Week Two: What Makes the News?

1. WEEK TWO: WHAT MAKES THE
NEWS?
POL 367 – Mass Media and Politics

2. Profile of US Journalists
 Traditional media:
 Majority are white males
 Women more likely to be present in
newspapers and newsmagazines
 Nonwhite males more likely to be present in
radio and television
 College educated
 Self-describe as “moderate to liberal”
 Internationalist
 Suspicious of large institutions
 New Media
 More difficult to determine demographics
David Fahrenthold – Washington Post

3. Gatekeeping
 The various decisions that determine what gets reported, how it
will be framed, what sources will be used, etc.
 Small number of individuals have influence on this decision,
such as:
 Wire reporters
 Editors
 Disk jockeys
 Program executives

4. “Beats”
 Regular listening posts established by news organization in
places where events of interest are likely to occur
 Ex: legislative bodies, major cities, international organizations
 Most traditional media have similar beats, leads to similar
coverage
 “Beam of a searchlight”: Emphasis on dramatic, novel news
means many areas go uncovered
 Need to plan ahead means focus on predictable events

5. General Factors in News Selection
 Personal characteristics of the journalists
 Professional norms and values
 Internal and external competition
 Broader political context
 Relations with elite sources
 Economic pressures

6. Criteria for Choosing Specific Stories
 Audience appeal
 Strong impact
 Violence, conflict, disaster, scandal
 Familiarity
 Proximity
 Timely & novel

7. News Production Constraints
 Deadlines put pressure to edit and publish news rapidly
 Difficulty of getting access favors on-scene observers and
“experts”
 Late-breaking stories, unless significant, get discarded
 Minimal investigation time
 Information subsidies from elites and organizations
 Favoritism towards visually appealing stories

13. Effects of Gatekeeping
 Bias towards reporting on familiar, visible figures
 Visibility tied to unusualness or controversy
 Focus on conflict, crime, scandals, horse-race
 “Infotainment”
 Neglect of in-depth investigation of social problems
 Long-term, highly technical
 Support for establishment
 Misconduct framed as deviation from norms
 Antiestablishment behavior cast in negative light

14. Covering a Crisis
 Stage One
 Crisis announced, media rushes to
scene
 Media becomes primary source of
information
 Possibility of speculation and
unreliable information
 Stage Two
 Media attempts to correct past
errors, contextualize
 Government attempts to shape
political fallout
 Stage Three
 Place crisis into larger perspective
 Deal with the aftermath

15. Investigative Journalism
 Muckracking – sensational exposes of
corruption, usually involving high-status
individuals
 Three Goals
 Produce exciting stories
 Gain praise fellow journalists
 Trigger political action

16. Example: David Fahrenthold (Washington
Post)

17. Models of “Muckracking”
 Simple Model:
 Investigation -> Publication -> Public Opinion -> Policy Initiatives ->
Consequences
 In reality, results in only moderate or long-delayed outcomes
 difficult to stir public opinion and encourage action
 Politicians believe they can wait it out
 Difficulty of actually implementing policy

18. Models of Muckracking
 Leaping Impact
 When elements of the simple model are skipped:
 Officials act without public pressure
 Officials act pre-emptively to forestall publicity
 Most common when news people and public officials collaborate
 Truncated
 When elements of the model are stalled or aborted
 Failure to publish investigation
 Failure of investigations to lead to reforms

19. Journalists as Political Actors
 Three general ways that journalist
become political actors
 Acting as surrogates
 Directly involve themselves in political
events
 Bring issues to light or spark investigations
by reporting information
 Broadcasts and crime-stopper shows like
America’s Most Wanted

20. Journalists as Political Actors
 Acting as Mouthpieces
 Media commonly serve as mouthpiece
for government or interest groups by
publishing allegations or through
collaboration.
 Leaks to sympathetic or mercenary
journalists
 Interests groups take advantage of
media desires for stories to push their
agenda

21. Journalist as Political Actors
 Acting as Chief Framers
 “Framing Effects” (Next Week)
 How they report a story
influences perception
 Most common frame is “horse-
race”/strategy
 Less substantive information on
policy
 May encourage cynicism about
politics Top Headline: Daily Signal, conservative news
site
Bottom Headline: Vox, a liberal news site

22. Bias in the Media
 Perception
 Claims of liberal bias: most journalists moderate to liberal
 Claims of conservative bias: corporate ownership
 Reality
 Outside of clearly partisan/ideological news and opinion sections, evidence of intentional
ideological bias is relatively sparse.
 Gatekeeping is more influenced by norms, institutions, economic pressures
 Three Forms of Bias
 Affective
 Informational
 Ideological

23. Affective Bias
 Economic pressures incentive “attack” journalism: news media
overwhelmingly cynical and negative.
 Negative information and conflict more attention grabbing, both
psychologically and in terms of “newsworthiness”
 More exciting and entertaining
 Greater levels of physical arousal (Mutz)
 Effects (Diana Mutz, next week)
 Greater recall and attentiveness
 Discourages political trust
 Decreases legitimacy of opposition.

24. Informational Bias
 Personalization
 Focus on human interest rather than policy and social context
 Dramatization
 Emphasis on dramatic elements than persistent problems
 Fragmentation
 Information is isolated from each other and sketch
 Authority-Disorder
 Favoriting endless conflict and drama over “normalcy”

25. Ideological Biases
 History
 Early American media was highly partisan, often owned by parties
 Advances in printing technology allowed for more independent media
 Penny Press – newspapers sold for a penny, aimed at wider public, advertising
 Yellow Journalism – Highly sensationalist, dramatic, muckracking (Hearst &
Pulitzer)
 Professionalization and education of journalism develops journalistic
norms towards objective reporting
 Corporate ownership and broadcast television
 News as public service to gain access, “loss leader”
 Minimal competition, need to appeal to mass audience
 Cable television & Internet and rise of “infotainment” is return to partisan,
sensationalist news media.

26. Covert Ideological Biases
 Much of the concern about bias more in the form of covert bias, but
researchers on media bias skeptical of claims of both extent of bias
and the influence of partisan media.
 Active-audience:
 Hostile Media Effect: partisans tend to perceive media as being biased
 Selective Exposure: partisans consume favorable media over other
options
 Conditional Learning: people not interested don’t watch news anyway
 Not to say that there is no bias, however:
 Newspapers have more positive coverage of endorsed candidates
 Can favor certain organizations terminology
 Cite or rely on partisan organizations for information