Making the News

Journalism and News Cultures in Europe

Paschal Preston

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781134043507
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Journalism
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Making the News

provides a cross-national perspective on key features of journalism and news-making cultures and the changing media landscape in contemporary Europe..

Focusing on the key trends, practices and issues in contemporary journalism and news cultures, Paschal Preston maps the major contours of change as well as the broader industrial, organizational, institutional and cultural factors shaping journalism practices over the past two decades.

Moving beyond the tendency to focus on journalism trends and newsmaking practices within a single country, Making the News draws on unique, cross-national research examining current journalism practices and related newsmaking cultures in eleven West, Central and East European countries, including in-depth interviews with almost 100 senior journalists and subsequent workshop discussions with other interest groups

Making the News

links reviews and discussions of the existing literature to original research engaging with the views and experiences of journalists working at the 'coal face' of contemporary newsmaking practices, to provide an original study and useful student text.

Chapter 1
Journalism in a state of flux?

Explanatory perspectives

A subject so complex as journalism can be treated with advantage from very different standpoints.

(Carl Bücher, 1901:215)

The Anglo-US model – hegemonic or in crisis?

To declare that journalism and newsmaking are in a state of flux and subject to deep, multi-dimensional changes in the first decade of the twenty-first century may be an understatement. We don’t merely refer to the multiple innovations in the production and distribution of news enabled by the Internet and a whole cluster of other radical technological developments. Nor only to the growing array of news media ‘products’ and formats available on our television and computer screens, mobile handsets or other devices, all promising up-to-the-second, mobile and ambient news services in keeping with our brave ‘new’, ‘knowledgebased’ or ‘networked’ society. Nor are we only thinking of the more recent buzz around user-generated content, audience engagement in the co-production of news or even the evolution of a new species, citizen-journalists, threatening the privileged status if not the survival of the old professional sort. Certainly, these constitute important and much-studied aspects of the state of flux in newsmaking today. But they are also accompanied by other significant, if ‘old’, concerns to do with the qualitative aspects of news culture. We refer to concerns about the substantive or quality aspects of news culture, including journalism’s changing roles and responsibilities towards its public – modern journalism’s presumed raison d’être or ‘god term’ (Carey, 2007).

Here, we observe a growing sense that the Anglo-US model of journalistic values and newsmaking practices has become a universal standard for the remainder of the world. This appears to be particularly the case since the shift to a new world order marked by the end of the Cold War, the rise of WTO-based regulatory regimes for media and the USA’s dominant role as the biggest ‘bully’ (Colin Powell) in the world’s military playground. From a soap-box built from bits of chaos theory, one academic specialist proclaims that the old Anglo-US model has been renewed and is now performing in a manner that transcends criticism, thanks to new digital technologies and a ‘more reflexive’ cohort of journalists (McNair, 2006). Indeed, whilst there may be ‘many ways of doing – or not doing – news’ we note a growing perception that ‘there is now only one approved mega-model’, usually referred to as ‘the Anglo-Saxon model’ (Lloyd, 2004:29). But even as ‘the ideals of neutral professionalism’ based on Anglo-American media history are widely proclaimed and accepted by journalists around the world, some research specialists find that this frequently occurs ‘even where the actual practice … departs radically’ from such norms (Hallin and Papathanassopoulos, 2002:176).

Equally significant, however, are the signs that this, apparently hegemonic, model is now experiencing a crisis in its homelands. For, just as the Anglo-US model of journalism is elevated to the dominant (if not universal) global standard, ‘it is itself becoming the object of increasing internal criticism and questioning by some leading practitioners and researchers in its countries of origin’ (Preston, 2006a: 3). In the USA, for example, academics and public intellectuals express serious concerns about the quality and political independence of the news media, especially in the context of the political regimes focused on war on terror and attendant restrictions on human rights and civil rights since 2001. There is a strong sense that the mainstream news media – not merely the populist neo-conservative outlets but also standard-bearers such as the New York Times – have failed to match the standards of independent and critical journalism they frequently presume for themselves or prescribe for others (Friel and Falk, 2007). In the USA and elsewhere, we also observe major concerns about a significant and long-term decline of public confidence in the news media institutions (Gronke and Cook, 2007).

