Journalism recent issues

Media perception of freedom of the press: A comparative international analysis of 242 codes of ethics

Himelboim, I., Limor, Y. — 2008-04-21

This study explores perceptions of freedom of the press by those who practice it: journalists and media organizations. References to freedom of the press in codes of ethics worldwide were analyzed according to the respective characteristics of organizations and the political-economic status of each country considered. The findings show that the concern journalists express about their freedom is not necessarily related to with the level of freedom of the press prevailing in their respective countries. Moreover, the codes of developing countries primarily display concern about the most fundamental freedoms of all.

Popular news in the 21st century Time for a new critical approach?

Harrington, S. — 2008-04-21

This article is a brief review and critique of the main scholarly approaches to thinking about popular forms of news in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, particularly in regards to broadcast television. Rather than advocating the merits of either popular or `hard' news, it discusses the possibility of finding (or revisiting) a critical approach to popular news and current affairs¹ journalism that charts a suitable middle ground: one that can accommodate the emergence of popular informational programs (e.g. The Awful Truth, The Daily Show) and one that moves away from the sometimes too simplistic binary discourses that have tended to become characteristic of recent debates over `tabloidization'.

The legitimacy and moral authority of the National News Council (USA)

Ugland, E. — 2008-04-21

As an institution designed to resolve disputes between the public and the American news media and to assess the ethical standards of the mainstream media, the National News Council (1973-84) was, at least in the USA, a ground-breaking institution. This study suggests, however, that the Council's work was anything but revolutionary, and that it probably did more to entrench the received tenets of American journalism than to either validate or refashion them. By applying a conventional set of ethical standards in its resolution of disputes, by repeatedly emphasizing the First Amendment rights of the media respondents, by violating its by-laws and allowing the media members of the Council to dominate its membership, and by ruling in the vast majority of cases against the public complainants, the Council's work provides grist for those who might question its legitimacy and its value as a model of authentic press-public collaboration.

Normative navigation in the news media

Bro, P. — 2008-04-21

Past models of norms in news reporting have been characterized by the particular geographical and historical, practical and theoretical context from which they have been constructed. This has limited their interdisciplinary applicability and, in the light of normative developments in recent years, it has become increasingly clear that we need a more contemporary explanatory model to capture current developments on both sides of the Atlantic. Such a normative model - drawing on the dichotomies of active or passive journalism, and deliberative or representative journalism - is introduced in this article. This model can be used as an analytical tool by researchers and as an operational tool by news providers with a need for a normative navigation instrument, and as such it may help create or reshape a common culture between two increasingly interrelated professions: news reporters and researchers.

Mayday, Mayday! Newspaper framing anti-globalizers!: A critical analysis of the Irish Independent's anticipatory coverage of the `Day of the Welcomes' demonstrations

Meade, R. — 2008-04-21

This article provides a critical analysis of the discourses employed in the Irish Independent's anticipatory coverage of the `Day of the Welcomes' demonstrations that occurred in Dublin during 2004. These demonstrations were organized by a broad church of `anti-globalization' activists who sought to use the coincidence of EU enlargement and the May Day holiday as an opportunity to highlight alternative visions of the European project. As Ireland's biggest selling `quality' newspaper, the Irish Independent has had a significant role in framing public debates about key social and political questions in this state. I show how, in the run up to the `Day of the Welcomes', the Irish Independent's coverage discredited both the political aspirations and the potential conduct of protesters. The overwhelming thrust of this coverage was to sanction dominant ideologies in relation to neo-liberalism, EU expansionism and the place of dissent in Irish society.

