1. The crisis of news
journalism. Part 2:
The news journalist
2. • October 23, 2012: Clark Kent (Superman) is to quit The Daily Planet
newspaper in protest at the state of modern journalism
• Kent started at the daily in 1938, and has worked there for the past
74 years (despite the fact that he is only 27)
• Superman writer Scott Lobdell told USA Today: “Superman is
arguably the most powerful person on the planet, but how long
can he sit at his desk with someone breathing down his neck
and treating him like the least important person in the world?”
3. Trust in UK professions, 1983-2011 (average)
Percentage answering “yes” to the question:
“Would you generally trust them to tell the truth?”
• Doctors 89%
• Teachers 86%
• Professors 77%
• Judges 75%
• Clergy/priests 75%
• Television news readers 68%
• Scientists 67%
• The police 61%
• Ordinary man / woman in the street 56%
• Civil servants 43%
• Trade union officials 36%
• Business leaders 28%
• Government ministers 19%
• Politicians generally 18%
• Journalists 17%
Source: Ipsos Mori, 2011
http://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Polls/Veracity2011.pdf
4. Structure of this lecture:
• 1. Identifying the problem:
Flat Earth News
• 2. Exposing the problem:
The UK phone hacking scandal
• 3. In search of solutions
5. 1: Identifying the
problem
This story was widely
published in the UK
and elsewhere in
September 2002, but it
was completely
wrong...
This was the starting
point for the book by
Nick Davies, “Flat
Earth News”…
http://www.mwaw.net/2
007/12/08/davies/
7. The Quality and Independence of British Journalism - Tracking
the changes over 20 years - Cardiff School of Journalism (2006)
http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/jomec/resources/QualityIndependenceofBriti
shJournalism.pdf
• Looked at the number of journalists employed in the national
press over the last two decades and the volume of work they are
required to do
• Studied the domestic news content at the “top end” of British press
and broadcast news to establish the extent to which journalists
depend on public relations and other media, especially wire
services.
• Carried out case studies to establish the role played by PR (public
relations), other media and the wire services in shaping news
content
• Tested the “news value” of PR-inspired stories with a panel of
experts
8. • Wire services / news agencies:
Reuters, Dow Jones, Associated Press, Agence France
Press, Press Association, DPA, Interfax, TT
Main activity: These services provide the ”raw
material” for newspapers and broadcasters
• PR = public relations:
These are professional communications managers for
businesses, organisations, individuals and governments
Main activity: targeting information at the media
through press releases, press conferences,
interviews, spamming my inbox with press releases!
9. First finding: working harder
• Today’s editorial employees are, on average, expected to produce three
times as much content as 20 years ago
Second finding: reliant on narrow range of sources
• Fewer than one in five press articles (19%) were based mainly on
information that did not come from pre-packaged sources
• Indeed, 60% of press stories relied wholly or mainly on pre-packaged
information
• Only 12% were entirely independent of such material
Stories with content deriving from PR, news wires / other media (%)
Press Broadcast
All from PR, wires/other media 38 21
Mainly from PR, wires/other media 22 13
Mix of PR, wires/other media with other
information 13 25
Mainly other information 7 20
All other information 12 18
Unclear 8 3
10. Role of wire services
• 30% of the stories in the press sample repeated wire service
material almost directly, and a further 19% were largely dependent
on wire material
• In other words, nearly half of all press stories appeared to come
wholly or mainly from wire services
• Over a quarter of broadcast news items (27%) contained information
that appeared to be mainly or wholly derived from wires or other
media
Stories in which news wires or other media were replicated (%)
Press Broadcast
All from wires/other media 30 16
Mainly from wires/other media 19 11
Mix of wires/other media with other information 13 20
Mainly other information 8 18
Wire covered story but not used 5 5
No evidence 25 30
11. Role of PR
• Nearly one in five newspaper stories and one in six broadcast
stories were verifiably derived mainly or wholly from PR material or
activity
Stories in which PR materials were replicated (%)
Press Broadcast
All from PR 10 10
Mainly from PR 9 7
Mix of PR with other information 11 14
Mainly other information 11 21
Looks like PR but not found 13 6
No evidence 46 42
12. It was roughly the same picture for all the papers studied
13. Is the main source / information contextualised
with other substantive information or views? (%)
Press Broadcast
Yes, thoroughly 19 42
Yes, briefly 31 30
No 50 28
14. • Taken together, these data portray a
picture of the news gathering and news
reporting in which any meaningful,
independent journalistic activity is the
exception rather than the rule
• “Churnalism”, not journalism
15. Examples of “flat earth” news
stories:
In 1999 this book became a New
York Times bestseller because of
the media panic over the
“millennium bug”, or Y2K bug.
But the story was 100% wrong
17. Paul Hucker, the “football fan” who insured himself against England
getting knocked out of the 2006 world cup finals!
This story was published in many national and local news outlets
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/suffolk/4968092.stm
19. Kent Brockman (TV anchor on The Simpsons):
“Reporters used to expose corruption and corporate greed.
Now, like toothless babies, they suckle at the teat of
misinformation and poop it into the diaper called the six-
o’clock news.”
20. Davies: “The rules of production” (from Flat Earth News)
To cut costs and increase revenue:
1. Run cheap stories
2. Select safe facts / ideas
3. Avoid the electric fence
4. Always give both sides of the story
5. Give them what they want
6. Bias against the truth
7. Give them what they want to believe in
8. Go with the moral panic
9. Ninja turtle syndrome
21. There is a gap in mainstream journalism
that is being filled by others…
23. 2006: Detectives arrest the News of the World’s royal editor Clive Goodman and private
investigator Glenn Mulcaire
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jul/08/news-world-phone-tapping-timeline?intcmp=239
24. 2007: Andy Coulson quits as editor of
the News of the World and becomes the
director of communications for David
Cameron, prime minister
25. 2009: Nick Davies reveals that News of the World reporters, with the
knowledge of senior staff, illegally accessed messages from the
mobile phones of celebrities and politicians while Coulson was editor
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jul/08/murdoch-papers-phone-hacking
26. July 2011 - Within
days of this scoop:
News International
says News of the
World will close in one
week
Cameron announces
inquiries into hacking
and press regulation
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jul/04/milly-dowler-voicemail-hacked-news-of-world
27. • News Corporation withdraws
bid for BSkyB
• Rebekah Brooks resigns as
head of News International
• Sir Paul Stephenson,
Metropolitan Police
Commissioner, resigns
• Rebekah Brooks arrested
• Metropolitan assistant
commissioner John Yates
resigns
• MPs question James and
Rupert Murdoch
• The chair of the Press
Complaints Commission,
Baroness Buscombe,
James Murdoch, 2009: “The only reliable, durable, resigns
and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit.”
28. Chipping Norton – the centre of the intrigue
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/interactive-graphics/9124278/Whos-who-
in-the-Chipping-Norton-set.html
29. 3: In search of a solution
• Media ownership
• Regulation
• Public service journalism
• Subsidies
• Conscience clause
• Media unions
30. All is not lost!
“We are going to really see Clark Kent come into his
own in the next few years, as a guy who takes to the
internet and to the airwaves and starts speaking an
unvarnished truth.
“He is more likely to start the next Huffington Post or the
next Drudge Report than he is to go find someone else
to get assignments or draw a paycheck from.”
Scott Lobdell,
Superman writer