Turning to the other side of the Atlantic, the past few years have witnessed intensive soul-searching on the part of (at least, some) senior journalists and media professionals concerning the role, operations and powers of the media in Britain. This is only partly related to the various consequences and fallout arising from a now-infamous early morning radio broadcast by a BBC journalist in 2003. The scope of the expressed concern extends way beyond public service broadcasting to address private sector news organisations, including the old print media. In recent years, senior working journalists as well as academics have proclaimed the need for a fundamental review of the British model of journalism (e.g. Lloyd, 2004; Rusbridger, 2005). For example, a senior editor on the Financial Times has argued the need for a major rethink and ‘renewal of the values and tasks of free media’ and that ‘a real debate on what media do to our politics and civil society’ is urgently required (Lloyd, 2004:1). Others (e.g. O’Neill, 2002) have even called for more extensive forms of regulation of the print media in Britain. Such moves and proposals signal a somewhat unprecedented crisis given the proud and long-standing attachments to the ideals and self-image of an autonomous press in Britain – a tradition that dates back to the writings of David Hume in the eighteenth century. Such developments in its first country of origin, suggest that the Anglo-US model of journalism is in something of a pickle, if not facing a serious crisis.

For such reasons, then, we may take it that journalism and newsmaking are in a deep, multi-dimensional state of flux today. The prime task of this book is to map the key features and contours of such recent trends and to examine the major influences and explanatory perspectives which help us understand the sources and meaning of these developments.

This book is concerned with describing and explaining the key trends and issues in journalism and news culture in the early twenty-first century. It seeks to identify the contours and trends of multi-dimensional change now unfolding in journalism and newsmaking processes as well as the most compelling explanations of these trends – the alternative or optimal ways of understanding their sources and implications. To this end, the book provides a distinctive multilayered approach to the influences on newsmaking and news culture. It also draws on a unique, cross-national research project examining the relevant research and current trends in news and journalism cultures in 11 European countries over the past 20 years or so. It adopts a multi-level approach to news culture and journalism practices in an effort to provide a rounded, interdisciplinary account of the trends in this field. In so doing, it seeks to bridge the frequently encountered divide between journalism studies on the one hand, and media or political communication studies, on the other hand.

The book’s agenda and its distinctive approach

At this point, it may be helpful to signal and summarise a number of distinctive features concerning the conceptual framework, research approach and resources that inform the following chapters. First, this book is framed around a distinctive multi-dimensional approach to understanding the influences on news culture and newsmaking processes. It explicitly recognises that the large and growing body of research on journalism and newsmaking is based on many different theoretical and methodological approaches. In this light, we have sought to develop a coherent, practical, yet reasonably comprehensive classification or pedagogic schema. The chosen typology aims to embrace the major concepts and explanatory perspectives on newsmaking. It is framed around five clusters of concepts associated with different explanatory perspectives or schools of research, each offering distinct but complementary ways of understanding the influences on journalism and news culture. This multi-dimensional approach is also interdisciplinary in scope as it embraces research and concepts related to both journalism studies on the one hand, and the media and (political) communication studies field, on the other.

Second, this book has a distinct approach towards mapping the implications for journalism and news culture of digital technologies, new media and broader socio-technical developments variously referred to as the knowledge economy, network society or information age. These comprise a major set of issues, not least because digital technologies are multiple in form, and have a pervasive application potential, for example they are used extensively in both ‘old’ and ‘new’ news media (as explained in Chapter 2 and later). Thus, to understand the implications of the Internet for news culture and journalism, we need to address relevant trends and factors in both the old or mature media (newspapers, radio and television) as well as in online media and to consider the balance between continuities and changes on a number of fronts. It also means we must address the Internet as one significant node or sub-set of a wider cluster of new information and communication technologies (ICTs). The latter, in turn, may be viewed as a historically rare, major new technology system with a pervasive applications potential.

