The American Journalism Handbook Concepts, Issues, and Skills

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

News is not merely novel information about recent affairs but a culturally constructed form of knowledge whose selection and presentation by recognized definers shapes how societies understand themselves and their priorities.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• What news is: in journalism, novel information about recent affairs that is in the public interest, rooted in Enlightenment principles of objectivity and rationality.
• Newsgathering as a modern profession: systematic collection and conveyance of news by dedicated reporters is a historically recent development (mainly since the 1800s).
• News vs "the news": "news" is information; "the news" is a culturally agreed-upon subset of particularly important stories selected from a much larger pool.
• Common confusion: news is not a natural, objective thing but a cultural construct—what counts as news and how it is presented varies across societies and reflects particular values and formats.
• Why it matters: those who define "the news" hold power to shape societal priorities and collective understanding of the world.

📰 What news means in journalism

📰 Core definition

News: novel information about recent affairs that is in the public interest.

• The "public interest" emphasis comes from Enlightenment principles: objectivity and rationality to engage productively with social problems.
• News is not just any new information—it must matter to the public and support democratic engagement.

🏛️ Newsgathering and democratic society

Newsgathering: the activity of having individuals systematically collect novel information about recent affairs and convey it so citizens can engage productively in debates about public matters.

• This interpretation is similar to what we call reporting today.
• The excerpt emphasizes that newsgathering is important within a democratic society because it enables informed citizen participation.
• Don't confuse: news has existed as long as humans could communicate complex ideas (travelers, priests, soldiers sharing battle outcomes or plagues), but newsgathering as a distinct, semi-professionalized activity is recent.

⏳ Historical context

• Paid, dedicated reporters emerged mainly in the 1800s and only in a few places.
• Before that, news was shared informally (e.g., town criers announcing royal decrees).
• Our current understanding of reporting as a distinct profession is a historically recent development.

🎭 News as a cultural construct

🎭 Colloquial vs academic meanings

• Colloquially, "news" often refers to a particular way of conveying novel information, not just the information itself.
• "The news" implies a monolithic aggregation—a relatively small group of stories that a large group of people accept as particularly important at a given moment.
• Example: "What's 'the news' today?" assumes there is one agreed-upon set of important stories drawn from a much larger pool of possible stories.

🧱 News and "the news" are not natural

• They are modern cultural constructs reflecting particular understandings of what is news and what is newsworthy.
• These understandings are shaped by the histories and cultures of particular places and peoples.
• A group of people collectively agrees to accept certain things as "news" and "the news"—they are not objective, natural categories.

📝 Format expectations

• News is rarely a simple chronological listing of observations.
• Example: A story about Dr. Zamith finding a cure for dementia would not lead with "Dr. Zamith woke up, went to his office, ate lunch, stubbed his toe, and found the cure for dementia."
• Instead, in the U.S., people expect the story to start with the most important fact (the cure) and omit irrelevant details (eating lunch).
• The excerpt emphasizes that most people expect "news" to resemble a particular format shaped by cultural norms.

🌍 Newsworthiness and power

🌍 What makes something newsworthy

Newsworthy: what is considered important enough to be part of "the news."

• Newsworthiness varies considerably across and within places.
• Some stories have more universal appeal (e.g., dementia is a serious concern worldwide).
• Other stories may be treated as more newsworthy in some societies than others (e.g., violence against transgender people).

⏱️ Finite space for news

• There is limited time to consume news and limited capacity for newsgatherers to follow up on stories.
• Consequently, "the news" requires someone (or a group of people) to define:
  • What news is important.
  • What is important about that news.
• This selection process is not neutral—it reflects values and priorities.

🔑 Power of primary definers

• Those recognized as the primary definers of "the news"—journalists, other groups, or a mix—are granted power.
• They shape how we understand:
  • The societies we live in.
  • Societies we've never seen ourselves.
• News can be understood as a form of knowledge about the world, not just a collection of information.
• Don't confuse: "news" as information vs "news" as a knowledge system that shapes societal understanding and priorities.

📊 Summary table: Key distinctions

Concept	Definition	Key point
News	Novel information about recent affairs (in journalism: in the public interest)	Information itself; broader category
"The news"	A culturally agreed-upon subset of particularly important stories	Implies selection and collective agreement on importance
Newsgathering	Systematic collection and conveyance of news to enable democratic engagement	Historically recent as a distinct, semi-professionalized activity
Newsworthy	What is considered important enough to be part of "the news"	Varies across societies; reflects cultural values and priorities
News as knowledge	A form of understanding the world, not just information	Shapes societal priorities and collective understanding

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Journalism is a fluid and contested concept whose definition within a society determines who receives material rewards, social authority, and the power to shape what counts as "news."

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Multiple definitions exist: journalism can be defined as a product, by the people who create it, by institutions, as a set of activities, as a service with goals, or as an occupation with shared ideology.
• Definitions have real consequences: how journalism is understood affects who gets access to press seats, legal protections, and the authority to define "news."
• Common confusion: journalism is not monolithic—there are many "journalisms" (sports, data, advocacy) with different norms, so what is desirable in one area may be undesirable in another.
• Authority and legitimacy: organizations perceived as legitimate journalism receive deference and higher standards from the public, granting them power as "primary definers" of news.
• Context-dependent and changing: social, cultural, economic, political, and technological conditions continuously reshape what counts as journalism.

