last time i found you to write the discussion not very well. The professor said It would be good to see more direct connection to the reference you make from the reading.

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__..;,,> Conventions Becker (1982) asks an important question about the many people who do media work: "How do they arrive at the terms on which they cooperate?" Some researchers have argued that the behavior of media personnel is shaped by the "needs" of an organization (Epstein 1973). In other words, maintaining the existence of the organization points different individuals within that organization in the same direction. In its strongest application, this approach is usually too constraining to account for the independent action of media personnel. Another way we might account for the collaboration of media workers is to suggest that they must negotiate the terms of their cooperation before each new endeavor. This approach emphasizes the capacity for independent action, but it ignores the con- straints under which media personnel labor.

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~ J In contrast to these approaches and consistent with what sociologists who study occu- pations have found, Becker (1982) focuses on the tension between structure and agency. He tells us that "people who cooperate to produce a work of art usually do not decide things afresh. Instead, they rely on earlier agreements now become customary, agree- ments that have become part of the conventional ways of doing things" (p. 29).

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-~·-. A convention is a practice or technique that is widely used in a field. It is much easier to identify something as conventional than it is to explain the source and meaning of the convention. All of us could likely identify some of the conventions that govern news reporting, pop music, or advertising. For example, the sound of Top 40 music rarely surprises us because it follows broad conventions regarding what instruments are used, the length of the song, the verse/chorus structure, and so on. We could ask how radio programmers learn to follow these conventions and how they know which songs will fit their stations. The answer is that radio programmers see themselves as middlemen between record producers and listeners, develop an understanding of the genres their stations represent, and establish a set of repertoires for action to ensure that both listeners and record companies feel supported and understood. Without these conventions, radio programmers couldn't do their jobs (Ahlkvist and Faulkner 2002).

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industry to be taken seriously as players. These conventions include hosting meetings in and around Beverly Hills in modernist buildings; coming off as confident, casual, and

hip; and giving creative gifts with a personal touch (Zafirau 2008). Industry conventions also take forms that are more easily recognizable to consumers. You don't need to be a graphic designer to know that magazine covers have the publication's name in large letters at the top and will almost always feature a large, dominating graphic or that an evening news broadcast will take place in a studio with a broadcaster behind a desk. Even

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Chapter 5 Ill Media Organizations and Professionals 163

late-night comedy news programs like The Daily Show and Late Night with Seth Meyers follow these conventions. If Trevor Noah told jokes about the day's politics while stand- ing up, we might assume lhe Daily Show was just another late-night comedy show and not actually a comedic re-creation of a news broadcast. When media products break from convention, they appear striking and innovative primarily because both producers and audiences are accustomed to conventional forms.

One recent study of television interview programs found distinct conventions at celeb- rity talk shows in comparison to those at news programs (Loeb 2015). Whereas news interviewers take a stance of detachment, celebrity talk show interviews typically person- alize their interviews, talking about themselves and sharing their experiences in the midst of the interview. In addition, news interviews often take an adversarial tone, with inter- viewers asking tough questions; in contrast, celebrity talk show interviews are friendly and flattering. Audiences are familiar with these conventions, so they don't expect Ellen DeGeneres to ask questions the same way Rachel Maddow does. When rhe worlds of celebrity talk and news converge, interview conventions may become unstable. For example, in the early months of the 2016 presidential campaign, then-candidate Donald Trump, best known for his television program The Apprentice, was typically treated like a celebrity during his regular appearances on Fox News programs, where he often called in by phone for friendly and personal conversations with program hosts.

Conventions are not arbitrary, even though they may often seem to be. 'They are the result of the routinization of work by media professionals and partially a consequence of professional education and job training. To understand media content on the basis of its conventions, we need to consider where conventions originate, how they are followed in the work process, and how they lead to the production of media that we perceive as conventional.

