News Practices Research Articles

It is a sticky wicket: The organizational values of the BBC World News and Al Jazeera English

ABSTRACT The news media industry has consistently been challenged by technological changes affecting its operations. Multiplatform avenues for news consumption, information overload and the proliferation of fake news have significantly contributed to the rise of a shrinking news audience. This study explores how the changing newsrooms affect the organizational values practiced by two renowned rolling news channels – BBC World News and Al Jazeera English. Additionally, with speed becoming more incessant demand than ever, this study aims to identify how these news channels balance immediacy and speed in their news practices. Findings from in-depth interviews conducted with newsmakers in both rolling news channels suggest several factors guide the organizational values of both news channels. Findings further indicate that the choice between accuracy or immediacy will remain a quandary for both news channels. This study expands current knowledge on organizational values in newsrooms. It adds to the ongoing literature on newsroom challenges due to changes in technology, particularly from the perspectives of rolling news channels.

Re-asserting the Value of Local “News Presence” for Small-town News Outlets in a Digital era

ABSTRACT The importance of a small-town news outlet maintaining a physical presence in the locality it serves has long been a taken-for-granted assumption. This has been challenged in a digital era, where cost-cutting measures such as centralisation have left many traditional news outlets under-resourced. The digital environment allows people to engage with local news without being in place and for reporters to be able to produce news from “anywhere”. This article, however, aims to reassert the significance of “presence” to a local news outlet’s legitimacy. Through an examination of the news practices within five Australian sustainable local newspapers, we argue “news presence” involves a combination of continuous visibility and sensibility within and about a place. Visibility in a geographic region is gained via place-based journalistic, infrastructure or community-level investment. Local sensibility is a news outlet’s accumulated local knowledge and a tacit understanding of a place, its people, social connections, history and cultural identity. Ultimately, we argue news presence is important to reassert at a time when local news has experienced rapid centralisation of resources, taking journalism out of place, and there has been an emphasis on expanding digital reach as both a solution and policy lever to support local news sustainability.

Practice of Breaking Bad News among Registered Medical Practitioners of Tertiary Hospitals in Manipur: A Cross-sectional Study

ABSTRACT Context: Treatment adherence, better health outcomes, and patients’ satisfaction depend on the way the treating physician breaks bad news. There is limited training during medical school as well as limited data on the practice of breaking bad news among registered medical practitioners in Manipur. Aims: 1. To assess the practice of breaking bad news among registered medical practitioners. 2. To assess the association between sociodemographic characteristics and the practice of breaking bad news of the registered medical practitioners of tertiary hospitals in Manipur. Setting and Design: A cross-sectional study among 439 registered medical practitioners (RMPs) of the four tertiary hospitals of Manipur was conducted from January 16th to February 10th, 2023. Materials and Methods: Data collection was done by using a structured questionnaire which had a section on the practice of breaking bad news (BBN) toward the patients by using SPIKES protocol and was measured by using a five-point Likert scale. Statistical Analysis: Statistical analysis: Data was analyzed using IBM SPSS V 26. Descriptive statistics, like median, frequency, and percentage, were used to summarize data. The Chi-square test was used and P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The majority of the participants (60%) were males. Forty-seven percent of the participants were fully practicing all the components of the BBN protocol. There was a significant association between older registered medical practitioners (P = 0.002), more years of service (P = 0.001), and higher educational qualification (P = 0.027) with the full practice of BBN protocol. Conclusion: Almost half of the participants were partially practicing all steps of the BBN protocol.

Playful Citizens: How Children Develop and Integrate News-Related Practices in Their Daily Lives

ABSTRACT This paper studies children’s (aged 8–12) news-related practices and subsequent acts of lived citizenship in formal and informal social contexts. While children in this age group are increasingly exposed to various types of news that shape their understanding of the world, little is understood about their interactions with news. We employ the concept of “news-related practices’ to analyze how news is integrated into or excluded from their daily routines. Based on longitudinal participant observations of children (N = 256) at four afterschool care locations and five primary schools in the Netherlands in combination with semi-structured interviews with teachers (N = 9), we find that children employ a wide range of playful news-related practices that allow for light-hearted explorations of news and create opportunities for acts of lived citizenship. Play allows children to explore societal issues with peers and form moral opinions. However, conceptualizations of news as serious’ hindered primary school teachers” recognition of playful news-related practices. Following these findings, we argue that the acknowledgement of such practices as an effective tool for civic education, may support children in their development of news practices and foster their first steps into becoming informed citizens.