Book review: Nitzan Ben-Shaul A Violent World: TV News Images of Middle Eastern Terror and War New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006. 166 pp. ISBN 978 0 7425 3798 9

Anden-Papadopoulos, K. — 2008-04-21

Book review: James Curran, Ivor Gaber and Julian Petley Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005. 240 pp. ISBN 0 748 61917 8

Pimlott, H. — 2008-04-21

Book review: Robert E. Herzstein Henry R. Luce, Time, and the American Crusade in Asia New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 346 pp. ISBN 978 521 83577 0

Peng Deng, — 2008-04-21

Book review: Kevin Howley Community Media: People, Places and Communications Technologies Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 309 pp. ISBN 0 521 79668 7

Johnson, F. — 2008-04-21

Book review: Jeremy Packer and Craig Robertson (eds) Thinking with James Carey: Essays on Communications, Transportation, History New York: Peter Lang, 2006. 234 pp. ISBN 0 8204 7405 3

Mindich, D. T. Z. — 2008-04-21

The `Baghdad Broadcasting Corporation': US conservatives take aim at the British news media

Wall, M. A., Bicket, D. — 2008-04-17

This article assesses the US conservative attack on the BBC during the post 9/11 terrorism wars, finding conservative blogs, print media and think tanks notably hostile. The processes of media criticism taking place within this conservative triad are viewed through the analytical concepts of news repair and boundary maintenance. The findings suggest that the BBC's perceived transgression was that it threatened to reveal the fallacy of an argument that conservatives had long worked to establish: that the US mainstream news media are liberal and harshly critical of conservatives. This conservative triad supported its attempt to repair this paradigm breach in three main ways: suggesting that reporting multiple viewpoints of the war was evidence of bias; magnifying any reporting errors; and warning against the perils of public ownership of news media.

Journalism education crossing national boundaries: De-mainstreaming binary oppositions in reporting the `other'

Terzis, G. — 2008-04-17

The article first introduces the concept of mainstreaming binary oppositions in reporting the `other', and the recent debate on media peacebuilding interventions, and then describes the organization, realization and evaluation of three joint journalism training workshops with Greek and Turkish students from the main university departments of communication of the two countries. The workshops were organized by the international non-governmental organization (NGO), Search for Common Ground, with funding from the European Commission, the Council of Europe and the USAID office in Ankara, and took place in both Greece and Turkey during the years 2000-2003. The results of this research places such peacebuilding journalism education interventions in the context of the professional culture and the other social determinants of journalism (McNair, 1998), and argues for a more holistic approach to media peacebuilding interventions, which would include the other market, political, professional and public aspects of media governance.

The glocalization of journalism ethics

Wasserman, H., Rao, S. — 2008-04-17

This article addresses globalization's effects on journalism ethics in South Africa and India. It shows the ways in which the debates and issues of journalism ethics are being resolved through the process which scholars have termed as glocalization. Both in South Africa and India we found a two-way relationship between global and local epistemologies and practices. By using examples from each country, we suggest that journalism ethics is going through a process of resignification in the local arena. We suggest a global-to-local theoretical matrix that takes into consideration the complexity of journalism ethics in specific cultural and national contexts.

RISC Monitor audience rating and its implications for journalistic practice

Hujanen, J. — 2008-04-17

Conceptualizations of good news are increasingly driven by detailed audience research. This article examines the application of Research Institute on Social Change (RISC) Monitor in the context of Finnish press journalistic practice and considers the views on journalism and the audience RISC Monitor reinforces. This international and widely used market research tool monitors social change by analysing people's life-styles, attitudes and values. Here the focus is on the implications the use of RISC Monitor has for the idea(l)s of journalism as the transmission of information and as a resource for public participation and active citizenship. The study is based on qualitative interviews with Finnish press journalists. Discourse analysis is used as a theoretical and methodological framework. The analysis finds that RISC Monitor is applied in heterogeneous ways in newsrooms. The criteria for good journalism are (re)negotiated according to the perceived wants and needs of target groups, and readers are seen as consumers. However, the idea(l)s and practices that emerge also aim to serve people as active citizens.

`Journalists are the confessors of the public', says one Foucaultian

Dent, C. — 2008-04-17

The article combines Foucault's ideas of discursive formations, practices and subjects with qualitative data gained from interviews with working Australian journalists, editors and broadcast producers. This combination of the theoretical and the empirical allows for the exploration of journalism as a discursive formation rather than as simply a set of practices internalized by journalists. Through the examination of the words of the respondents, Foucault's notions of internal, external and neither fully internal nor external discursive controls are given a practical foundation and provide the basis for the assessment of the central Truth of the journalistic discursive formation. This Truth, the set of practices whose absence would render journalism a different discursive formation, is found to be the facilitation of public confession. That is, journalists, if they are to be journalists, must, in the course of their daily lives, allow for, and publish, the `confessions' of their sources.

