Disturbing the Peace? by Graham Spencer

Author:Graham Spencer [Spencer, Graham]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General, Religion, Social Science
ISBN: 9781351724531
Google: MLpHDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 38136693
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-01-18T00:00:00+00:00

Routines, Constraints and Procedures

The repetitive nature of how journalists work means that what they produce is subject to repetition. News production is structured and achieved through patterns of working which are heavily routinised and from a professional point of view, rather predictable. This predictability is not derived from the events covered, which are different, but from how they are covered; consistent and in notably familiar ways. This similarity is reinforced and conventionalised through the processes of selecting and constructing responses, which are shared and agreed upon by journalists before being produced as reports. Journalistic practice therefore, provides us with simplified and repetitive versions of events. As one freelance journalist in Northern Ireland depicted this routine:

Journalists certainly tend to hunt in packs and often, just after an interview with a minister, they will get together to check with each other that they’ve got the right quotes and they do that by comparing what they’ve got. Quite often journalists will also rely on clippings for background information, so if there’s a mistake in the original clippings they tend to perpetuate it and they do that principally because there isn’t enough time to reinterrogate them. Invariably, there is always a perceived wisdom as well as a dominant version of a story and how best to cover it and the hunting in packs element is symptomatic of that mentality. There tends to be agreement amongst most news organisations on most days about what the story is and what to do if for example the Secretary of State is set to make a speech. In that instance, you can guarantee that all the correspondents will be there to buttonhole him and aim to get a soundbite out of him about what the story is concerned with, and that whatever news network you tune in to, that’s the story you will get. So the tendency towards conventionalism is the tendency to flatten out diversity in coverage itself.

The occupational practice of working in groups and using each other’s information was also endorsed by a Channel 4 political correspondent, who in pointing to the repetitive and narrow interpretations offered by news, said:

Journalists regularly use each other’s information. Yes, hugely. In the lobby [Westminster] there is huge tendency for journalists to hunt as a pack. Say there’s a statement on Northern Ireland and as usual we’re all sitting in the gallery, we will check with each other on the technical nuances of the language and whether something new is being said, or whether it has been said before. So, you check with your colleagues and confer on what was said and this does serve to focus you all on the same issues and problems.

Reinforcing this perception even further, a BBC political correspondent observed:

Other journalists are a great influence. We do roam in packs and that is also the case with Northern Ireland. If for example, journalists go to the Sinn Fein office for an announcement, or to chase a story, they would tend to go as a group and depart as a group.

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