Local Journalism: The Decline of Newspapers and the Rise of Digital Media (Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism) by Rasmus Kleis Nielsen

Author:Rasmus Kleis Nielsen [Nielsen, Rasmus Kleis]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780857733818
Publisher: I.B.Tauris
Published: 2015-06-29T16:00:00+00:00

Thinking as a journalist

All actors are very aware of the process of news production: the temporality of newsgathering and publication, the need for a reliable flow of information, the practice of ‘off the record’, the fact that many journalists are freelancers and paid by the piece. Actors anticipate interactions with and reactions of others. They develop a well-informed discourse about the process of producing local news and to some extent internalise what they perceive to be the news values and production routines of local media in order to better manage how they appear in the news (similar to what has been found with social movements, e.g. Gitlin, 1980: Sobieraj, 2011). For example, institutional sources punish with silence the journalists that do not follow their rules, and with disciplinary action the members of the institution that leak information without following the official channels. These practices consolidate a self-representation of their dominant position. However, despite this self-image of powerful sources, actors also admitted that news making is in fact a process of interdependency (Legavre, 1992, 2011), where sources strive to get a positive image of themselves in the media coverage by being very strategic in what they share with journalists and what they silence, but where they never have complete control over what the journalists end up reporting. ‘The bad things, [journalists] will know by themselves’ (S1). Sources and journalists need each other and build a relationship based on a fragile mix of trust and distrust (Legavre, 2011).

The expectations of sources regarding professional journalists are quite intuitive. The communication practices of the spokespersons develop from personal experience, from their process of socialisation with the newsgathering process. They had to discover for themselves what the most effective attitude is. Even if some of them had had some training, they refer to their expertise as something cumulative, based on practice: ‘I am part of the old generation. I have never been organised concerning public relations. I am an improviser concerning relations with the press. I have long been a star for TV programmes because I am very reactive’ (S2). They know and they anticipate what can become a good story for the media. They immediately identified the Molenbeek case as something that would make the front pages of the newspapers. Being quick to react to journalists’ questions requires that one is constantly up to date with what is happening in their jurisdiction, especially now that social media spreads rumours so quickly. Despite the fact that among our interviewees journalists seldom mentioned using social media as a source systematically, sources were very concerned about the risk that Facebook or Twitter posed to their control over the timing in releasing information. They admitted not knowing how to deal with these communication methods, despite being very interested in adding them to their set of tools to circulate their discourses (S1, S2, S3).

The dynamics of the news coverage in the first days of the Molenbeek case were partly defined by these existing structures and practices, but also influenced by very specific circumstances that disrupted the usual rituals.

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