Quiz 1

Freedom and Standardization •Is the American press free?

•Is American journalism standardized?

•Patterson: • American press the most free but also the moststandardized • Journalists tend to interview the same people and follow the same format

•WHYis the American press so standardizes and homogenous? • Objectivity • Beats and Bureaus • Routines and news bias • Demographics characteristics • News Values

Objectivity •Characteristic of AMERICANjournalism •What does ”being objective” Mean?

• Embraced 19th century, in line with a move towards empiricism and science

• Michael Schudson: the belief in objectivity is a faith in 'facts,'a distrust in 'values,' and a commitment to their segregation".

• Schudson: “Objectivity means that a person's statements about the world can be trusted if they are submitted to established rules deemed legitimate by a professional community.”

• Journalistic objectivity requires that a journalist not be on eitherside of an argument.

Pros and Cons Positives ◦ Just focus on the facts and the “truth” ◦ Media are more trustworthy ◦ Clear distinction between opinion and news

Negatives ◦ Journalists have bias and they hide it behind ”objectivity” ◦ Journalists become passive recipient of news rather than analyzers of news ◦ Influence journalistic standards in a way that makes all the newssimilar ◦ False equivalency

Beats and Bureaus •Beats: specialized reporting in a specific areas, sectors, institutions

• Sources: you build contact, relationships with people you rely on for information • A lot of journalists have the same sources

•Bureaus: • Headquarter • Regional • Foreign bureaus

• Increasingly reduced in the past 10years • If you have bureaus only in some areas, regional news will come from those areas

Popular news beats International

Military

Race

Religion

Science

Sports

Terrorism

Transportation

Agriculture Arts and entertainment

Business

City and suburb

Technology

Food

Guns History

Housing

Routines •Political news rely on sources from the “golden triangle” (WH, Pentagon, State Department) • Alternative sources are excluded, a variety of political elites notinterviewed

•Constraints from news organizations • Story angles • Forced to include governmentresponse • Format

• Problem? • Spin from politicians is everywhere • Substance is missing

How to report ”spin”

•Politicians “spin” all the time • Present their argument in a way that promotes their political views and

defends their party • Stick to talking points

•How do journalists cover ”spin” • Report official line from politicians • “Gotcha questions”” trying to put politicians on the defensive and trick them

•Should journalists be more “adversarial”? • Coverage of presidents has become more negative

• But: Focus on personal and character flaws than issue based critique

The end of gatekeeping? •Bloggers

• Prominent journalists are not asrelevant • Blurred line between opinion and news

•“Citizen journalists” • Anyone could be a reporter on social media

• Politicians bypassing mass media • Direct, no filtered information

Standardization consequences • So many issues journalists don’t cover • Alternative sources are left out • Issues that don’t matter to the majority ofAmericans are not covered

• Journalists bring their own bias in analyzing the news

Journalists tend to be… •White •Men •Middle/upper class •Liberal •From urban/suburban areas •From elite schools

DEMOGRAPHICS

News values 1. Timeliness 2. Impact 3. Proximity 4. Conflict/Violence 5. Familiarity 6. Novelty

Timeliness •Something that happened recently or related to a recent event •Probably most important news value •Examples

• Something that is happening at the moment: elections, breaking news, scandal

• Viral event: Ice Bucket’s challenge • Particular holidays and celebration • Superbowl

Timeliness Examples

Impact •How will this affect my readers’lives? •How seriously will it affect their lives?

•Establishes the importance to reader

•Examples: • Focus on the importance of product in people’slives • Natural disasters • Passage of legislation

Impact Examples

Proximity •Is my audience touched by the story? •Is the story close enough to matter to my audience? •Closeness: physical and/or emotional •Examples:

• Stories about local events • Health epidemics diseases • Hurricanes • Stories about immigrants/refugees

Proximity examples

Conflict •Readers love conflict and drama •Two opposing sides •Examples

• Superbowl • Elections • World’s series • Two people arguing/fighting • Person vs nature • Nation vs nation

Conflict examples

Novelty • Has the story something weird or bizarre?

• Is anything unexpected in the story?

• Examples: • Strange and unusual event • Everything that is happening in politics since Nov 2016

Novelty example

Familiarity and Human Interest •Focus on people who are known or with whom we have a connection •Emotional component •Examples: • Stories of personal success • Celebrity stories • Come back stories • Someone fighting a disease

Familiarity/Human interest example

Standardization and consequences • As we discussed standardization is the consequence of multiple factors

• Objectivity, Beats, Routines, Demographics, News Values • So many issues journalists don’t cover • Alternative sources are left out • Issues that don’t matter to the majority ofAmericans are not covered

• Journalists bring their own bias in analyzing the news

Journalism and verification When Reporting goes wrong

Journalists and sources •Who are the sources?

• When possible identify them • If source is anonymous, weight the cost of publishing that information

•Assess the credibility • Is there corroboration? • Can other people confirm what the source said? • Is there ulterior motive? • Is the source considered reliable by peers? • Was the source reliable in the past?

Journalists and sources • Other questions/issues with sources

• Are Sources consistent in their accounts? • How direct is their knowledge? • What are the biases they might have? • Are there any conflicting accounts? • What do we not know? • If you promise that information was off the record, keep your promise

ABC and Michael Flynn •ABC stated that Trump instructed Flynn to make contact with Russia

During the 2016 campaign

•It turns out this happened “during the transition”

Fox and the Seth Rich conspiracy theory • Fox News ran repeatedly with the Seth Rich conspiracy theory

•Seth Rich was murdered in DC in 2016 during a robbery but online conspiracy theories claim that he was murdered by the Democratic National Committee because he was sharing secrets with wikileaks

•The network released the following statement after deciding it did not meet editorial standards.

Social media and journalism

• 70% of Millenials and Gen Z follow daily news on socialmedia

• Reporters can connect with sources and audiences

• Helps journalists develop a personal brand or identity AND apart from the rest of their newsroom

• Emergence of citizen journalists

• Twitter is the primary social media for journalists

How do journalists use social media?

• To find stories

• To monitor developments in breaking news stories as they happen

• As a reporting tool to find eyewitnesses, sources and images

• To engage readers or viewers through continuous newsupdates

• To promote content both pre- and post-publication

• To develop an on-going relationship with the audience