News Routines and Their Consequences

News production is one type of media work that has been studied extensively, not only for its reliance on conventions but also for the distinctive dynamics associated with the field that illustrate the interaction of structure and agency. A series of classic studies from the 1970s and 1980s laid the groundwork for our understanding of news production that is still applicable today (Epstein 1973; Fishman 1980; Gans 2004; Sigal 1973; Tuchman 1978; and, for a review, see Cottle 2007). This work has since been supplemented by more recent studies that examine some changes in newsrooms, including those brought on by technological innovation and economic pressures (see Powers 2011 for a review). Together, they illustrate some of the dynamics involved in the organization of media work.

These studies help us consider a simple question: What is news? At first, the answer seems self-evident: News is information about recent important events beyond our direct experience. But how do we know what makes an event important? How do we know what.information about an important event is relevant? We leave it to professional jour- nalists to handle these questions. As a result, we rely on journalists to act as "gatekeepers" (White 1950)-to make judgments about what is or is not important, or newsworthy- and to provide us with factual accounts about these newsworthy events. Ultimately, if we are to understand what news really is, we need to understand how journalists form

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their judgments and construct their accounts. In other words, we need to examine the day-to-day work of the professional journalist because this is where news is defined and news stories are written.

Let's look at the process from the perspective of people within a news organization. A news staff must generate content for a website, broadcast, or n,ewspaper regardless of what did or did not happen that day. This means that editors and reporters must find news. At the same time, literally thousands of things are happening: People eat meals, walk their dogs, buy and sell goods, commit crimes, announce new policies, argue court cases, participate in sporting contests, lie on the beach, fight wars, campaign for elected office, and so on. 'Ihe list is virtually endless. News outlets, however, cannot report on all the things that happen; only some happenings are defined as important enough to be news. For reporters, the difficulty is determining which events are newsworthy and gathering enough information to cover these newsworthy events.

On the face of it, news reporting may seem to be an impossible job. How can jour- nalists know which events to report and which to ignore? They cannot go to dozens of different events before deciding which one to cover; they would never meet their dead- lines. How do reporters find out about relevant happenings in the first place?

Two classic sociological studies (Fishman 1980; Tuchman 1978) argue that we can find answers to these questions in the routine practices of journalism. Because news organizations cannot constantly reinvent the wheel, the processes of news gathering and news reporting must be rationalized. In other words, news organizations must be able to anticipate where news will happen-before it happens-and structure their report- ers' assignments accordingly. Within news organizations, reporters follow routines that tell them where to look for news and how to gather it efficiently. When the same basic routines are adopted as professional norms, as they are in contemporary American jour- nalism, different news outlets will make similar judgments about newsworthiness. This state of affairs makes it difficult to see that any judgments are being made at all.

What are these journalistic routines? Tuchman (1978) adopts the metaphor of the "news net" to explain the standard practice for gathering news. News organizations cast a net-made up of wire services, full-time reporters, and stringers-to catch newsworthy happenings. The net, however, does not catch everything; like all nets, it is full of holes and catches only the "big fish." This serves as an initial filter, sorting out those happenings that do not meet the standard criteria for news.

The organization of news gathering shows which criteria determine how the news net is constructed. News organizations will have staff or bureaus in places they define as important. For example, news outlets typically have bureaus in Washington, DC, and London, England, but not Houston, Texas, or Nairobi, Kenya. As a result, happenings in and around these predefined important places are more likely to become news, whereas happenings outside of these areas are more likely to be ignored.

News organizations also establish "beats" at prominent organizations where news can be expected to occur. In practice, this means that a series of official locations-police sta- tions, courthouses, city halls, state houses, Capitol Hill, the White House-become sites where reporters are stationed. Each day, the reporter on the city hall beat will be respon- sible for providing one or more stories about the happenings there. It is likely that the city government will have a media relations staff who will be more than happy to provide the beat reporter with daily doses of news in the form of press releases, public announcements,

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press conferences, and so forth. Finally, areas such as sports, business, and the arts are topical beats that are expected to produce news each day, so reporters establish relation- ships w:th key players in these areas to guarantee a regular supply of news.