A Comparative Study of COVID-19 Incidents in Chinese and American News Reports

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 in early 2020, there have been many false negative information in the society, and the public's anxiety and irritability have been amplified. In this situation, constructive news originating from the European and American news industry has become the focus of attention for some media or scholars. It aims to awaken the public's willingness to take action through inspiring news reports, thereby promoting social stability and development. However, the specific practice of constructive news will present different characteristics in different social environments. This article compares and analyzes the constructive reporting framework characteristics of People's Daily and New York Times, with the aim of exploring the frameworks and narrative methods of different types of media in reporting, rather than simply evaluating the advantages and disadvantages, in order to see the advantages and disadvantages of People's Daily's reporting, propose my own opinions and some improvement measures, and provide some thinking and reference for the practical orientation of China's news localization practice.

Information Gathering for Online News Publications: A Multidimensional Issue for Media Professionals and Educators

The purpose of this study is to reveal some current issues concerning the gap between the education and practice of Romanian online news reporting, especially regarding the activity of information gathering, critical event reporting and fulfilling the role of exposing reality in an objective manner. Several observations from previous studies showed a discrepancy between the educational standards of journalism schools in the matter of news documentation and the reality on the ground. We tried to see what skills the faculties of future journalists must train in order to ensure a return of the media to a more critical attitude, necessary for a democratic society, starting from the qualitative analysis of several local and national media platforms in Romania. Our main interest was the degree to which reporters that publish news on online media platforms use filed documentation, interviews and other news gathering techniques in their activity, compared to simply publish institutional PR briefings or third-part articles. The conclusions of our research are that the vast majority of news is based solely on curated information and lacks not only a critical approach, but also the personal input of reporters.

“What the Heck Is Going on in the Group!”: Challenging Journalistic Authority by Pseudo-Professional WhatsApp News Groups

ABSTRACT This paper addresses the ways new entrants and mobile technologies have become significant challenges to the old news’ legitimacy models by focusing on pseudo-professional WhatsApp news groups from a journalistic authority standpoint. Based on a comparative textual analysis of how a breaking news event was handled by a leading Israeli pseudo-professional WhatsApp news group, compared to how it was covered by the Israeli News13 TV news broadcast, the findings indicate how, by adopting professional news practices and establishing unique relations of information exchange with traditional news outlets, journalistic authority is challenged by pseudo-professional WhatsApp news groups in today’s mobile news environment.

Research on Mainstream Media News Practice from the Perspective of Media Fusion -- Taking the New Beijing News as an Example

As the wave of media integration approaches, how mainstream media can adapt to the trend of the times and achieve the transition from traditional single reporting forms to diverse and integrated forms of news reporting in new media, and how to achieve technological, morphological, and thinking transformation in news practice has always been a key concern in the news industry. In the current stage of integrated news reporting, some media are moving towards the misconception of neglecting content and blindly stacking news reporting forms in pursuit of integration. This article takes the New Beijing News dynamic news series as an example, focusing on the content characteristics, narrative characteristics, and communication characteristics of mainstream media integrated innovation reporting. It deconstructs various forms of news in this series, analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of communication effects, and proposes innovative inspirations for the development of integrated news.

“Fake news you can trust”: How The Babylon Bee brings news satire to the Right

ABSTRACT The political Left dominated news satire in the United States in the early part of the 21st century with television shows such as The Daily Show and newspapers and sites like The Onion, leading some commentators and scholars to argue that satire leans inherently left or is even the exclusive domain of progressivism. Since 2016, The Babylon Bee, a conservative, Christian news satire website has defied these expectations. This article offers an examination of how The Babylon Bee, has adapted contemporary practices of news satire in the 21st century United States to the conservative perspective. After providing a theoretical definition of “conservative satire,” the paper provides brief historical overviews of news satire since the turn of the century, conservative satire from Ancient Greece to the British Enlightenment, and the founding and evolution of The Babylon Bee. Finally, the author demonstrates how The Bee has brought news satire to the Right in the 21st century by navigating three challenges of the recent American politics of particular importance to conservatives: the divisive figure of Donald Trump, the rise of misinformation, and the nuances of identity politics.

