Journalistic and Commercial News Value: News Organizations as Patrons of an Institution and Market Actors

In an era of global technology, instant news, infomercials, electronic town meetings, and “Made for TV Documentaries,” the borderlines between news and analysis, news and entertainment, news and fiction are constantly shifting.

News organizations that report on stories in a fair, balanced and ethical manner are essential to the functionality of this nation. A citizen’s ability to make well-informed decisions hinges on a news organization’s ability to relay the most accurate information regarding the state of the nation, the changing condition of communities, and adjustments in the government. Journalism is no longer a one-sided conversation. Journalism is an interactive process that allows for readers and viewers to create a dialogue with journalists by utilizing mediums such as social networking sites and comment sections. Audiences have a say in what stories get reported and how news stories are presented to the masses. When news organizations fail to cover all

Clay Shirky who wrote Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable (1993) argues that society doesn’t need newspapers society needs journalism to save society. Shirky supports this argument by giving a historical background to the problems newspapers face and how the problems have developed over time and the solutions society has came up with. The blogger concludes that in order for journalism to go farther new models must be created in place of past molds. Shirky directs this blog toward the current and future generations in attempt to motivate new models and methods of journalism.

It being the leading source of news since the printing press. We put our faith in the media to report accurate facts unbiasedly. Between 1983 and now the media industry has consolidated from 50 individual companies to 6. That means that though the impression given is that there are a multitude of sources to attain information, the messages being communicated are all one in the same. The limitation of media sources cause a ripple effect of limited information, allowing these companies to control the public’s perception on

Consequently, the political sphere is now being colonised by the media, and politics has begun re-orientating itself to satisfy the logic of media organisations (Meyer, 2002, p. 71). Therefore, the media are active participants in the policymaking process and the ability to stimulate change or maintain the status quo depends on their choice of subject or policy issue and how they frame it. Active investigative reporting attempts to shape policy outcomes, but this does not necessarily mean that it always represents the most successful approach for gaining policy changes (Spitzer, 1993, p. 7). In fact, sometimes passive, straight reporting can have a greater influence on policy choices. When this occurs, media independence is largely bypassed, as the news generated depends solely on the information released (as public relations material) from legitimate news sources. For example, in the United States, White House staff routinely make ‘leaks’ - expressively to influence policy decisions (Davis, 1992, p. 143; Robinson, 2001, p. 948). Robinson noted that journalists regard “leaks… as indispensable to their work” and that they are aware of their use by officials in return for scoops (2001, p. 949).

The purpose of this report is to analyse journalism practices employed in newspaper reporting across different outlets and to analyse if the practice was in line with the media

Newspapers and other forms of news are very vital communication methods in the world today. The goal of news is to sell us their ideas by being biased and talking about how their idea is best. News can give us biased information although, the viewer could do further research on the

Augie Fleras and John Lock Kunz further the argument, pointing out that what appears as mainstream and unbiased is, in actuality, socially constructed. Fleras and Kunz point out that news items (i.e. the events or issues that are covered) are chosen by personnel (such as editors) on the basis of personal, institutional, corporate, and commercial priorities. 7 In other words, the news media is market driven. The mainstream news media, therefore, are not merely

Until the 1980s, the control of the media was in the hands of the national government. From then, the control shifted to private outlets and by the 1990’s, there were more than fifty multinational companies who controlled it (“Mass Media”). Today, only about six major companies control the larger fraction of media in America (Williams, Par. 1). Norman Solomon wrote in the New Political Science Journal that most reporters and editors work for just a few huge companies. These journalists and editors are on the payroll for “mega-media institutions”, of which, only about six exist (Solomon 297). How much will the public learn if these companies generally control the output of information?

Fishman shows that news is a product of negotiated interactions among newsmakers and news sources, through the interactions and reliance on official sources, news organizations both invoke and reproduce prevailing conceptions of serious crime (McGuken, 1987). By stressing that both denotation and connotation are contingently defined and socially negotiated, Hall shifts the usage of these terms from referring to levels of meaning inherent

In a contemporary society, the role of journalism is a varied one that covers many different aspects of people’s lives. As more and more outlets spring up around the world, many more stories are able to be covered by different outlets, and this means that journalism takes on a more and more important role in a contemporary society. Much of our lives centre on political and social happenings, and journalistic outlets are the public’s way of finding all the information on these event. Journalism also provides us with a way of finding out which of these stories are important and deserve our attention, and which stories can be ignored. The important role of journalism can be well observed in the recent coverage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) in both New Zealand and around the world. This is a ground breaking economic deal, and holds a great deal of importance for the 800 million citizens of the countries involved, as well as the rest of the world. With worldwide coverage of this deal, it is inevitable that different types of reporting occurs, and that different outlets will provide different accounts. With so many different journalism outlets around the world and locally, many have to have a way of standing out from the crowd. This means that some extremely different coverage of very similar stories can occur. However it can also simply be down to different ownership, differing political views, and different socio-economic environments. Two outlets with

The research for this article was conducted within a framework of Framing theory. The theory was first put forward by a Canadian-American sociologist Erving Goffman. Media framing, to put it bluntly, is a term that points to a presence of a certain bias in any media outlets’ output. All choices made in a newsroom collectively form the frame through which media decides to show the world to the audiences. Everything matters: Covering one event and ignoring another, covering one event more than the other, deciding what words to use to cover an event, what photographs or video clips to include, whom to give a voice, etc. At the same time, framing theory goes far beyond newsroom policies. Framing is not necessarily a delibirate choice. Journalists themselves look at the world through frames: their education, upbringing, gender, ethnical background, knowledge of the issue, and so on. Audience members apply their own frames as well, not just to media content, but to everything they hear and see.

In today¡¦s society journalism is under close scrutiny and is losing its credibility. Sensationalism effects both those who receive it in addition to those who report it. This essay will review the history of sensationalism in the media, clearly demonstrate how sensationalism effects ours views on journalism, and confront the ethical dilemmas that journalists must face between reporting objectively and reporting what sells. This will be accomplished by investigating various sources, including articles published on the Internet as well as those published in newspapers and magazines.

The overview of the subject matter is that the big worry is that quality will decline Journalists are employed to check their facts and they get checked in turn by editors who question the reliability of their sources; we trust the paper’s brand not the individual journalist. Social media could be reliable, but how would we know? This is equally true then it comes to bias. But the fact of the matter is journalism is more credible and if we lose credibility in the information we get everything could fall for speculation. The authors’ thesis is we should not stand for the decline of journalism as a profession but support our right to have valuable information

To wholly have a grasp on how this new founded approach to journalism has changed alongside technology—as well as understanding the dangers such openness brings forth—one has to understand what exactly those changes are. Primarily, those that are writing for the sake of offering information have, whether willingly or not, fed into the usage of social media as it has become a centralized method of distribution that is relatively inescapable with the current times. As such those framing the news for the masses find an authentic avenue to stay in contact via social media that has benefits ranging from, “its extraordinary newsgathering potential; its potential as a new tool to engage the audience; and as a way of distributing our news” (Eltringham, 2012), all of which are deeply different from the presentation of reporting that occurred during earlier eras. Days of strongly structured instances of journalism that could not travel with such speed have been replaced as, “social media has trashed many of the foundations on