Beats are central to how reporters "detect" events, but each beat covers so much potential territory that reporters have to develop strategies for detecting the newsworthy events. Fishman (1980) uses the example of a local paper's "justice" beat, which included, among other things, "three law enforcement agencies: city police, county sheriffs, and an FBI office; four penal institutions . . . two juvenile facilities; two entire court systems; an extensive drug subculture" (p. 33). With such a vast terrain to cover, Fishman notes, reporters develop complex work routines that he calls "rounds."

The round structures the workday and defines what events the reporter will be exposed to in the first place. In essence, the round is a process by which beat reporters develop schedules for visiting locations and talking to sources that are likely to produce news. Such work routines are built around the bureaucratic organization of the institutions that make up the beat. For example, a justice reporter will build a work routine around the schedules of the courthouse, police department, and district attorney's office to be on hand for meetings, press conferences, and prescheduled events and to gain access to official records. The reporter may also check in on a regular basis—perhaps hourly—with a range of sites to see if anything is "happening." For example, a beat reporter might call each prison, juvenile facility, law enforcement agency, and courthouse to make sure that important events do not go undetected.

The definition of what is a relevant beat and whether what happens there deserves cov- erage is not universal. Rather, it changes according to a given media outlet's target audience and, more generally, its mission. For example, TMZ, a celebrity gossip-based website and television program owned by Time Warner, covers "news" that traditional news outlets typically do not consider to be newsworthy. TMZ stands for Thirty Mile Zone, and their beat encompasses the 30-mile radius around the intersection of West Beverly and North La Cienega in Los Angeles, in which all of the major U.S. production studios are head- quartered. Sometimes tipped off by celebrities and their publicists seeking media attention, reporters and celebrity photographers prowl luxury stores, restaurants, and other locations seeking candid pictures and brief interviews with stars. The result is very different from a daily newspaper, but the process involved in creating the content is similar.

Because reporters on deadline must produce a news story for their employers, we should not be surprised that news work is routinized in this way. How else could report- ers gather news in an efficient, consistent manner while meeting the needs of their news organizations? The problem, however, is that we rarely talk about the news in these terms, nor do we take note of the consequences.

For example, when we consider news beats, we can see that, before anything even happens on a given day, news organizations have already made decisions about where they intend to look for news. The flip side, of course, is also true: The routine practices associated with news gathering virtually ensure that certain happenings will be excluded from the news. News from Africa and South America, for example, is notoriously scarce in the U.S. media in large part because reporters are less likely to be assigned there. The example of news beats shows that, rather than being an inherent characteristic of events, newsworthiness is typically constructed each day by professional journalists and news organizations.

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Another consequence of routine journalistic practices is a reliance on official sources to feed journalists a steady diet of information to use in their stories. This dependence upon official sources for "news" means that these sources have routine access to media coverage, whereas outsiders or critics have a more difficult rime gaining entree to the news. 1he result is that news tends to reflect the views and opinions of those already in power.

Finally, routine journalistic practices result in an emphasis on events at the expense of processes. Reporters look out for what is new in the world around them (the event) and often have few resources (time, money, and expertise) to spotlight the long-term devel- opments that may have been at the origin of the event. As a consequence, news coverage is often fleeting, shining a momentary spotlight on some event and then moving on to a new and unrelated event. This focus on events at the expense of processes likely has,an impact on whether and how people understand complicated issues, such as wars, finan- cial crises, crime trends, and budget decisions. c~ wwrl Technology and the New News Routines

Since the classic studies of newsrooms were done, journalists have altered their routines significantly as a result of industry changes and new technology. As Powers (2011: 12) summarizes, "Compared to the time of the classic studies, today there exist more outlets, more furmars, more interactions across both, and more uncertainty over who and what counts as a journalist and as journali m, respectively." Many of the basic insights about the social construction of news rema· val' today, but the specifics of how this process works have changed as the structural c within which journalists' work has changed ..

