Selection & Presentation of The News

• Social construction of news

  News is a media product subject to many pressures, influences and constraints. What is broadcast or written as news is a result of complex practical, ideological, cultural, economic and social factors.
• News values


  The way journalists and news corporations attach significance to a story and judge its "newsworthiness"
• Factors that make a story more likely to be pursued and published

  • Unexpected
  • About well-known and important people
  • "Bad news"
  • Timely-current stories are best
  • Simple
  • Brief
  • "Big"
  • Able to be personalized
  • Has continuity from stories already told
  • Familiar-stories based close to home are preferred
  • About "elite countries" (rich countries in the West, such as the USA)
• Since Galtung and Ruge were writing, what is deemed newsworthy has changed. Celebrity news is now much bigger and there is a bigger focus today on good news. It has also become increasingly important for stories to be visually interesting, as video footage is deemed an important element of the news.
• Other factors that have become more important include ensuring that advertisers are not offended or alienated by any political or otherwise controversial messages in the news.
• A lot of UK news time is spent covering elections in the USA, much more so than on countries that are much closer to us, like Sweden or Portugal, and small countries on the other side of the world are often not reported on at all (unless there is some simple or unexpected bad news to tell).
• Practical constraints


  Tight deadlines and limited budgets mean some stories are more attractive to journalists and editors than others. Stories that are easily accessible will be preferred to ones in distant countries. However, if a newspaper or TV programme has a permanent or regular correspondent in a particular city or country, then news stories there may well be reported that might otherwise not have been deemed important enough.
• Television programmes in particular depend on being able to get useable video footage relating to a news story, and so are likely to reject stories that happen in far-off and inaccessible places.
• Journalists have a limited range of views as they often speak to the same contacts and "experts" about particular topics, which is a practical consideration (as it is quick and cheaper) but may also have political and ideological foundations.
• News stories can be handled briefly or extensively (with varying levels of analysis and investigation) not because of the merits or complexity of the story but because of the amount of time available in a news bulletin or space on a page.
• News stories will often simply reproduce a well-drafted press release, rather than involve any actual journalism at all.
• Agenda setting


  Journalists and other media professionals decide what is considered significant or not in terms of the news. This will range from international stories to news from a national level. Different news corporations will set different agendas, as the content presented will differ depending on the audience and the priorities of the corporation itself.
• Gate keeping


  Editors decide what is news and what is not. This is essentially a filtering process, based on practical considerations (such as space on a page) and other times it will be political or cultural or based on news values.
• The news is not simply an unedited reflection of everything that happened on a given day. In that sense there is no question that the news is socially constructed.
• Some news programmes try to take a step back and have a less strong editorial hand, but journalists and editors still choose what to show and what not to.
• Marxist sociologists would argue that the agenda-setting and gate-keeping practices are intended to transmit ruling-class ideology or establish hegemony, seeing the choices about which news should be broadcast and which voices heard as being entirely political.
• Pluralists like Jones argue that the news does fairly reflect reality, with a balanced, even-handed discussion of issues.
• The media often target the powerful and the news can expose corruption and abuse of power, which is presented as an argument against the idea that the news is created and dominated by the powerful.
• Modern technology has changed some of the practical restrictions on news, with smaller cameras and the ability for audience members to produce and share their own content. However, professional editors still act as gatekeepers to this user-generated content.
• Events in some regions and countries are still likely to go unrecorded due to lack of access to recording technology.
• IPSO (Independent Press Standards Organisation)


  The body that regulates the press in the UK, replacing the previous Press Complaints Commission.
• Leveson Inquiry


  A high-profile public inquiry into the phone hacking scandal and associated cases of law-breaking and corruption by journalists, which led to proposals for a new independent regulatory body backed by legislation.
• Most newspaper editors rejected the Leveson proposals and established IPSO in defiance of the government, with only small publications regulated by the rival organisation Impress.
• Arguments for state regulation of the press

  • Press abuses, especially in the tabloids
  • Intrusive paparazzi and invasions of privacy
  • Lack of accountability ("protecting sources")
  • OFCOM and the BBC Trust both work well and reflect public concerns, rather than censorship on behalf of the government of the day
  • They are independent of the government, politically
• Arguments against state regulation of the press

  • A free society needs a free press
  • Journalists must feel free to challenge and expose the powerful, including government ministers
  • Self-regulation works
  • Any state involvement in regulation is a "slippery slope" to greater state control and censorship
  • Politicians have indicated that the security services would like greater powers to prevent the press from publishing certain stories
• While the UK media is not heavily censored, there is some censorship already, such as D-notices from the security services and court orders preventing the naming of certain individuals in articles.
• There have been examples of direct government interference in television broadcasts, such as blocking reports and documentaries relating to the Northern Irish troubles, which suggests newspaper editors and journalists may have reason to fear state regulation.
• However, it is also clear that the government has wanted more censorship of television broadcasts, which undermines the argument that state regulation would necessarily lead to greater censorship.
• Bizarrely, there was a broadcast ban on members of paramilitary groups and Sinn Fein politicians which meant that actors had to "re-voice" their comments during broadcasts of interviews or speeches
• A Channel 4 late-night discussion programme called After Dark invited the Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams to appear, but Channel 4 withdrew the invitation, because other guests refused to appear
• The Independent Broadcasting Authority (the regulator before OFCOM was given the role) said that it would have cancelled the programme
• One of the reasons the IBA was wound up was because of government anger that it did allow the broadcast of a documentary, Death on the Rock about the SAS shooting of three unarmed members of the IRA in Gibraltar
• The government wanted more censorship of television broadcasts
• Tabloid newspapers were among the loudest voices saying that Death on the Rock should not have been broadcast
• The belief in the freedom of the press does not, perhaps, extent to a belief in the freedom of all journalism
• News journalists and editors

  • They have the power to choose what to report and what to conceal
  • Pluralists and neo-pluralists would argue that decisions over what not to broadcast would be practical rather than political and that there is a diversity of newspapers so political views absent from one would be present in another
  • Marxists see the media as working on behalf of the ruling class to preserve the status quo