📐 Six ways to define journalism

📄 As a product

Journalism defined by the characteristics of the output itself.

• A news story might be called "journalism" because it contains journalistic features: clear headlines, quotes from multiple interviewees, etc.
• Or because it appears in a recognizable format: a television show with a professionally dressed presenter behind a desk, following certain linguistic patterns.
• Example: An investigative article about a mayor taking bribes is "journalism" because the product looks and reads like journalism.

👤 By the people who create it

Journalism defined by the credentials or training of the creator.

• If someone has a college degree in Journalism or related professional training, their work may be treated as "journalism."
• In some countries, people must be government-certified to legally produce "journalism" or receive certain legal protections.
• Example: A story is considered journalism because the author holds a journalism degree.

🏢 By the institutions that produce it

Journalism defined by the organization behind the product.

• If something is produced by a particular kind of organization (e.g., The New York Times or BBC News), people will treat it as "journalism."
• The institutional affiliation itself confers legitimacy.
• Example: A report is journalism because it comes from a recognized news organization.

🔍 As a set of activities

Journalism defined by the practices and methods used to gather and verify information.

• Someone might require first-hand observation, interviews with multiple witnesses, and verification practices before calling something "journalism."
• The focus is on how the news is collected, organized, presented, and circulated.
• Example: A story counts as journalism only if the creator personally observed events or interviewed witnesses and verified all accounts.

🎯 As a service with goals and values

Journalism defined by its purpose and intended outcomes.

• Less about what the product looks like or who made it; more about what one hoped to accomplish.
• Goals might include: identifying important community issues, holding elected officials accountable, connecting citizens with civic engagement opportunities.
• Example: A project is journalism because it aims to serve the public interest, regardless of format or creator credentials.

💼 As an occupation with shared ideology

Journalism defined by adherence to a particular set of professional values and ethics.

• In the United States, this ideology might include:
  • Providing a public service to citizens
  • Striving to be objective, fair, and trustworthy
  • Working independently from government officials
  • Gathering first-hand accounts in a timely fashion
  • Deferring to shared professional ethics
• In other contexts, the ideology may be different—e.g., promoting societal stability by being more deferential to government authorities and less critical of the status quo.
• Those who act in line with the dominant occupational values within their society are seen as practicing "journalism."

🔄 Why definitions matter

💰 Symbolic resources become material rewards

The way journalism is broadly understood within a society impacts how symbolic resources are translated into material rewards.

• Access and privileges: Press conferences or trials with limited seating may reserve seats for "journalists"—someone must first define who qualifies.
• Legal protections: Some countries grant legal protections only to those recognized as journalists.
• Technological change: Advances have made it possible for a kindergarten teacher to blog about city Board of Health meetings to a large audience—arguably performing acts of journalism in ways not previously possible.
• Don't confuse: material rewards are not automatic; they depend on whether society recognizes the work as journalism.

🏛️ Authority and social status

Journalism receives special social status as the authority on "news" in many societies.

• Foundational protections: In the United States, the First Amendment protects a "free press" because of its presumed importance to a well-informed democracy.
• Expectation and deference: With special status comes higher expectations and public deference.
• Example: If someone considers The New York Times to engage in journalism but not Fox News, they will hold the Times to a higher standard when it makes a mistake, and give it more benefit of the doubt when they can't independently verify reported information.

🎭 Legitimacy grants power

• Granting an organization legitimacy as journalism gives it considerable power because it is deemed authoritative by some group of people.
• This allows those organizations to become the primary definers of "news" for that group.
• Why the fight matters: Different news organizations, commentators, and public figures expend energy casting some things as journalism and others as "fake news" precisely because legitimacy confers power.

🌈 Journalism as plural, not monolithic

🧩 Many "journalisms" exist

Journalism is not some monolithic thing; one could easily talk about journalisms in a pluralized sense.

• Examples include:
  • Sports journalism
  • Data journalism
  • Advocacy journalism
• These prefixes refer to more than just genres or technologies—they recognize something substantively different in purpose, people, processes, or products.

🔀 Distinct norms and expectations

Area of journalism	What may be desirable	What may be undesirable
One area (e.g., traditional news)	Neutral tone, inverted pyramid structure	Advocacy or opinion
Another area (e.g., advocacy journalism)	Clear point of view, persuasive structure	Neutral tone, inverted pyramid

• Those differences result in distinct symbolic associations, material rewards, and social expectations within each area.
• Don't confuse: there is no one "right way" to do journalism, but certain ways are privileged over others in particular contexts.