Ethical Disputes over Freebies and Gifts in Journalism Practice: An Analysis of 133 Media Ethics Codes

How do media ethics codes regulate journalists’ treatment of freebies in relation to the public’s right to journalism? This study examines 133 media ethics codes from 87 countries and regions. The analysis reveals that most codes overlook the issue of freebies in daily news practice. Among the 133 codes, 49 explicitly address freebies, with varying degrees of specificity, generally categorized into absolute prohibition, relative prohibition, and intermediate attitudes. Ethical codes need more explicit guidance on how journalists should handle freebies to ensure consistency on this issue. Additionally, the normative guidance on freebies requires greater operational feasibility. To enhance the effectiveness of ethical codes in journalism practice, this paper proposes incorporating the principles of bottom line, relevance, and openness in the discussion and revision of ethics codes.

Science communication objectives and actual practices of science news websites as a showcase for gaps between theory and practice

This study contributes to the growing body of science communication research showing gaps between theory and practice objectives, focusing on one particular understudied and emerging science communication innovation.The objectives and practices of four Israeli science news websites were analyzed considering three science communication models: “Dissemination”, “Dialogue”, and “Participation.” Using concurrent parallel mixed methods, we examined the perspectives of website administrators (n=8) and readers (n=20) through interviews, a content analysis of news items (n=298), discussion threads (n=507), and reader questionnaires (n=89). Findings indicate limited adoption of two-way communication about how science is applied in society. The scant implementation of the dialogue model suggests its promises are not concretized in practice on these science news websites.

Navigating Public Service and Profit-Making Mandates: The Case of the Daily Graphic Newspaper

ABSTRACT This study examines how Ghana’s Daily Graphic, a public newspaper operating as a limited liability company, balances its public service mandate with its economic rationality. The case study combined data from interviews with the newspaper’s reporters, editors, managers, and advertising agency executives with a study of official documents and analysis of newshole versus advertisement space allocation. The findings reveal the complicated nature of media management and journalistic autonomy in this hybrid public-private setting shaped by its sociopolitical and economic history and current context. Despite its stated public service mandate, the Daily Graphic’s organizational and individual-level economic logic (coupled with its advertiser–client relations) informs its operations and news practices. Also, contrary to the Daily Graphic’s stated 60:40 newshole to advertisement ratio, the newspaper consistently allocates more space to advertisements than news. We discuss the theoretical implications and recommend how news media can balance their economic motives and public service roles.

Surprise About News or Just Receiving Information?

We focus on the conversational use of raising both eyebrows in response to a new occasion or information. Two fundamental patterns were found to come into play as frequent visual practices of change-of-state marking: the continuous moving of the eyebrows up and down and the holding of both eyebrows raised. The eyebrow move marks the receipt and unproblematic understanding of news, either as part of responses or as the recipient’s activity during turn production. In contrast, the eyebrow hold appears as an essential part of a salient visual news mark practice displaying surprise or astonishment. While the move is embedded in minimal and unobtrusive change-of-state practices allowing the interlocutors to move on, the hold treats the information received as worthy of further elaboration. However, verbal and embodied practices of news receipting and news marking may diverge in such a way that contradicting conversational demands are contextualised.

Social Consensus Cohesion of News Practice from the Perspective of the Sociology of News Production

Social Consensus Cohesion of News Practice from the Perspective of the Sociology of News Production

Analysis on the Art Skills of Editing Radio and TV News in the Era of Financial Media

Under the background of the new era, network technology, information technology and new media technology have been applied to various fields, effectively promoting social progress and industry development. In particular, the application of big data, cloud computing and multimedia technology in the radio and television industry not only accelerates the speed of information transmission and increases the number of information dissemination, but also truly realizes information sharing and promotes the sustainable development of the radio and television industry. Under the background of the new era, the information collection and processing technology and editing technology in the radio and television news industry have been improved, which also puts forward new requirements for the editing skills of radio and television news. Based on the author's own news practice, through analyzing the editing skills of radio and television news in the new era, the author puts forward some thoughts and countermeasures to provide useful reference for more radio and television news from the north.

Epistemic Contests in Journalism: Examining Struggles over Journalistic Ways of Knowing

In the face of struggles over journalistic epistemology arising in the present, this study proposes the concept of “epistemic contests” as a way of analyzing efforts by various actors to shape knowledge production norms and practices. Epistemic contests are not reducible to a single event or example, but instead encompass broader ongoing debates around the legitimacy of various epistemic practices of news. In analyzing these debates, this approach is attuned to the nuances of the present digital media culture as well as the current political and cultural moment. This article lays out key theoretical and methodological components of epistemic contests as applied to journalism and suggests a future research program for digital journalism studies scholars with special attention directed toward journalistic objectivity and its attendant norms. The value of this concept lies in providing a tool to examine the contestation over appropriate knowledge practices, the power to make such distinctions, and the forms of news that emerge.