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There are complex ethical matters associated with the growth of augmented jour- nalism. News organizations will face questions about journalistic transparency (Renner 2017). Do citizens have a right to know when they are reading an algorithm-produced news story? Even more challenging, should news organizations communicate the under- lying principles that inform the programming of news-writing algorithms so that readers know the computational basis of news judgment? Journalists and media scholars alike will be paying careful attention to how the work of journalism changes, and the conse- quences of such change, as AI becomes increasingly integrated into newsroom routines.

Objectivity We have seen that the specific definitions of news and newsworthiness are, in large mea- sure, the result of the ways reporters organize their work;. However, there is more to be learned by exploring the profession of journalism. Consider the concept of objectivity. Most contemporary evaluations of the performance of the American mainstream news media begin or end with claims about their adherence (or lack thereof) to the sta'ldard of objectivity and related notions of impartiality, balance, and fairness. Politicians and other public figures routinely criticize the press for its supposed lack of objectivity, charging

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journalists with taking sides, being too opinionated, or having a routine bias. Even pop- ular discussijns of news media often focus on the question of objectivity. The central position of objectivity in American journalism is something we take for granted. We all seem to "know" that the news is supposed to be objective; the problem is that the news often does not live up to this widely shared expectation.

But where did the value of objectivity come from? Why are we so concerned with it? How does the ideal of objectivity affect the daily practice of journalism? Michael Schudson's (1978) important study, Discovering the News, treats the ideal of objectivity as something to be explained rather than something to be taken for granted. It is a perfect example of how studying professional norms and practices can help us better understand the media.

The Origins of Objectivity

What do we mean by objectivity? Schudson (1978) provides a useful definition: "The belief in objectivity is a faith in 'facts,' a distrust of 'values,' and a commitment to their segregation" (p. 6). Objectivity is a doctrine that perceives the separation of fact and value as a messy business that requires the use of a method, or set of practices, to ensure their separation. This method is objective journalism. According to Schudson, the concept of objective journalism is a relatively recent development. Only in the years after World War I did objectivity become the dominant value in American journalism.

Prior to World War I, reporters did not subscribe to a belief in what we now term objectivity. The AP—one of the first wire services—tried to present news in a way that would be acceptable to many different papers, and the New York Times used an "informa- tion" model of reporting to attract an elite audience. But journalists did not think about the separation of facts and values, nor did they believe that facts themselves were at all problematic. Rather, to journalists before World War I, the facts spoke for themselves. The goal of fact-based journalism was simply to uncover these facts, and doing so did not require a method of objective reporting. The task was straightforward: Find and report the truth. In this era, journalists were confident of their ability to identify the relevant facts and to report them accurately.

This faith in facts held by American journalists was thrown into doubt in the 1920s. Many American reporters had participated in wartime propaganda efforts during World War I. The success of such efforts made them uncomfortable with any simple understand- ing of "facts." Having seen how easily facts could be manipulated, journalists became more cynical. They began to mistrust facts, realizing that facts could be made to serve illusion as well as the truth.

At the same time, the field of PR emerged, and professional publicists became early "spin doctors." They fed information to reporters, carefully controlling access to their powerful clients, and they staged events such as the press conference or photo opportunity expressly for the media. With PR professionals spinning the facts, dispensing information strategically, and shaping a good deal of news content through the use of official handouts or press releases, journalists' emerging cynicism became even more pronounced.

The recognition that information could be manipulated and the rise of a profession- PR—expressly dedicated to the shaping of public attitudes left journalists with a crisis of confidence about their own ability to report the "facts" in a neutral way. In Schudson's

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(1978) account, objectivity emerged as a "scientific" solution to this crisis of confidence— in other words, "a method designed for a world in which even facts could not be trusted" (p. 122). By training would-be reporters in the "scientific" method of objectivity, jour- nalists transformed their fact-based craft into a profession with a particular method. Objectivity, therefore, can be seen as a set of practices or conventions that the professional journalist is trained to follow.