🌊 Journalism is fluid and contested

• Changing social, cultural, economic, political, and technological conditions change how people understand journalism.
• Different places and groups understand the term differently, and the same places and groups have understood it differently through history.
• This dynamic and multifaceted nature is a core feature of journalism, not a bug.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Journalism is shaped by a diverse network of human actors—from traditional journalists to economic managers to outside interlopers—whose interactions, tensions, and shifting positions within the network continuously redefine who counts as a "journalist" and what "journalism" means.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Who counts as a journalist is contested: different groups apply different criteria (sociological vs. normative approaches), so the same person may be seen as a journalist by one group but not another.
• Many types of actors beyond reporters: editorial actors (reporters, editors, photojournalists), economic actors (managers, proprietors), technical actors (camera operators, developers), and interlopers (outsiders who influence journalism).
• Interlopers challenge orthodoxies: non-journalistic actors operating outside typical newsrooms can introduce new practices and reshape journalism, though their claims to be "journalists" are often contested.
• Common confusion—solitary vs. networked: producing news is rarely a solo effort; it involves interactions and tensions among many actors, not just individual reporters.
• Positions are fluid: actors can move from the periphery to the center of the journalistic network over time (e.g., web developers gaining recognition as journalists), and the network itself can re-center around certain kinds of actors.

🧑‍💼 Defining "journalist"

🔬 Sociological approach

Journalists are individuals with particular skills and knowledge who both adhere to the shared ideals of what is recognized as journalism within a given context and believe they are participating in shaping the profession's standards of proper practice.

• Looks at a combination of what the individual does, how they do it, and the role they play in shaping the profession.
• Not just about employment or job title; it's about skills, adherence to shared ideals, and active participation in defining standards.
• Example: 50 years ago, anyone employed for editorial work at a news organization might have been called a journalist, but today's ecosystem is too complex for that simple definition.

📐 Normative approach

A journalist is someone who reports news while holding certain values associated with journalism in a given society.

• Focuses less on what a person does and more on the values they adopt and try to apply in their work.
• In the U.S., such values include:
  • Reporting honestly and independently from commercial and social pressures.
  • Committing to verifying information before disseminating it.
  • Being responsible, methodical, and transparent.
• These norms serve as identity markers (defining who they are as professionals) and boundary markers (separating journalists from non-journalists).

⚖️ Practical implications of the distinction

Implication	What it means
Different groups, different criteria	Individuals viewed as journalists by one group may not be viewed as journalists by another because they apply different definitional criteria.
Self-presentation matters	Journalists often try to present themselves as journalists (or not-journalists) in relation to norms and/or professional standards, underscoring the 'soft' power of those cultural constructions.

👥 Types of actors in journalism

📰 Editorial actors

Editorial actors: social actors within news organizations typically associated with the label of "journalist."

Front-facing roles:

• Reporters and correspondents: collect and analyze information, produce news reports about newsworthy events.
• Photojournalists: capture events through still and moving images.
• Anchors and presenters: serve as the faces and primary interpreters in broadcast news programs.

Behind-the-scenes roles:

• Editors: assign stories, review work, make substantial changes to news reports.
• Copy editors: review for accuracy, grammar, adherence to style; often write headlines.
• Community engagement editors: tailor content for social media, build community around stories.
• News designers: employ aesthetics (fonts, visual hierarchy) to call attention to certain aspects of a story.

Sometimes-journalists:

• Columnists: write regular analyses with an explicit point of view or personal experience.
• Cartoonists: convey explicit points of view through creative illustration.
• Editorial boards: write anonymous editorials conveying the organization's view.
• Their work is often—but not always—explicitly separated (e.g., in an "Opinion" section).

💼 Economic actors

Economic actors: individuals crucial to the operation of a news organization but less likely to be labeled a "journalist."

• Managers: define and implement business strategy, including revenue model, economic targets, budgets, resource allocations, and hiring choices.
• Proprietors: actors who own news organizations.
  • May be hands-off and allow considerable independence (provided economic targets are met).
  • May also actively engage in day-to-day decision-making: assigning stories of interest, shutting down stories that hurt their interests, serving as the 'final word' in newsroom affairs.

🔧 Technical actors

Technical actors: individuals who help design and operate the tools needed to create news products.

• Camera operators: set up and work cameras for news broadcasts.
• Sound mixers: record, synchronize, and edit audio for news segments.
• Web and app developers: design and operate content management systems and user-facing applications.
• Without them, there likely would not be a polished product.

🚪 Interlopers and their influence

🧩 What is an interloper?

Interloper: a non-journalistic actor that operates outside of typical journalistic spaces, even though that organization or individual contributes meaningfully to journalism (despite that contribution perhaps being unintentional).

• They are seen as outside the space of journalism, yet their decisions partly shape what journalists can and cannot do.
• Example: coders at a software development organization who create a content management system for news organizations.
  • They may rarely interact with journalists or even produce the software with a different user base in mind (e.g., food bloggers).
  • Yet their decisions affect what reporters can do (e.g., whether an editor can use a 'track changes' function).

🎯 Intentional vs. unintentional interlopers

• Unintentional: stumble onto journalism as a result of a job or passion project.
• Intentional: seek to contribute to journalism without necessarily seeking recognition as journalistic actors.
  • Example: an open-data advocate who digitizes records of complaints against police officers so data journalists can write stories.

