The Construction of News

I.       WHAT IS “NEWS”?

“Information” vis-à-vis “News”

·        Information – tells us something about our world

·        News – information that is in some sense new

New information vis-à-vis “Newsworthy”

·        Not all new information is newsworthy

·         What is newsworthy depends upon the specific medium and vehicle

·        Common element – the vehicles are products of commercial entities which seek audiences

- Non-commercial vehicles exist but they do not predominate and are not the subject of our analysis

·        However, the various vehicles cater to different audiences, different markets

·        What is newsworthy for one market may not be for another

·        Hence, no common denominator of newsworthiness and thus what will ultimately constitute the news . . .

II.      THE CONSTRUCTION OF NEWS
News is a construction 

·        Not a simple reflection of the world, not a mirror image of what transpired

·        It is a reflection that is mediated by journalists and their editors 

·        We are presented with a news story

Out of the seemingly endless possible stories, what ultimately determines the news product?

III.    ECONOMIC DETERMINATES OF NEWS CONSTRUCTION

The Purpose of News

The construction of news is largely determined by the purpose of news

The purpose of news is to produce a profit for the firm that is manufacturing the news and news itself is merely a vehicle for profit-making

How the news is constructed is largely determined by the economics of news - the constraints of profit-making

Profit is made by increasing revenue and decreasing costs

·        Revenue comes mainly from advertisers

-   To sell advertising time or space – the product, the news must be consumed, i.e., there must be an audience that will be exposed to the advertising message

-   It is the audience that the advertiser pays for

-   To fulfill its profit making function news must build and hold audiences

·        It must also keep its costs to a minimum

Costs - Allocating Resources

A continual balancing act

·        Must spend enough to ensue production quality to maintain audiences 

-   writers

-   sets

-   anchors

-   locations

-   technologies

·        Must not spend too much so as to adversely impact profits

News as Entertainment

To ensure the widest consumption news is constructed as a form of entertainment

Content
·        TV coverage determined by availability of good, i.e., entertaining, footage

·        Focus:

Deviance – relevant and irrelevant

-   Statistical deviance – something unusual

-   Normative deviance – events or actions that are outside the social norms

-   Fosters misconception that the deviant is the norm

Irrelevancies: sex scandals, gossip, celebrities

Form

Presentation as entertainment

Anchors

Sets
Music
 

Formulas

News stories follow recognizable formulas 

·        Who? What? When? Where? Why?

·        Inverted pyramid

·        Simplified conflict  

Used to simplify the process for journalists and editors re greater productivity

Used to grab and hold an audience by presenting familiar patterns

Not used to provide audience with more complete or meaningful information

Advertisers

What is presented and how it is presented may be a result of the direct or indirect pressure exerted by advertisers

     - Advertisers are the life blood of the news industry and broadcast media as a whole

News itself often becomes an advertisement

Use of Sources

News organizations frequently rely on information and analysis from sources outside of their own organization that are available to them at no cost thereby reducing costs

PR firms may provide news stories ready-made (VNRs) so that the news firm has to spend virtually nothing to fill its spaces or time

Even when a news organization creates its own news product, it often turns to the “experts” supplied by corporate funded PR firms and think tanks 
- Frequently the ties are undisclosed or not understood

This same dynamic occurs with government officials

·        press conferences

·        interviews

·        access to information 

Sources – experts, insiders, or officials – are highly value 

·        Reporters become beholden to them

·        Often, they are friends

·        They may be potential employers re: “revolving door”

Consequently, they are rarely challenged

 As a result of the use of and the reliance upon these sources, journalists are often little more than mouthpieces for the major corporations and the government

Journalists are conduits for their information and often function simply as stenographers for the power elites

News, then, is often nothing but direct corporate and political propaganda

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The purpose of the news, the quest for profitability, directly impacts all facets of the news the story construction:

·        Content: Selecting what does or does not get covered

·        Form: Determining how the story gets told

This at the same time constitutes the inherent bias of the news

IV.    OBJECTIVITY

Objectivity is the absence of bias

Bias deals with values or viewpoints that are inherent in and shape a message

The news story – not being a mirror – necessarily reflects and is shaped by select values and viewpoints

This constitutes its bias and lack of objectivity

   **There can be and usually are other values at play in this process

Balance