognizing that there can be no specific self-executing rules for coverage of stories where the facts and circumstances will inevitably vary. In my view these guidelines have held up well under the difficult conditions of the past several years. In the aftermath of the twa Flight 847 hijacking in June 1985 we have seen a replay of the debate over the proper place of television coverage of such events. This time the public discussion was supplemented by a hearing before the subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. At this hearing Fred W. Friendly, professor emeritus at the Columbia University School of Journalism and former president of cbs News, described his former profession as having been "exploited" and told the legislators that in his "seventieth year" he had discovered that he was "a citizen first and a journalist second." Citizen Friendly went on to suggest to the subcommittee that government officials and media executives should "sit down in an organized way. . . and ask those hard, agonizing questions: What did we do right? What did we do wrong? How can we all do it better next time?"2 To some this sounded remarkably like the Media and Society Seminars directed by Professor Friendly, with one difference: Those seminars dealt with theoretical case studies. A meeting between officialdom and the fourth estate, however, conjures a vision of incipient information control. Mostjournalists see such a meeting as the top of a slippery slope leading to a system like the British "D Notices," in which government identifies areas of information important to security, formally notifies the press, and requests that the information be withheld from the public. 1...

Electronic Editing Systems and Their Impact on News Decision Making

Electronic Editing Systems and Their Impact on News Decision Making

Television Coverage of State Government

Television Coverage of State Government