🔥 Why interlopers matter

• They challenge the orthodoxies of journalism:
  • By explicitly critiquing those orthodoxies.
  • By implicitly introducing new practices and ways of thinking from their non-journalistic background and training.
• Over time, these challenges have the potential to structurally reshape aspects of journalism, allowing it to develop in unforeseen ways.

🚧 Boundary struggles

• Some outsiders seek to interlope and gain recognition as journalistic actors—if not as outright "journalists."
  • Example: a comedian who claims to be a "journalist" because they regularly feature news material and provide news analysis through comedy.
  • Example: YouTube personalities who claim to be both an "outsider" and a "journalist," and therefore not subject to the media problems they critique.
• Such efforts are sometimes successful, but more often unsuccessful because the interloper's interventions may be deemed too extreme.
• Instead, they serve as an example against which a boundary for what does constitute "journalism" is set.
• Over time, such boundaries do change, though.

🕸️ Networks and fluid positions

🌐 Journalism as a network

Producing news is rarely a solitary endeavor; it involves interactions, interrelations, and tensions among a range of actors.

• Thinking about journalism through a network lens helps make sense of the many different actors involved.
• It illustrates that news production involves frequent reshapings of the ideas, norms, and practices that define who is (and is not) a "journalist" and what "journalism" is (and is not).

🔄 Fluid positions within the network

• Actors may be thought of as central or on the periphery of the network, but their positions are often fluid.
• They can move from the periphery to a more central position over time—or the network may become re-centered toward certain kinds of actors.
• These fluid linkages grant different actors different forms and amounts of power over time.

📍 Examples of shifting positions

Actor type	How they moved toward the center
Web developers	As they became more central to creating interactive data visualizations, they were physically moved closer to data journalists, gained reputational credit, and began being seen less as support staff and more as journalists in their own right.
Technically proficient actors	As U.S. journalism progressed in its digital transformations, actors proficient with 'new media' began to have a stronger voice within newsrooms.
Informal writers	Individuals whose informal writing styles may have relegated them to the periphery in the past may now find a place closer to the center as a result of the large and engaged online followings they can attract.

• Don't confuse: being on the periphery is not permanent; journalistic networks adapt as the institution of journalism evolves.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Technological actants—non-human technologies that shape how journalism is produced and disseminated—and human actors continuously influence each other through mutual shaping, creating fluid power relationships that determine the development of journalism.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• What technological actants are: material, non-human technologies (e.g., content management systems, search algorithms, smartphones) that make a difference to journalism production and dissemination.
• How technology shapes humans: technological actants enable certain behaviors and restrict others, structuring what journalists can and cannot do.
• How humans shape technology: creators and users embed their values, biases, and logics into technological actants, both intentionally and unintentionally.
• Common confusion: technological actants appear neutral because they are machines, but they are infused with human values, biases, and objectives from their creators and users.
• Mutual shaping dynamics: human actors and technological actants continuously influence each other over time, creating asymmetric power relationships where one side may have more influence than the other.

📜 Historical role of technology in journalism

📜 Long-standing influence

• Technological actants have shaped journalism throughout history, not just recently.
• Nearly all of today's journalistic work is influenced by technology in some way.

🖨️ Historical examples

Technology	Impact on journalism
Printing press	Made mass distribution theoretically possible; restricted formats due to technological limitations
Telegraph	Enabled newswire services (e.g., The Associated Press); allowed reporters to transmit reports quickly from distant locations
Telephone	Enabled reporting from within the newsroom; reporters could call sources instead of meeting in person

• Each technology both enabled new possibilities and imposed new restrictions on journalistic practice.

🤖 How technology shapes human behavior

🤖 Creating possibilities and restrictions

Technological actants shape human actors by creating new possibilities and restricting others.

• Technology structures behaviors by making some actions easier and others impossible.
• The shaping happens in both visible and invisible ways.
• Impact extends to social actors (human beings) who interact with the technology.

📱 Content management system example

Example: A reporter wants to embed an Instagram video showing a star athlete's announcement in a news story. However, the organization's content management system lacks the technical capacity to embed social media posts—perhaps the creator never thought to add that functionality. The reporter must instead either describe the video in text or link readers away from the story to Instagram.

Consequences of this restriction:

• The technological actant (content management system) made the reporter's preferred action impossible.
• It provided only a limited set of alternative actions the system could accommodate.
• Over time, the system may discourage the use of social media in reporting.
• This impacts how reporters relate to sources and audiences.

🔄 Adoption and adaptation patterns

• Just because a technological actant is designed to promote a particular way of doing things does not mean users will use it that way—or use it at all.
• Many innovations in journalism are not actually adopted by journalists.
• When adopted, actants are often used in ways that allow journalists to continue doing things they are used to doing, in familiar ways.
• Technological actants can take on the values, operational logics, and biases of their users when put to particular uses.