Journalism as War: Tracing the Predatory Culture and Economy of the Pak-Afghan Cross-border News Practices

ABSTRACT Based on in-depth interviews with ethnic Pashtun war journalists, this study explores the cross-border news practices and its underlying economy in Pakistan’s troubled tribal region that straddles the Pak-Afghan border. We argue that the structural remnants, including media, of the British colonialism of the past continue to boost the neo-imperialism of the present. Several studies have examined the war reporting in the Pak-Afghan border space, however, the intersection of the postcolonial State, militarization, and cross-border news labor practices is understudied. Backdropped in the critical examination of the news pursuits during the two wars: the Afghan “jihad” and the US-led “war on terror,” we show how war as business and news labor as commodity feed into each other and contribute to the making of a material and representational crisis which sustains what Jasbir Puar calls the “economy of injury.”

News Informing on Open Science as a Strategic Direction for the Development of a Scientific Library

News is the most accessible, timely and popular information in the world, it affects many spheres of social life and reflects their current state. News in the field of science is no exception. People were interested in news long before the widespread use of information technology, and some current forms of information and library services were introduced in the 20th century.Defining and strategizing the direction of news information is a significant part of information support for researchers. Scientific libraries, as important social institutions specializing in providing access to information, can contribute to the search for and provision of this kind of information. The basic principles of building a news strategy in modern libraries are the relevance of the news topic to the library’s vision and its relevance to the target audience, taking into account the use of modern information technologies. In a scientific library, open science can be used as such a topic due to its demand among researchers and specialists.The purpose of this article is to develop a set of information products designed to achieve information support of scientific library users (by the example of open science). A study of 100 websites of foreign university libraries included in the Top 100 Leiden ranking of universities’ openness in 2023 was carried out to identify the practices of news informing users about open science. Five best examples of foreign experience were identified. An important part of the information strategy — the technology of selecting channels for receiving information — was developed. On its basis, a set of information products was prepared and published on the website of the State Public Scientific and Technical Library of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences “Library for Open Science”: news feed, quarterly digest “Open Science News” and issues of “Live News of Open Science” in video material.

News in Motion: A Quantitative Analysis of Incremental News Updates by Flemish Online News Outlets

ABSTRACT Online news has rapidly claimed its place in the media landscape, and with it came the practice of incremental news updates being integrated in existing content. Yet, considering this fluid news production, researchers have been struggling with freezing the news flow and capturing the different article versions, implying that incremental news updates form an understudied phenomenon. Therefore, we conduct a large-scale study on the usage of online news updates by applying regular interval content capturing. Using in-house developed software, all 291,666 articles and 197,979 associated updates written by six leading Flemish news outlets in a period of two years (2019–2021) are collected. It is examined how commonly and in what ways updates are applied. Furthermore, a subset of 11,293 articles is manually analyzed to examine the reason(s) for applying updates. Results indicate that updates are commonly applied across all news outlets and topics. 35% of the articles are updated at least once and an updated article is updated 1.94 times on average. Approximately 4.2% of textual changes are made to correct objective or subjective errors, typically without any communication towards the reader. Therefore, we argue that transparency regarding news updates should be enhanced.

Decolonising Journalism in Aotearoa New Zealand: Using a Tiriti-Led Framework for News Practice

ABSTRACT In 2020, newspaper conglomerate and owner of Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest news website, Stuff, issued an historic public apology for its racist portrayal of Indigenous Māori after an internal investigation showed it had contributed to stigma, marginalisation and stereotypes against Māori. This study explores what has changed since Stuff’s apology and, by deploying an analytical framework grounded in Māori worldviews and Te Tiriti o Waitangi (the founding treaty signed between Māori and British colonisers), demonstrates how an Indigenous lens can help news organisations better identify and rethink Western-centric journalistic norms to develop more inclusive and equitable practice. The study analyses Stuff’s then largest newspaper, The Press, via a content analysis of two constructed weeks, one before Stuff’s apology (n = 480 articles) and another post-apology (n = 430 articles), along with a topic modelling analysis of 5091 articles published between 2016 and 2021. Analysis grounded in kaupapa Māori and te Tiriti shows some improvement in news coverage—as well as opportunities for more equitable representation by incorporating Indigenous tikanga (custom) in reporting practice. It also finds ongoing problems, indicating more fundamental and transformative action is needed for news media organisations to meet their commitments to anti-racism and de-Westernising the field.