Chapter 8: NEWS

10/23/2013 1:57:00 PM

Concept of News News is a report on change that survives the competition for reporting other change that is occurring. What ends up being reported is the result of news judgments by reporters, editors and producers who package their regular updates on what they believe their audiences need an want to know. News as Change o News involves news and newsworthiness o News- report on change Newsworthiness o Newsworthiness- a ranking of news that helps decide what makes it into news packages o Factors that go into determining newsworthiness Proximity to audience Prominence of people involved Timeliness Impact on society Bennett News Model Penn newspaper publisher James Gordon Bennett recognized fresh information as a commercial commodity in the 1830s. The fresher the news, the more eager the audience is to buy. Timeliness was Bennetts mantra. The result was a body of premises and practices that dominated the concept of news in the United States for 100plus years and remains a strong influence in the way news is reported today. James Gordon Bennett o James Gordon Bennett- Early Penny Press publisher; founder of New York Herald 1835 Published first news interview in history Focused on timeliness Wanted to give news first News beats- a specific subject or field that a news reporter covers as a specialty, like a police beat, a science beat Bennett Model- an enduring concept of news that emphasizes event-based reporting on deadline

Bennett Model Components o Compelling Events people wanted information, competition for big stories, people always wanted more o Deadline-Driven Wanted to beat other penny papers People were also interested in news in other areas Lightning news- delivered by telegraph 1920s radio made news even faster o Objectivity Opinions were left out so that more people would read Detached tone Emphasis on fact-driven reporting Objectivity- a concept in journalism that news should be gathered and told value-free o Veiling the Reporter Bylines- a line identifying the reporter or writer, usually atop an article Goal was to keep the reporters identity as invisible as possible o Sourcing Wait for events to happen then report them Problems in Bennett Model o Superficiality Reporters looked for stories with readily available facts where they wouldnt have to dig for info Reporters wait for events which could lead to important stories not being told o Deadline Haste Deadline pressure undermines quality EXAMPLE: Truman and Dewey election (Tribune) o Dullness Facts were presented and people had to make sense of it on their own It was boring o Missed Trends

Lots of unreported stories because they were not one easily identifiable event. o Questions Unasked Slant towards authorities. Interview police to get quick facts Dont interview witnesses and victims so the result is one-sided and superficial o Manipulation Roosevelt manipulated it because he would make announcements on Sundays and make the front page because Sundays were slow news days. The McCarthy Lessons o Joseph McCarthy- U.S. senator from Wisconsin; fueled anticommunist hysteria 1950-1954 o Reporters quoted everything he said, he was front page news but he was a liar o Lots of proof that he was lying o Edward R. Murrow- CBS TV reporter who confronted McCarthy on demagoguery

Hutchins News Model In 1947 the Hutchins Commission, a group of leading scholars, recommended updating the century-old Bennett Model to fit a changing media landscape and to correct flaws. A major change was to go beyond the facts in news coverage and put them in a meaningful context Hutchins Commission o Robert Hutchins- philosopher whose interests included news practices; wanted news media to be socially responsible o Hutchins Commission- (The Commission on Freedom of the Press) recommended reforms in news practices to emphasize social responsibility Mixed Reception o Some didnt like it o Curtis McDougal- wrote a book called Interpretative Reporting which advocated that reporters needed to make sense of information not just report it.

o Editorializing- opinionated comments that go beyond just stating the straightforward reporting Changing News Dynamics o When the radio started, news was connected with personality o Television o Internet o Media Literacy Rethinking News Models Earlier paradigms for news have become obsolete by technologygenerated changes in mass media. Among the changes has been as explosion of news sources and approaches and concurrent audience fragmentation. A hybrid news model is evolving to meld perspective with straightforward coverage. A hybrid model from the New York Times uses a complex labeling system to alert readers to stories with perspective. Transforming News Environments o Abundant Newspaper Dailies Many papers competing for customers o One-paper towns

No competition to better papers Hutchins Commission called newspapers to be socially responsible o Audience Fragmentation Television became a rival to newspapers Hybrid News Models o Times had a hybrid form of reporting so that articles that go beyond facts were labeled. Personal Values in News Journalists make important decisions on which events, phenomena and issues are reported and which are not. The personal values journalists bring to their work and that therefore determine which stories are told, and also how they are told, generally coincide with mainstream American values. Role of the Journalist o News is what each reporter decides it is Objectivity

o Value-free process in making choices about what to tell and how to tell it. o Penny Press o Associated Press o Newspaper Economics Journalists Personal Values o Reporters have values that influence their lives including their work o Herbert Gans- concluded that journalists have mainstream values o Ethnocentrism Ethnocentrism- seeing things on the basis of personal experience and values o Democracy and Capitalism U.S. journalists favor U.S. style democracy When talking about others it focuses on corruption, conflict, protest and bureaucratic malfunction. U.S. journalists are committed to the capitalist economic system o Tempered Individualism Love stories about rugged individuals who overcome adversity and defeat powerful forces EXAMPLE: treats atheists and religious fanatics as extremists o Social Order Coverage of disasters are concerned with finding ways to restore order o Watchdog function

Watchdog function- the news media role to monitor the performance of government and other institutions of society. Variables Affecting News The variables that determine what is reported include things beyond a journalists control, such as how much space or time is available to tell stories. Also, a story that might receive top billing on a slow

news day might not even appear on a day when an overwhelming number of major stories are breaking. News Hole o News hole- space for news in a newspaper after ads are inserted; time in a newscast for news after ads News Flow o News flow- significance of events worth covering varies from day to day News Staffing o Staffing- available staff resources to cover news

Quality of News The advent of internet news has eroded some standard operating practices in newsrooms that historically had given readers a high level of expectation for accuracy and judgment. One standard is firm, that news is non-fiction. A reality remains, however, that news is a function of judgment by reporters and others in the information-gathering and information-packing process. The multiple contributors and varying levels of human intelligence, values and judgment involved in the process makes gatekeeping a complex enterprise Gatekeeping as Creative o Gatekeepers- media people influencing messages en route. They decide what deserves to be told and how o Aggregation sites- news sites that regurgitate news compiled from elsewhere or that offer pass-through links to other sources. o Arianna Huffington- founder of online news site Huffington Post

o News alerts- email links to news from search engines on subjects that users request with key search items Journalism Trends The explosion of 24/7 news on television, the internet and mobile devices is transforming news gathering and redefining news practices and audience expectations. Traditional avenues for news, sometimes called mainstream media, were shaken in the 2004 political campaign by individuals, mostly without journalistic

training, generally operating alone, who created hundreds of blog sites. Bloggers offer an interconnected web of fascinating reading. Sometimes they score scoops. Exploratory Reporting o Bob Woodward- Carl Bernsteins colleague in the Watergate revelations o Carl Bernstein- Washington Post reporter who dug up Watergate o Watergate- Nixon administration scandal o Investigative reporting- enterprise reporting that reveals new information, often startling; most often these are stories that official sources would rather not have told o Muckraking- fanciful term for digging up dirt but that usually is used in a laudatory way for investigative journalism; aimed at public policy reform o Ida Tarbell- muckraker remembered for her series on monopolistic corruption at Standard Oil o Soft news- geared to satisfying audiences information wants, not needs