Example: When mainstream journalistic outlets adopted the blogging format, journalists used the new functionalities in traditional ways—linking primarily to mainstream organizations, limiting audience participation, and using the same journalistic writing style they were already accustomed to.

👥 How humans shape technology

👥 Technology is not neutral

Technological actants are created and refined by human actors, and thus take on certain cultural norms, politics, and ideological values.

• It is easy to think of technological actants as neutral tools due to their mechanical nature.
• However, they are shaped by their human creators.
• Values and biases may be intentionally inserted to advance commercial, technical, or journalistic objectives.
• They may also be added unintentionally as a result of the creator's biases and ways of thinking.

Don't confuse: The mechanical, predictable operation of a machine with neutrality—the design choices embedded in the technology carry human values and assumptions.

🛠️ Data visualization tool example

Example: A freelance coder is contracted to create a web tool that helps journalists quickly produce interactive data visualizations.

How the coder's decisions shaped the tool:

Decision	Human influence	Result embedded in technology
Limited customization options	Coder's assumption that journalists are not tech-savvy	Promotes a restrictive logic of simplicity
Auto-recommend chart types	Coder's background (possibly outside journalism)	Suggestions may favor scientific over journalistic visualizations
Mobile-first optimization	News organization's economic logic	Further restricts customization to ensure smartphone compatibility

Three ways social actors shaped the technological actant:

1. Biases and perceptions led to promoting simplicity within the tool.
2. Creator's background shaped which chart types are recommended for given datasets.
3. Economic logic of the organization instructed optimization for smartphones.

• Technological actants are infused with the logics and biases of their creators as they are built.
• They also take on the biases and logics of their users when put to use.

🔁 Mutual shaping and power dynamics

🔁 What mutual shaping means

Mutual shaping: technological actants and human actors constantly act upon one another in an iterative manner.

• By acting upon one another, technological actants continuously shape human actors and human actors continuously shape technological actants.
• This process operates iteratively over time.

📊 Extended data visualization example

Continuing the data visualization tool scenario:

1. Initial state: Coder programs the software to recommend pie charts for proportion data.
2. Technology shapes humans: Pie charts become a popular format in that organization's visualizations.
3. Humans shape technology: A journalist wants the doughnut chart option and convinces the coder to add that functionality.
4. Technology shapes humans again: The journalist's peers try the doughnut chart and come to prefer it.
5. Humans shape technology again: They convince the coder to make doughnut charts the default recommendation.
6. Technology shapes future humans: Future hires are socialized to consider doughnut charts first, while staying within the general visual aesthetic initially proposed by the non-journalist coder.

The iterative cycle:

• A human actor shaped a technological actant.
• Which shaped the behaviors of other human actors.
• Who used the actant in particular ways and had the coder reshape it.
• Which had subsequent impacts on yet more human actors.
• The technological actant took on the ideas, biases, and logics of different people—even as it influenced those same people in important ways.

⚖️ Asymmetric power relationships

• Mutual shaping introduces fluid power relationships.
• These relationships are often asymmetric: a technological actant may have more power over the human actor, or vice versa.

🔍 Search engine optimization (SEO) example

Example: Google's search algorithms play a major role in determining how many clicks a reporter's story gets. The reporter tries to optimize the language in their story to get more attention from Google. However, Google's algorithms are hardly influenced by that individual journalist, or perhaps even the journalism industry as a whole.

Power imbalance:

• The algorithm has more power over the reporter than the reporter has over the algorithm.
• The reporter must adapt to remain relevant, but not the other way around.

Why this matters:

• Such power relationships are particularly important to examine as particular technologies become more and less central to the profession and to everyday life.
• Also important as certain kinds of human actors become more and less central to journalism.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

News audiences have evolved from passive recipients of journalism into active participants with greater agency, though their relationships with journalists and news content are now heavily mediated by technological systems that shape their experiences in often-invisible ways.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Historical shift: audiences moved from being seen as passive recipients (hypodermic needle model) to active participants who interpret and engage with news.
• Participation paradox: just because audiences can participate doesn't mean journalists will seek it or audiences will want to provide it—reciprocity matters.
• Fragmentation: audiences now access countless news sources and compete their attention across entertainment media, making monopolies difficult.
• Common confusion: more choice ≠ more control—algorithms and technological actants invisibly mediate what audiences see and how they experience news.
• Terminology matters: "public/citizens" implies civic duty, "consumers" implies commercial logic, "users" implies active agency—each frames the relationship differently.

📚 Defining audiences and terminology

📖 What "audience" means

Audience: the individuals and groups to whom products and services, like journalism, are produced for or in the service of.

• In journalism: readers, listeners, viewers that an outlet seeks to serve.
• The term chosen reveals underlying assumptions about the relationship.

🏷️ Different labels, different logics

Term	What it emphasizes	Underlying logic
Public / Citizens	Civic objective; democratic participation	Journalists should inform so people can participate intelligently in democracy
Consumers	Commercial logic; product consumption	Economic objectives over social ones
Users	Active agency; participation	Moves away from passive consumption; suggests active media use

• Don't confuse: these aren't just synonyms—each term carries different assumptions about power, purpose, and the audience-journalist relationship.