Book review: Greg Philo and Mike Berry Bad News from Israel London: Pluto Press, 2004. 315 pp. ISBN 0745 3206 19

Matar, D. — 2008-04-17

Book review: Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff: The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. 518 pp. ISBN 0 679 40381 7

Hume, J. — 2008-04-17

Book review: Leonardo Ferreira: Centuries of Silence: The Story of Latin American Journalism Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2006. 344 pp. ISBN 0 275 98397 8

Kodrich, K. — 2008-04-17

Book review: Maria Jose Canel and Karen Sanders: Morality Tales: Political Scandals and Journalism in Britain and Spain in the 1990s Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2006. 242 pp. ISBN 1 57273 564 3

Gaber, I. — 2008-04-17

Book review: Marco Calavita: Apprehending Politics: News Media and Individual Political Development Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2005. 285 pp. ISBN 0 7914 6280 3

McDevitt, M. — 2008-04-17

The Abu Ghraib torture photographs: News frames, visual culture, and the power of images

Anden-Papadopoulos, K. — 2007-12-14

Drawing on a close analysis of how the Abu Ghraib photographs originally were perceived and framed in the American news media, public debate, and in various cultural contexts, this article addresses the question of how iconic news media images exercise power in the shaping of news, politics, and public opinion. It specifically takes issue with the tendency among prominent communication scholars to assume that visuals mainly function to support dominant news frames and elite political discourse with little or no potential for independent influence on audiences. The key conclusion of the article is that the Abu Ghraib photographs were not in any simple way `spoken for' or tamed by the dominant news frames, but quite the opposite. The photographs have themselves come to function as a critical prism through which elite and popular views on US foreign policy are refracted, in the sense that the heretofore banned sight of American troops in the role of sadistic torturers has become an integral part of our understanding of the Bush administration's `war on terror'. The impact of these photographs is not least suggested by their proliferation in the wider culture, where they, through various creative and counter-framing practices, often have been transformed into sites of protest and opposition to the very deeds they represent.

Fighting for the story's life: Non-closure in journalistic narrative

Tenenboim Weinblatt, K. — 2007-12-14

This article develops the concept of non-closure in sustained news stories, based on the case study of Ron Arad, an Israeli soldier who was taken captive in 1986 and whose story still continues to produce headlines in the Israeli press. Coverage of the Arad case was examined in the three major Israeli daily newspapers for a period of 17 years, and the textual mechanisms through which the story has been kept alive were identified. The article offers an analysis of three central non-closure strategies: maintaining suspense, thickening the plot, and keeping the protagonist alive. It is suggested that these strategies enhance readers' involvement with the journalistic texts and function as a bridge between the ritual and information transmission functions of news. Non-closure is thus conceptualized as a force that operates alongside the well-studied forces of closure and renders individual news pieces as episodes in a serial narrative rather than self-contained narrative units.

The contribution of online news consumption to critical-reflective journalism professionals: Likelihood patterns among Greek journalism students

Spyridou, P.-L., Veglis, A. — 2007-12-14

Evidence suggests that the internet is the medium with the most success in attracting young people to news, while traditional media have been facing increasing trouble since the 1980s. The emergence of cynical and sceptical attitudes about politics and the media has resulted in most young people becoming `news grazers' instead of regular news consumers. Journalism students, however, should be exposed to political information not only as part of their civic obligation, but also in order to be fully equipped to make essential contributions as future analysts and brokers of news. By proposing a conceptual approach on how online news consumption contributes to critical reflective journalism, and drawing upon informed citizenry theory, the knowledge gap hypothesis, the diffusion of innovations model and the uses and gratification perspective, this article attempts to investigate the determinants and consumption patterns of online news by journalists-to-be in Greece. It is argued that conventional predictors such as possession of substantial cultural capital and longer surfing hours have supremacy over the perceived utility of self-education, job experience and simulation.

