What is News

1
What is News?

• ENCO 461/561
• Summer 2006

2
News exposure on decline

• Only about 45 of American adults read newspapers
  regularly
• Only about 61 watch television news regularly
• Young people only 38 read newspaper
• Young people appear to avoid news

3
Is news a reflection or construction

• reflection of events of the daymirror for
  reality?
• NEWS DOES NOT REFLECT REALITY
• News is triggered by actual events/occurrences
• News presents stories about events
• Stories are constructed by journalists influenced
  by processes and constraints of medium

4
Construction process

• Selecting what gets covered
• Only a minute sliver of human activity is
  selected
• Deciding what becomes the focus of the story
• Looking for a hooklead (1st sentence) sets the
  hook
• Determining how the story gets told and how to
  sequence it

5
Influences on construction

• Commercialism
• News organizations are businesses that compete
  with each other for audiences and advertisers
• News is a moneymaker
• News programs turning into ads
• Philadelphia evening news show, CBS affiliate,
  ran 9 stories of Titanic, ship that sank 90 years
  ago, but was subject of CBS miniseries at same
  time.
• Some advertisers pressure media and some are more
  successful than others

6
Professional responsibility perspective

• Journalists regard themselves as having
  responsibility to inform public about most
  important and significant events of the day so
  people can use the information to make better
  decisions as citizens of that society

7
Marketing perspective

• News workers pay careful attention to what kinds
  of stories and presentation formats generate the
  largest audience.
• Careful not to alienate potential audience
  membersbecome less political
• Growing commitment to entertainment in order to
  attract a large audience

8
Story formulas

• Journalists are VERY busy people
• Most popular information gathering formula who?
  What? Where? When? Why?
• Most popular news writing formula inverted
  pyramid most important information at beginning,
  then add next most important, etc. (from
  telegraph)

9
Story writing formulas for audience impact

• Use a narrative to tell a story in an
  entertainment formatbegin with a heated
  conflict, gruesome description, unusual quote to
  grab attention. Then writer moves through the
  plot, much like fictional writing
• Simplified extended conflict- look for angle of
  conflict which appears very simple. Complex
  conflict wont hold audiences attention. Play
  out over several days, weeks, months... Horse
  race metaphor for political races...

10
Big stories

• With stories that will consume a lot of news
  space/time for weeks or months, they have the
  opportunity to develop the nuances of the
  storyilluminating the complexity and educating
  the public...but they dont
• Instead the press stays with surface
  informationpolishing it to a more glitzy finish
  to make it more attractive to passive viewers

11
Resource Constraints

• Never enough resources to cover all the important
  events that happen in a day
• Choices must be made because of constraints of
  time, space, talent and place

12
Organizational Forces

• Organizational Structure small companies are
  more flexible and entrepreneurial, search out new
  needs and quickly adapt. Large bureaucracies are
  resistant to change
• Ownership can influence content
• Ex. New York Times owned by 1 family for over 100
  years...
• Most papers have an editorial stance

13
Use of sources

• News is shaped by the sources of the information
• Dominant news sources are public information
  officers in businesses and government unitsthese
  people are trained to spin the story their way.
• Experts generally selected according to how
  well their specialized knowledge conforms to the
  medias operational biaswhich places emphasis on
  players, policies, and predictions of what will
  happen

14
Deviance

• Media most interested in presenting things that
  deviate from the normalout of the ordinary
• Statistical deviance causes things that are
  unusual (either good or bad) to be considered
  more newsworthy than commonplace events
• Normative ideas or events that break the norm or
  rules...crime prefer violent action because
  rarer and more deviant
• Irony we depend on news to tell us what is
  normal. Because we see so many portrayals of
  deviant, we come to believe deviant is norm

15
Geographical Focus

• American news covers American events most
• Then industrialize countries
• Then third world countries always crisis
  oriented
• Events occurring in Northeast and Pacific Coast
  are covered the most

16
Preceding News Perspective

• Not consciously imposed by owners
• Grows naturally out of practice of status quo
• Ask How could the news be any other way??

17
Values at base of news perspective

• Individualism people do things their own way,
  even against powerful odds
• Moderation fanaticism of any kind arouses
  skepticism
• Social Order peace and order are valued people
  who deviate are labeled wrongdoers
• Leadership high expectations of leaders those
  found to be weak, dishonest, immoral are
  investigated
• Ethnocentricism other countries are judged by
  American standards
• Altruistic democracy ideal of efficient govt,
  participation by all citizens, deviations are
  news
• Responsible capitalism fair competition without
  unreasonable profits or exploitation of workers
• Small town pastoralism small towns and rural
  areas are the font of values

18
Advantages and disadvantages

• Advantages helps journalists simplify and
  organize acts as kind of code of professionalism
• Disadvantages limited vision, narrow view of
  what is news. Because of marketing perspective,
  news criteria more about conflict, appeal to
  emotions, visualization

19
Objectivity??

• There is a strong ethic of objectivity in
  journalism.
• Difficult to understand what journalists mean by
  objectivity
• Example page 97...
• Each journalist interprets news perspective
  through his/her personal perspective. Goal of
  objectivity unattainable.
• More reasonable and useful criteria balance and
  context

20
Balance

• Event has more than one sidepresent more than
  one viewpoint
• Less than 10 of news stories are presented in a
  completely balanced way
• If journalists wont do it, we have to construct
  it for ourselves. Seek out information from all
  sides of issue

21
Bias in ignoring important stories

• Failure of mass media to provide people with all
  the information they need to make informed
  decisions concerning their own lives.
• Mainstream media serve 3 segments of society
  wealthy, politicians, sports-minded.

22
Bias not conspiracy

• However, there is a congruence of attitudes and
  interests on the part of the owners and managers
  of mass media organizations.
• NIOSH example, page 99
• Maintain a narrow vision of what is important and
  continually present that small set of stories
  over and over
• Bias in political viewall have one.

23
Context

• Without context the story has ambiguous meaning
• While contextual material is important, many
  stories present very little context. Media
  present surface facts...

24
Without context

• Missing key information
• Crime rate falling50 over last two decades
• Most crime is white collar crime (embezzlement,
  fraud, forgery...) and property crime (larceny,
  shoplifting..)
• Can substantially change meaning
• Example LA Times, 2004 found 6 schools in 2004
  in NCAA basketball tournament sweet sixteen had
  graduation rates no higher than 50--seems
  universities exploiting athletes. Context only
  about 50 of all students who enter 4 year
  college finishstandard graduation rate in US

25
Becoming literate about news

• Analyze news perspective
• Search for context
• Develop alternative sources of information
• Be skeptical about public opinion