In negotiating this complex and challenging domain of inquiry, this book provides a distinctive approach centred on balancing contending viewpoints around a number of core issues. One involves recognising the specific features and significance of the Internet and other new ICTs whilst at the same time avoiding techno-centric approaches (or the seductions of the ‘technological sublime’) in analyses of newsmaking trends. Since quality journalism is not determined or tightly linked to technical factors, a second distinctive feature of our approach is to interrogate both the commonalities as well as differences between newsmaking and journalism culture in both new media and old media formats. A further and related feature of our approach in this regard is to address the balance between changes and continuities in the journalism and newsmaking landscape over the past 10–20 years. Here, we seek to introduce a nuanced understanding and distinction between technology-centred and information (e.g. information society or knowledge economy) perspectives on the wider structural changes now impacting on the newsmaking environment. The latter include, for example, the expanding role of various media services and ‘soft communication’ functions within our contemporary societal, economic and political systems.

Third, the book is informed by a relatively rare, cross-national study involving primary and secondary research in 11 countries, as described below. Finally, we may note that this book also seeks to engage with questions concerning the transnationalisation or ‘globalisation’ of news cultures today. In our cross-national study we sought to examine the forms (or extent) of any convergences in news-making practices and journalistic cultures across national cultural boundaries in Europe. Here the EU area may be taken as a ‘leading-edge’ site or test case for deepening trans-national economic and political integration at the world-region level. We examine whether and how these developments are being matched by a shared media culture or an emergent post-national public sphere across the EU region.

Thus, this text helps to address the growing interest in trans-national or cross-national studies of journalism and media cultures as it is based on a structured multi-country study that is relatively rare. The relevant international research and teaching literature indicates that cross-national and comparative studies of journalism and media cultures are becoming increasingly important, even urgent (e.g. Livingstone, 2003; Josephi, 2005). Many recent reviews of the relevant literature have argued that cross-national and comparative research on media and journalism, especially that which is systematic, theoretically informed and tailormade, is now an urgent priority (e.g. Livingstone, 2003; Hanitzsch, 2005; Josephi, 2005).

Of course cross-national and comparative studies are much easier to prescribe than they are to perform or realise in practice. In part, this is because such studies pose many major practical, epistemological, and value-laden challenges for the researcher, resulting in a continuing paucity of texts based on purpose-built, multi-country research (Hanitzsch, 2005:2). Besides, many of the recent cross-national or comparative studies of journalistic ethics and editorial cultures often comprise surveys of the declared principles of ethical codes, with little attention to their actual implementation or operational contexts (Himelboim and Limor, 2005). This book draws on primary research among journalists charged with interpreting and implementing the professional norms and codes in specific organisational, media sectors and national contexts. It also seeks to combine the primary research data with focused reviews of the specialised research literature produced in different national settings.

Fourth, as noted above, the book is informed by a carefully structured, cross-national study comprising two main aspects. One involves the findings from primary research, including in-depth interviews with 95 senior journalists in 11 countries in the West, Central and East European regions and from some subsequent workshop discussions with other interest groups. Co-ordinated by the present author, the primary research covered the following ‘new’ and ‘old’ EU member states: Britain, France, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Serbia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Our interviewees comprised experienced journalists or editors working in print and electronic media in these 11 countries. The semi-structured interviews also sought to address differences between different media, such as TV and press or private and public sector news organisations. The key questions framing our in-depth interviews, fieldwork and secondary research are indicated in Box 1.1.

In addition, this primary research was complemented by secondary research embracing a number of additional countries. This includes systematic reviews of the relevant international research on journalism trends and news influences, including the national literature in the countries covered by the primary research. The book’s substantive chapters engage with the prevailing international research literature as well as drawing on key findings from primary research. In addition, some chapters are also informed by the proceedings of a series of seminar and roundtable discussions with media professionals, politicians and a range of key media user-organisations (representing social interests and non-governmental organisations) centred on discussions of the preliminary results of the research.