Attending the news: A grounded theory about a daily regimen

Martin, V. B. — 2007-12-14

This article proposes a theory about how people negotiate news as a daily regimen. The theory of purposive attending proposes a feedback loop in which awareness increases relevance, which can increase attending, which can then reset awareness. This article focuses on two aspects of the broader theory: the ambivalence surrounding everyday news-attending and the role cultural identities such as gender and race might play in heightening that ambivalence. The work, influenced by Carey's call to treat news-attending in a ritual context, demonstrates how news-as-ritual and news-as-information-acquisition exist in daily tension. The work was developed using classic grounded theory methodology, which outlines protocols for building theory from data, which included interviews, participant observation with a book discussion group, and qualitative document analysis of news discussions in selected internet communities, letters to the editor, news articles, and industry reports.

Media ritual in catastrophic time: The populist turn in television coverage of Hurricane Katrina

Durham, F. — 2007-12-14

Television news coverage of Hurricane Katrina's impact on Mississippi and New Orleans presented viewers with broadcast journalists who were on the scene but were largely left without access to traditional government sources. Through a textual analysis of transcripts of cable and network news reports, this study compares the media's performance during the six days following 29 August, 2005 to news coverage following 11 September, 2001. In this way, it interprets how and why the 11 September attacks produced a `sphere of consensus' unifying the media and the state, while Katrina produced the opposite dynamic. Central to this analysis is the normative concept of `media ritual', especially where the media's ritual consensus with government was `de-centered' by the federal government's de facto absence from the storm scene for that crucial week.

Book review: Jean Marie Lutes Front-Page Girls: Women Journalists in American Culture and Fiction, 1880-1930 Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2006. 226 pp. ISBN: 978 0 8014 4235 3

Marcellus, J. — 2007-12-14

Book review: Thomasz Pludowski (ed.) How the World's News Media Reacted to 9/11: Essays from Around the Globe Spokane, Washington: Marquette Books, 2007. 384 pp. ISBN 0 922 99366 1

Cushion, S. — 2007-12-14

The culture of arts journalists: Elitists, saviors or manic depressives?

Harries, G., Wahl-Jorgensen, K. — 2007-10-30

This article examines the self-image of arts journalists, or journalists who work in the criticism and coverage of theater, classical music, opera and dance. It is based on interviews with 20 arts journalists in the United Kingdom, including classical music DJs, arts reviewers, arts reporters, and arts and music editors for print and broadcast media. This occupational group within journalism is worthy of study because of its distinctive professional and cultural role: while arts journalists share aspects of their professional cultures with other newsworkers, their work is intrinsically linked to the project of improving `public appreciation of the arts'.

Our argument is that while many arts journalists see themselves as part of the larger professional category of `journalists', they also lay claim to an arts exceptionalism, insofar as they suggest that: (1) the ideal arts journalist is better and more extensively qualified than a conventional news reporter; (2) arts journalism is qualitatively different from news journalism; and (3) arts journalism has the responsibility of communicating the transformative nature of the arts. Drawing on such a discourse, arts journalists take on a crusading role, and describe their work as infused by a passion which is otherwise frowned upon within journalism. We also demonstrate how, within the specialist group of arts journalists, there are distinctive subcultures of freelance critics, arts reporters, and arts editors — professional categories which greatly influence these newsworkers' self-understandings.

Personalizing current affairs without becoming tabloid: The case of Australian Story

Bonner, F., McKay, S. — 2007-10-30

The television programme Australian Story is located in the News and Current Affairs section of the Australian public broadcaster, yet it does not follow a conventional current affairs format. Each week, it presents a personal profile of either a high-profile or an ordinary Australian, and it does so without the on-screen presence of an interviewer. The paper argues that this more documentary approach represents a feminizing of the current affairs format rather than a shift into a tabloid approach. It considers a number of examples to demonstrate the persistence of themes such as altruism, perseverance and the importance of family, but also human weakness. It demonstrates that Australian Story is able to operate as a current affairs programme both by augmenting contemporary news coverage and being a rich site for working through a range of issues.

