Where does news come from?
Who generates it? Who makes news “news”?
The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism recently conducted a study to help answer these questions (which are often posed to us by clients). While the Pew study was limited to one major American media market, it may be representative of most other major American markets as well. Researchers traced and followed six different storylines with the hope of answering questions pertaining to news production and publication.
• Where do news stories originate from?
• How has the Internet affected the way individuals receive their news?
• What trends in the news have emerged and/ or declined due to technology?
The study came to the following conclusions:
The majority of today’s news can be viewed simply as repetitive bundles. Although there are more outlets for getting the news (i.e Twitter, blogs, etc.), the stories which are being displayed often hold no original reporting. In other words, each story is not being written by an individual reporter, but rather being taken from another reporting source. Eight of the ten stories studied were either republished from another source or taken directly from it. In the sample narratives under analysis, “83% of stories were essentially repetitive, conveying no new information.” Writers’ works were taken from one publication and simply cut and pasted to another without any credit given. “Official press releases often appear word for word in first accounts of events, though are not often noted as such.” In other words, news seems only to be recycled with nothing “new” being produced.
The next logical question is, okay, with all of these outlets reporting the same stuff, what is the source of it all? The answer is largely, newspapers. From the sample, nearly 50% of original reporting came from printed newspapers. Local television stations followed in second with just under 30%. Overall, 95% of all new news was from a traditional media outlet (including reading their daily newspapers on-line).
While newspapers are still king of original reporting, the Internet has nonetheless made accessing news, whether original or repeated, only a click away. Researchers found that sites like Twitter and Facebook along with other blogs served more as news alerts rather than main outlets. “Almost half of the newspapers’ stories studied were online rather than in print”. Although it contains mostly regurgitated stories, the Internet is the fastest outlet for receiving one’s news.
So, how do the actual stories themselves originate? Over 60% of the stories were sparked by government officials; the police were the primary initiators. Just less than 15% was generated by the press, and the remaining percentage came from various interest groups and their publicists. Over half of news was generated by a nod from the government rather than the press finding it themselves. (I find this the most interesting aspect of the report.)
Pew drew several conclusions.
- As the Internet opens up more outlets for receiving one’s news, original reporting appears to be waning
- Outlets simply repeat what has already been reported
- Newspaper still stands as the main source for original reporting
- Local television lags behind at a distant second
- Government officials, primarily police, initiate the majority of the news at just over 60%.
Who generates it? Who makes news “news”?
The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism recently conducted a study to help answer these questions (which are often posed to us by clients). While the Pew study was limited to one major American media market, it may be representative of most other major American markets as well. Researchers traced and followed six different storylines with the hope of answering questions pertaining to news production and publication.
• Where do news stories originate from?
• How has the Internet affected the way individuals receive their news?
• What trends in the news have emerged and/ or declined due to technology?
The study came to the following conclusions:
The majority of today’s news can be viewed simply as repetitive bundles. Although there are more outlets for getting the news (i.e Twitter, blogs, etc.), the stories which are being displayed often hold no original reporting. In other words, each story is not being written by an individual reporter, but rather being taken from another reporting source. Eight of the ten stories studied were either republished from another source or taken directly from it. In the sample narratives under analysis, “83% of stories were essentially repetitive, conveying no new information.” Writers’ works were taken from one publication and simply cut and pasted to another without any credit given. “Official press releases often appear word for word in first accounts of events, though are not often noted as such.” In other words, news seems only to be recycled with nothing “new” being produced.
The next logical question is, okay, with all of these outlets reporting the same stuff, what is the source of it all? The answer is largely, newspapers. From the sample, nearly 50% of original reporting came from printed newspapers. Local television stations followed in second with just under 30%. Overall, 95% of all new news was from a traditional media outlet (including reading their daily newspapers on-line).
While newspapers are still king of original reporting, the Internet has nonetheless made accessing news, whether original or repeated, only a click away. Researchers found that sites like Twitter and Facebook along with other blogs served more as news alerts rather than main outlets. “Almost half of the newspapers’ stories studied were online rather than in print”. Although it contains mostly regurgitated stories, the Internet is the fastest outlet for receiving one’s news.
So, how do the actual stories themselves originate? Over 60% of the stories were sparked by government officials; the police were the primary initiators. Just less than 15% was generated by the press, and the remaining percentage came from various interest groups and their publicists. Over half of news was generated by a nod from the government rather than the press finding it themselves. (I find this the most interesting aspect of the report.)
Pew drew several conclusions.
- As the Internet opens up more outlets for receiving one’s news, original reporting appears to be waning
- Outlets simply repeat what has already been reported
- Newspaper still stands as the main source for original reporting
- Local television lags behind at a distant second
- Government officials, primarily police, initiate the majority of the news at just over 60%.
No comments:
Post a Comment