Box 1.1 Key questions framing the interviews and secondary research

1. What are the main features of journalism, its professional values, newsmaking practices and editorial cultures in contemporary Europe?
2. What have been the main trends of change in journalism and its news cultures over the past 15–20 years, including the key institutional, organisational and technological factors shaping these changes?
3. What are the key trends of change in journalists’ relationship with their audiences and what are the key factors influencing such changes?
4. To what extent is there any singular European journalism culture or how can we best map a number of competing models (typologies or regionalisations) of journalism in EU countries?
5. To what extent is there an emergent (or growing) common European ‘public sphere’, especially when it comes to the news and the agenda of political issues related to the European Union area?

Five clusters of influences on newsmaking

Our five-fold explanatory frame: clusters of influences on news

As noted, this book is framed around a distinct multi-dimensional approach to understanding the diverse influences on news culture and newsmaking processes. The chosen typology comprises five explanatory perspectives or research traditions which offer distinct but complementary sets of concepts and ways of understanding the influences on journalism and news culture. In brief, our approach is based on our reading and reviews of the relevant international literature which reveal a number of competing but complementary explanatory perspectives (or levels of analysis) for understanding the influences on journalism and news culture. In designing our typology we have benefited from the prior schema of other authors who have sought to frame and summarise the relevant research into a number of categories. Particularly helpful in this regard have been the classifications proposed earlier by: Gans, 1979; Gitlin, 1980/2003; Shoemaker and Reese, 1996; Reese, 2001a; Schudson, 2000; Whitney et al., 2004. Here, we identify and combine the major explanatory perspectives and related set of concepts into a five-fold typology. The resulting classification was deemed the most coherent and practical for presenting the research literature and our own research findings. Each of these five explanatory perspectives and clusters of concepts may be treated as highly complementary and even ‘leaky’ (see Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1 Five domains of influences: making the news

Individual level influences and professional values

Our first explanatory perspective and cluster of concepts focuses on the individual level. This covers research focused on the personal characteristics, background and values of working journalists. It considers the role of professional values and codes of ethics, including journalists’ own definitions and self-understandings of their professional roles and norms as influences on newsmaking practices. This first set of potential influences on newsmaking is probably the most familiar, partly because it resonates closely with journalists’ traditional self-understandings of their profession. It fits with the modes of explanation or models of ‘common sense’ reasoning favoured by the wider institutions and culture in most, if not all, contemporary capitalist societies.

This strand of research includes many studies that seek to describe the individual characteristics of journalists as an occupational group. Such research has been the most common approach to conducting research on professional issues (Whitney et al., 2004). This is despite the paradox that the concept of objectivity implies that individual characteristics of journalists should have little if any influence on the output of their work. The research also includes many studies of journalists’ beliefs and values, which have been undertaken on the assumption that such individual factors provide an adequate basis for explaining a perceived political bias in news content.

There are several reasons why individual level explanatory models are so popular. First, such perspectives closely match journalists’ self-understanding of their professional roles and autonomy. This is manifest, for example, in the popular genre of journalists’ biographies, and it links to a continuing tendency to frame journalism as linked to the literary domains of knowledge work. Second, the marketing and promotional campaigns of news and other media organisations have a growing, if long-established, tendency to emphasise the role of individual journalists, especially celebrity or ‘star’ reporters. Third, such perspectives are readily accepted because they are pervasive features of the wider institutional, discursive and cultural setting in contemporary societies.

Media industry routines: institutional practices and norms

Our second analytic approach is focused on media industry routines, the typical and taken-for-granted (but patterned) institutional practices and norms that frame and shape daily newsmaking. This cluster comprises concepts and insights on the routines of newsmaking and professional journalistic practices, usually based on sociological and ethnographic studies of newsrooms and their relations with certain external institutions, especially related ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Journalism in a state of flux? Explanatory perspectives
• 2 Evolution of organised news and journalism in Europe
• 3 Individual influences on news: journalists’ values and norms
• 4 New news nets: media routines in a ‘knowledge society’
• 5 From news nets to house rules: organisational contexts
• 6 Political-economic factors shaping news culture
• 7 ‘The cultural air’: ideology, discourse and power
• 8 A key relation: journalists and their publics
• 9 ‘Where’s Europe?’ Emergent post-national news cultures
• 10 New times, new news paradigms?
• Bibliography