What practices make up this method? W. Lance Bennett (2009), synthesizing the research on the professional norms of journalism, identifies six key practices: (1) main- taining political neutrality; (2) observing prevailing standards of decency and good taste; (3) using documentary reporting practices, which rely on physical evidence; (4) using standardized formats to package the news; (5) training reporters as generalists instead of specialists; and (6) using editorial review to enforce these methods. The practical implica- tion of belief in the ideal of objectivity is adherence to these basic practices.

Objectivity as Routine Practices and Their Political Consequences

The day-to-day routine practices of journalism, more than some abstract conception of objectivity, are key to understanding the news media. News accounts have a tendency to look similar because reporters all follow the same basic routines. They talk to the same people, use the same formats, observe the same basic dos and don'ts, and watch one another closely to make sure that they are not out of step with the rest of the profession. If we understand objectivity to be a set of routine journalistic practices, we can see why all news coverage is pretty much the same. Journalists adhere to the same methods and mon- itor each other's work so they produce similar news. In fact, if news differed substantially from outlet to outlet, questions would be raised about the method of objective reporting, likely signaling a new crisis for the profession.

However, following a common set of practices does not ensure the achievement of the ideal of objectivity, that is, the separation of values from facts. Indeed, it can be argued that adherence to the practices associated with objectivity directly benefits particular political interests.

As we have seen, things that happen in and around established institutions, especially official agencies, are defined as news. Happenings outside of these boundaries are likely never to be detected by professional journalists. Even if they are detected, they are not likely to be defined as newsworthy by the established definitions of importance. This is one of the principal reasons why so much news is about the world of officialdom, even when such stories are often routine and predictable. Journalists and news organizations rely on and build their work around the routine and predictability' of these established institu- tions. Newsworthiness, then, is socially constructed. It is not a property inherent in events but is instead something that is attached to happenings by journalists. Once we realize this, the traditional ways we talk about news begin to seem inappropriate. In particular, the metaphor of news as a "mirror"—a simple reflection of events—no longer works. Even a mirror cannot reflect the whole world. It must be facing a particular direction, including some subjects in its reflection and excluding others. Thus, the image propagated by the media is far from complete. At most, it reflects only a small part of society.

In addition, the objects being reflected in the media are not passive. Instead, peOple holding different interests, wielding different amounts of power, and enjoying different

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relationships to those producing the news actively attempt to influence the content of the news. Thus, the resulting images often reflect the relative power of actors in our society rather than some "objective" reality.

News, therefore, is the product of a social process through which media personnel make decisions about what is newsworthy and what is not, about who is important and who is not, and about what views are to be included and what views can be dismissed. None of these decisions can be entirely objective. The ideal of objectivity-separating values from facts-is ultimately unobtainable, although some would argue it is a valuable goal. Furthermore, the practices associated with objectivity are tilted in one direction; they give those in power enormous visibility in the media, whereas those outside the centers of power are largely ignored. The reliance on "appropriate," available, and pref- erably authoritative sources means journalists talk mostly to government and corporate officials and end up reproducing their view of the world. 'Thus, "objective" journalism, by highlighting the views and activities of officials, can be seen on balance to favor those in power.

Rejecting Objectivity: Alternative Journalism

As we have seen:, objectivity as a standard of U.S. journalism is a fairly recent phenome- non. When the nation's founders protected the freedom of the press, they were referring to publishers of what were mostly highly partisan pamphlets and periodicals. Through the 19th century, newspapers were often affiliated with political parties, openly arguing from a particular perspective rather than trying to retain a neutral stance on the issues. Although "objective" journalism has displaced this older tradition, "advocacy" or "alter- native" journalism has survived and can be found in many forms·today.