🕰️ How audience thinking has evolved

🎯 The hypodermic needle model (1930s)

• Early mass media theory saw audiences as:
  • Passive
  • Monolithic (one undifferentiated group)
  • Simply accepting media messages as intended by the sender
• This view declined progressively through the 1950s.

🔄 Modern view: audiences with agency

Today audiences are seen as having more ability to:

• Find news on their own terms
• Participate in how news is produced and distributed
• Interpret news through their own filters shaped by individual background and beliefs

This shift has profoundly changed both professional practice and academic thinking about audiences.

💰 Commercial pressures driving engagement

• Advertising revenue declined for many traditional media sectors.
• Outlets now rely more on subscription revenue, which increases when audiences feel engaged.
• Even state-supported and non-profit outlets use audience engagement to legitimize funding requests.
• Result: greater pressure to treat audiences as active participants to lower production costs and increase reach.

🤝 Participation: the two-way street

🚧 Why journalists historically resisted participation

• Professional identity: journalists believed they have a "sixth-sense" for news and specialized training.
• Perceived threats: audience participation was seen as an affront to:
  • Independence
  • Expertise
  • Quality of news content

✅ The cultural shift toward welcoming participation

Recent changes in the industry:

• Journalists have seen first-hand quality from citizen journalists.
• Technological actants make it easier to enlist audience help (e.g., reviewing large document troves from whistleblowers).
• Greater acceptance that audiences offer value through story ideas and social networks.
• Recognition that participation can serve more than just economic benefits.

⚖️ The reciprocity requirement

Just because participation is welcomed doesn't mean audiences will participate:

• Audiences are attuned to exploitation (being asked to do grunt work for free).
• Participatory journalism succeeds when relationships are reciprocal.
• Both journalists and audiences must feel they've gained something.
• Result: discussions now include terms like "reciprocal journalism."

Example: Asking audiences to review documents works when they feel their contribution matters, not when they're treated as an appendix doing grunt work.

📡 Fragmentation of the audience landscape

🌐 From monopoly to abundance

Then (1960s–1970s):

• Tens of millions watched a single news broadcast (e.g., CBS Evening News).
• Audiences bound to local delivery zones and limited channels.

Now:

• Audiences easily navigate to multiple specialized sources (national, regional, sports, Supreme Court coverage).
• Can stream from different locations and affiliates at will.
• Access to international sources (BBC on YouTube).

📉 The long-tail distribution

• Cost of switching between outlets is lower than ever (money and convenience).
• Result: difficult for any single outlet to gain near-monopoly.
• Pattern emerges:
  • Few large organizations capture large audiences (brand recognition)
  • Steep drop-off to a long tail of thousands of outlets
  • Most outlets capture only niche audiences
  • Many outlets deemed interchangeable by users

🎬 Competition beyond news

• Audiences have more options for other media (Netflix, Twitch streamers).
• Entertainment media competes with news for finite time and attention.
• Further fragments audiences as they turn to different organizations for different needs instead of one source (like CBS or NBC) for news, culture, and entertainment.

🤖 Technological actants mediating the experience

🔍 Invisible algorithmic curation

Technological actants play an important role in mediating the interactions between news audiences and journalistic actors.

Example: YouTube search

• User searches for news about a recent event.
• Algorithms decide how to order search results.
• Algorithms optimized to promote provocative/controversial content that keeps users on platform longer.
• Result: audiences given false sense of control as algorithms invisibly promote certain content while hiding alternatives.

🎯 Personalization in action

The excerpt provides a detailed example of Dr. Zamith visiting a news website:

1. First opinion piece shown: about climate change (based on past browsing behavior analysis)
2. Third paragraph: tailored with local climate data for Amherst (based on IP address location)
3. Image presentation: map zoomed to Amherst on phone; full U.S. interactive map on laptop (based on device detection)

Throughout: multiple technological actants intervened in fairly invisible ways.

⚠️ Benefits and dangers of personalization

Potential benefits:

• Story feels more engaging
• Gets audiences to care more about issues

Potential problems:

• Highly different stories shown based on political ideology, race/ethnicity, or economic status
• Makes it harder for a public to have shared sense of reality
• Scholars argue shared reality is important for democratic deliberation

💬 Changed communication patterns

Old model:

• Longer, slower, private exchanges (letters, emails)

New model:

• Brief, immediate, public exchanges (Twitter)
• Can result in more meaningful and direct participation
• Can also promote negative participation: "brigading" and strategic harassment of journalists

Don't confuse: more direct communication doesn't automatically mean better communication—the medium shapes the nature of interaction.