The proximity paradox: Live reporting, virtual proximity and the concept of place in the news

Huxford, J. — 2007-10-30

This article explores a paradox in the way journalism employs proximity in the news. Even while the practice of on-the-spot reportage has continued to increase, research offered here suggests that very little `live' reporting meets the criteria for this term. Rather, presentational devices that create the illusion of this — including digital techniques that generate a form of `virtual proximity' — have helped to produce the sense of `placelessness' that many analysts perceive in modern media. It is proposed that location in news discourse has been recodified to encompass meanings well beyond geographic significance, becoming part of journalism's bid to illustrate and embody abstract issues, being absorbed into the role a news event plays within narrative, and working as a signifier of `eyewitness' or `expert' to promote journalism's cultural authority.

The paradox of journalistic representation of the other: The case of SARS coverage on China and Vietnam by western-led English-language media in five countries

Leung, C. C. M., Huang, Y. — 2007-10-30

This paper primarily looks at one of the essential aspects of global (usually western) journalists' praxis of covering and depicting the other (generally the non-western). Content analysis of quantitative and qualitative attributes of media coverage of the SARS outbreak with regard to China and Vietnam from newspapers in five countries, including the Washington Post (USA), The Times (UK), the Sydney Morning Herald (Australia), the Globe & Mail (Canada), the Straits Times (Singapore), Newsweek and online news was undertaken. Findings show that while the western news coverage on China corroborated the image of the other in an unfavorable light, Vietnam was not portrayed as the negative other. Differences in China's and Vietnam's handling of SARS have affected their news coverage by the media. Both internal forces and external factors, interplaying and often competing, have contributed to the dynamic process of news coverage and image construction in the international media.

American election night and the journalism of assertion

Marriott, S. — 2007-10-30

The past few decades have seen a number of transformations in both the form and the content of American television news. This article examines the consequences of these shifts for the coverage of the presidential election nights in 2000 and 2004 on the American networks and cable news channels, with particular reference to Kovach and Rosenstiel's (1999) notion of a journalism of assertion. It discusses the changes put in place by broadcasters following widespread criticism of their performance in 2000. The article offers clear evidence that the broadcasters were more circumspect in 2004 in their initial calling of states, but argues that with respect to the interpretative reportage which followed these calls, a range of institutional, cultural and ideological factors ensured that significant elements of the broadcasts remained unchanged.

Review and Commentary: News and corporate governance: What Dow Jones and Reuters teach us about stewardship

Nordberg, D. — 2007-10-30

The outcomes of near simultaneous bids for the news organizations Reuters Group plc and Dow Jones & Co. Inc. in 2007 hinged on mechanisms of corporate governance put in place at each company to protect the integrity and independence of the editorial operations. Neither company is a particularly good model of good governance, since the restrictions — super-voting shares at Dow Jones, veto-power by the trustees of the Founders Share Company at Reuters — almost completely rule out an open market for corporate control. This article looks at Reuters — and in even greater detail at Dow Jones, where the private actions of the board and shareholders came into rare public view. It suggests that stewardship theory plays a large role in protecting a perceived social value of the integrity of the news, figuring more heavily in crucial board decision-making than shareholder value. But the outcome of both cases means that the tension between the two is not easily resolved.

Book review: Hanna Adoni, Dan Caspi and Akiba A. Cohen Media, Minorities and Hybrid Identities: The Arab and Russian Communities in Israel Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2006. 218 pp. ISBN 157273700X

Glasser, T. L. — 2007-10-30

Book review: Janet Steele Wars Within: The Story of Tempo, an Independent Magazine in Soeharto's Indonesia Jakarta: Equinox Publishing, 2005. 368 pp. ISBN 9793780088

Manzella, J. C. — 2007-10-30

Book review: Laurel Leff Buried by The Times: The Holocaust and America's Most Important Newspaper Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 426 pp. ISBN 0521607825

Berkowitz, D. — 2007-10-30

Book review: Robin Andersen Century of Media: Century of War New York: Peter Lang, 2006. 350 pp. ISBN 0820478938

Keeble, R. L. — 2007-10-30