Churnalism and conclusions of news✅

Assumptions and activities of journalists and the rise of ‘churnalism’

The GMG, which generally supports a neo-Marxist dominant ideology/hegemonic approach to the media, emphasises the importance of the assumptions of journalists in forming media content and suggesting interpretations of issues to media audiences. The group emphasises a number of features that affect the content of the news.

1. Journalists operate within what Becker called a hierarchy of credibility. This means they attach the greatest importance to the views of powerful and influential individuals and groups, such as senior politicians, senior police officers, civil servants or business leaders and bankers, rather than ordinary people. Hall et all suggest such people are primary definers who regularly feature in the media as ‘experts’ and are in a position to set the news agenda and influence what journalists define as the news and how they present it. Manning suggests journalists are under increasing pressure from market competition to use primary definers as a cheap and readily available source of news, as governments and large businesses are forever trying to manipulate the media and manage the news through their press and public relations of departments.

2. Journalists tend to be somewhere in the moderate centre ground of politics, and so ignore or treat unfavourable what they regard as ‘extremist’ or ‘radical’ views.

3. The GMG has pointed out that journalists tend to be mainly white, male and M/C and they broadly share the interests and values of the dominant ideology. This influences whose opinions they seek for comment, what issues they see as important, and how they think issues should be presented and explained to audiences. The GMG has shown how the explanations given in the media often favour the views of dominant and powerful groups in society, such as managers over workers, or police over protesters.

4. Journalists are doing a job, and they like to keep their work as simple as possible. To reduce time and costs, they often produce articles based on information provided by news agencies, government press releases, spin doctors, public relations consultants and so on, without checking facts or digging out the news themselves. This has been described as churnalism. News reports are then often based on what others claim about events rather than what reporters have discovered themselves. This means that primary defines drawn from powerful and influential groups such as businesses, the government and political parties, and powerful and wealthy individuals, are more likely to be able to influence journalists.

Hierarchy of credibility - Means that greatest importance is attached by journalists to the views and opinions of those in positions of power, like government ministers, political leaders, senior police officers or wealth and influential individuals

Primary definers - Powerful individuals or groups whose positions of power give them greater access to the media than others, and therefore puts them in a more privileged position to influence what and how journalists define the news

Churnalism - A form of journalism in which journalists produce news articles based on pre-packaged material in press releases provided by sources such as government spin doctors, public relations consultants and news agencies, without doing further research or checking facts

The rise of churnalism

• The term churnalism was originally devised by a BBC journalist to describe the trend whereby journalists were uncritically churning out articles based on second-hand news agency reports, and pre-packaged material from press realises and other sources, rather than digging out the news for themselves, doing further research of checking whether the ‘facts’ were true or false.

• Davies found that 80% of news stories were wholly, mainly or partially constructed from second-hand material, provided by news agencies and by the public relations industries.

• Only 12% of stories were generated by reporters. He found that this routine recycling of second-hand material mainly originated from wire agencies like the Press Association and public relations activities which was promoting some commercial or political interests.

• Jewell showed how ‘advertorials’ - branded content paid for by advertisers and promoting their products but masquerading as journalists’ news articles - were increasingly appearing on the online news sites of mainstream media brands.

• The rise of churnalism is linked to many of the issues discussed so far: the desire of media owners to cut costs, and attract audiences and advertisers in a hugely competitive global media market, coupled with the time pressures arising from the intensity of 24/7 rolling news in the context of ever-expanding new media.

Conclusion: A propaganda model of the media?

• The features covered in this topic suggest that the media generally present, at best, only a partial and biased view of the world, with some subjects posing a threat to powerful interests either distorted or ignored by the media.

• What counts as ‘the news’ is a manufactured product that reflects the interest of powerful groups, and is produced within a framework of the dominant ideology in society.

• Herman and Chomsky adopt a propaganda model of the media. They suggest that main-stream media news and commentary are shaped by and propagandise on behalf of the powerful social interests that control them.

• Structural factors - such as ownership and control, market forces, the media’s profit orientation, and dependence on advertisers - create a network of shared interests and relationships between the media, those who make the news and those who have the power to define it and explain what it means. These factors influence what journalists do, what they see as newsworthy and the ideas they take for granted as they do their work.

• Herman and Chomsky therefore see the mainstream media essentially as a propaganda system for the elite interests that dominante in contemporary society.

• In similar vein, Edwards and Cromwell argue that many leading journalists and editors are servile to those who hold power in society, and are little more than cheerleaders for government, business and war, and that they are engaged in the ‘dark art’ of smearing dissidents of all kinds who pose any challenge or threat to the dominant ideology and existing social structure of society.

• However, pluralists point out that media competition and the need to attract audiences also mean that journalists do occasionally expose injustice, or corruption in government and business, and therefore are not always or simply in the pockets of the powerful.

• The rise of the new media has also begun to undermine the power of the mainstream media organisations, as citizen journalism opens up the possibility of alternative views to those of the media establishment being made available to millions of people across the globe.