🎯 Key implications

🔑 The agency paradox

• Audiences have more agency than ever before
• Yet technological actants constrain and shape that agency in invisible ways
• True control is often illusory when algorithms mediate access and presentation

🔑 The participation equation

• Participation requires three elements:
  1. Journalists willing to seek/accept it
  2. Audiences willing to provide it
  3. Reciprocal value exchange (not exploitation)
• Missing any element means participation fails

🔑 The fragmentation challenge

• More choices for audiences
• Harder for outlets to build large, stable audiences
• Competition from non-news media for attention
• Threatens traditional business models and shared public discourse

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Journalistic activities are routinized practices that shape news production, distribution, and consumption through five distinct stages, and while historically human-led, they are increasingly being performed independently by technological actants like algorithms.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• What journalistic activities are: routinized practices influenced by long-standing institutional logics, processes, and cultural values that enable efficient collaboration across the multi-stage journalism process.
• Five core stages: access and observation, selection and filtering, processing and editing, distribution, and interpretation—each with distinct functions and participants.
• Evolution from insular to social: journalism has shifted from isolated production (journalist writes, story appears on doorstep) to interactive processes involving social media trends, audience solicitation, and ongoing feedback.
• Common confusion: technological actants vs. human actors—historically technology supported human work, but now algorithms can independently write stories, post them, and promote them with limited human intervention.
• Why it matters: understanding these activities reveals how news is made, who participates at each stage, and how automation is reshaping journalism's fundamental practices.

📋 The five stages of journalistic activities

🔍 Access and observation

Access and observation: the information gathering stage of news production.

• What it involves: gathering source material and identifying patterns.
  • Attending press conferences
  • Being present at protests
  • Gaining access to confidential government reports
  • Identifying patterns (e.g., which Congress members receive donations from certain industries)
• Who participates now: regular citizens can serve as observers by streaming events or capturing incidents that professional journalists cannot observe first-hand.
• Example: A Minneapolis teenager filmed the murder of George Floyd, providing crucial material for journalistic coverage and generating media attention to police violence against people of color in summer 2020.

✂️ Selection and filtering

Selection and filtering: the stage wherein gathered information is winnowed down to its most interesting and/or important parts.

• What it involves: deciding what to include in a news product and where to include it.
• The challenge: looking at all potential story angles from an event and choosing which to cover.
• Example: At a protest, a journalist might focus on:
  • The size of turnout
  • Police response to protesters
  • History of the issue being protested
  • Potential solutions to the issue
• Key decision: even with time/space to cover every angle, journalists must decide which aspect leads the story.

✏️ Processing and editing

Processing and editing: the stage wherein gathered and filtered information is turned into a news product, often by following certain stylistic guidelines.

• Structural guidelines: journalists may use the inverted pyramid schema—most timely and important information at the top, followed by decreasingly important details, ending with non-essential background.
• Language choices: using non-emotive language to signal neutrality.
  • Example: saying a policy proposal was "dismissed" instead of "lambasted"
• Multiple participants: supervising editors, copy editors, layout/web editors may all modify the news product as it moves through the production chain.

📡 Distribution

Distribution: the stage wherein news products are disseminated to audiences.

Historical vs. current roles:

Aspect	Historical	Current
Who distributes	Dedicated personnel (print workers, delivery workers)	Newsroom personnel directly participate
Methods	Physical printing and delivery	Social media linking, online community engagement
Audience role	Passive recipients	Active distributors who share stories and help them go viral

• Shift in participation: newsroom personnel now link to their own stories on social media and engage in online communities where potential audiences congregate.
• Audience power: audiences drive attention to stories by sharing them, determining which news products go viral.

💬 Interpretation

Interpretation: the discussion around the distributed news product and how it becomes widely understood and accepted by the general population.

Who influences interpretation:

• Journalists: through specific words and story angles used to describe issues or events
• Editors: through headlines and accompanying pictures
• Audiences: through comments sections, social media sharing contexts, and their own rebuttals via blogging platforms

Don't confuse: interpretation is not just what journalists intend—audiences play a crucial role in how news products are ultimately understood.

🔄 Evolution from insular to social journalism

📜 Historical model: insular practice

• Journalists wrote for audiences they knew relatively little about and received little input from.
• Process: journalist identifies important story → reports and writes it → answers questions they think audiences probably have → editors and production staff process it → appears on doorstep → end of lifecycle.
• Limited interaction between journalists and audiences.

🌐 Contemporary model: social practice

• Story identification: journalists look at social media trends to identify story ideas.
• Collaboration: journalists put out open calls to solicit help in running down tips.
• Feedback loops: journalists receive frequent audience feedback after publication.
• Ongoing engagement: journalists respond to questions on social media and tweet updates based on audience interest.
• Key difference: journalism is now more social and less insular.

🤖 The changing role of technological actants

👥 Historical relationship: technology supports humans

• Journalistic activities were historically human-led.
• Technological actants acted largely in a support role to help enact human-led objectives more efficiently.
• Example: content management systems made it possible for journalists to quickly write stories (with automated spell- and grammar-checking help) and move them to human editors, but humans still did much of the core labor.

🔀 Contemporary shift: inverted roles

• Role reversal: in some instances, human social actors now play the support role while technological actants take the primary journalistic role.
• Algorithmic independence: technological actants sometimes act with a remarkable degree of independence.