Atton and Hamilton (2008) argue that alternative media "seek to challenge objectivity and impartiality from both an ethical and a political standpoint." They challenge the very notion that "it is possible in the first place to separate facts from values and that it is morally and politically preferable to do" (Atton and Hamilton 2008: 84). Alternative journalists not only reject the idea of not getting involved in the story; they seek to play an active role in advancing their causes.

Alternative journalism projects span a wide range of media, including newspapers, magazines, websites, radio programs, and television shows. In recent years, the internet has made alternative journalism more easily accessible and more yisible while enabling its unprecedented global expansion (Lievrouw 2011).

There is a broad range of work that might be called alternative journalism. Some of it is in the progressive muckraking tradition-faci:-based reporting aimed at exposing a social ill or wrongdoing that is being ignored by mainstream media--that dates back to the 19th century. For example, founded in 1976, the nonprofit magazine (and now website) Mother Jones is named after an early labor movement leader and bills itself as "a reader-supported nonprofit news organization [that] ... does independent and investi- gative reporting on everything from politics and climate change to education and food" (Motherjones.com 2018). It has won numerous awards for its investigative reporting as well as the American Society of Magazine Editors' Magazine of the Year Award in 2017.

Other efforts are aimed at broadening the range of perspectives available in the news. Democracy Now! is "a daily, global, independent news hour."As its website notes, the program's

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reporting includes breaking daily news headlines and in-depth interviews with people on the front lines of the world's most pressing issues. On Democracy Now!, you'll hear a diversity of voices speaking for themselves, providing a unique and sometimes provocative perspective on global events. (Democracynow.org 2018)

Some efforts take advantage of the internet to build international links. For example, the global network Indymedia offers what it bills .as "a network of collectively run media outlets for the creation of radical, acc:urate, and passionate tellings of the truth" (Indyme- dia.org 2018). Indymedia activists do not aim at being objective; they rake sides, present- ing a typically left or progressive view on issues of the day.

Conservative activists have also created their own media forms that blend news and opinion. Breitbart News has become the most high-profile online destination for extreme right news and commentary. Created in 2005 by conservative activist Andrew Breitbart (who died in 2012), Breitbart.com garnered international attention when its chief exec- utive, Steve Bannon, left Breitbart to run Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. Bannon would subsequently become President Trump's chief strategist, leave the White House to return to Breitbart a few months later, and ultimately lose his job at Breitbart in the wake of a conflict with the Trump family. Breitbart's association with the Trump campaign and its aggressively conservative attitude made it a prominent site for political news in far right circles. In addition, websites like Townhall-a commercially owned operation-assemble what it describes as "political commentary and analysis from over 100 leading columnists and opinion leaders, research from 100 partner organiza- tions, conservative talk-radio and a community of millions of grassroots conservatives. Townhall.com is designed to amplify those conservative voices in America's political debates" (Townhall.com 2018). The site links to hundreds of conservative bloggers.

At their best, efforts that-through well-reasoned, fact-based reporting-broaden the range of perspectives or tackle issues overlooked by mainstream commercial media can make a substantial contribution to keeping people informed and engaged, even when they clearly approach the issues from a particular political viewpoint. But at their worst, some partisan media-whether bitter cable talk shows on mainstream media or alter- native websites-can also contribute to political polarization and the propagation of falsehoods. If people immerse themselves only in media that confirm their preexisting beliefs and play to their prejudices, it is unlikely that th~y will understand the arguments of opponents, be able to productively discuss issues with people who hold different opin- ions, or find the kind of common ground necessary for a healthy functioning democracy. Instead, relying solely on such media may contribute to the entrenched and bitterly divi- sive politics of recent years.

As we have seen, news media production is the result of a series of conventions and routines that enable professionals collectively to do their jobs and meet the demands of the organizations for which they work. These conventions incorporate fundamental professional norms (e.g., objectivity) and basic organizational goals (e.g., gathering news). Routine media practices shape, to a gi:eat degree, the final media products.

We have also seen that technological changes can alter these routines and that some media reject some of these conventions-most notably the idea of objectivity-to create new forms of reporting and opinion.