What algorithms can now do:

1. Newswriting: take in large numbers of electronic financial reports, identify the most interesting changes from the previous quarter, and write thousands of news stories similar to what a human journalist might produce.
2. Publishing: take those stories and post them to an organization's website with clever headlines.
3. Promotion: automatically promote stories on social media.
4. Limited human intervention: all of this can be done with limited human involvement, beyond the work that goes into setting up the algorithm.

📊 Current state of algorithmic journalism

Prevalence:

Sector	Algorithmic Role
General journalism	Still the exception
Finance and sports	Central—The Associated Press publishes tens of thousands of algorithmically written stories each year
News organization	A major Swedish journalistic media chain uses algorithms to automatically organize news stories on homepages using personalization and algorithmic editorial judgment

Don't confuse: while algorithmically led activities are still exceptional in general journalism, they have become central in specific sectors like finance and sports reporting.

🔧 Why routines matter but also change

🏛️ The foundation: routinized practices

Routinized practices: ways of doing things that follow certain routines.

• What shapes them: long-standing institutional logics, processes, and cultural values.
• Why they exist: make it possible for different kinds of social actors and technological actants to not only work together but also work efficiently across the multi-stage process of producing journalism.
• Predictability: journalistic activities are often organized around predictable routines shaped by history.

🔄 The reality: continuous iteration

• Journalistic activities are not static or unchangeable.
• They frequently iterate as new configurations of social actors, technological actants, and audiences emerge.
• Drivers of change: social, political, economic, and technological changes within media industries and society at large.
• Current state: journalistic activities are continually iterating before our eyes.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Media dependency theory explains that the influence of journalistic media on audiences depends on the context, the relationships within the information system, and the degree of ambiguity surrounding the information people need.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Core claim: In modern societies, individuals rely on media to satisfy various needs and goals, but journalistic outlets are just one part of a broader information system that includes personal contacts, institutions, and direct experience.
• What determines dependency: An individual's characteristics and goals, their personal network, and the dominant media/social systems all shape how much they depend on media for information.
• Ambiguity increases dependency: The more unclear or uncertain information is, the more people depend on journalistic outlets to understand it—especially for international affairs or topics outside personal experience.
• Exclusivity creates power: When a media organization has exclusive information, it gains more power in the relationship because of information asymmetry.
• Common confusion: Media dependency theory rejects both the hypodermic needle perspective (media are all-powerful) and the limited effects perspective (media have little effect)—instead, effects depend on context.

🌐 Journalistic media within the information system

🗂️ The broader information system

Journalistic outlets are just one group of social actors within a broader system of information.

• The information system includes:
  • Other mass media actors (movies, books)
  • Institutional actors (politicians, non-media corporations)
  • Personal contacts (friends, family)
  • Personal experiences (attending events, study abroad)
• This perspective emphasizes context: understanding people's interaction with information is crucial to understanding journalism's role.
• Example: If you want to learn about a topic, you might get information from a news article, a friend who experienced it, or your own observation—journalism is one option among many.

🚫 Rejecting simplistic theories

The theory explicitly rejects two earlier perspectives:

Perspective	Core claim	Why rejected
Hypodermic needle (1930s)	Mass media are incredibly powerful; people accept information as-is	Too simplistic; ignores context and other information sources
Limited effects (1940s–50s)	Mass media have little to no effect	Too dismissive; the magnitude of effect depends on context

• Media dependency theory takes a middle ground: effects exist but vary based on the system and relationships.

🔗 What shapes dependency relationships

🎯 Individual characteristics and goals

• How interested someone is in a topic affects their dependency.
• Example: If you are passionate about politics, you have a personal goal to learn more, which may increase your reliance on media for that information.

👥 Personal environment and interpersonal network

• Whether you know people with first-hand experience affects how much you need media.
• Example: If you lack security clearance to review intelligence reports yourself and don't know any intelligence officers, you must depend on third parties (like journalists) for information about election interference.

🏛️ Dominant media and social systems

• How free you are to access news media you believe would be informative affects dependency.
• The systems you live within shape what information is available and how you can access it.

🔄 Dependency changes over time

• As your information network changes, the kinds and degrees of dependence also change.
• Example: If a whistleblower leaks intelligence reports online, you may become less dependent on a journalist's interpretation and more dependent on the whistleblower for access to raw information.
• Don't confuse: Dependency is not static—it shifts as new actors enter the system or as your goals and networks evolve.

🌫️ Ambiguity and media dependency

🌫️ How ambiguity increases dependency

The degree of ambiguity about news information impacts the degree of media dependency.

• As news information becomes more ambiguous (less clear), audiences become more dependent on journalistic outlets for understanding.
• Ambiguity can come from:
  • Lack of knowledge: e.g., whether a new technology from a rival nation poses a threat.
  • Rapid change: e.g., whether an emerging coup in a friendly nation will impact diplomatic relations.
  • Disagreement among elites: e.g., which political group is correct about the costs and benefits of a renewable energy plan.

🌍 International affairs and dependency

Journalism can be especially influential on people's understanding of emerging international affairs.

• People typically have more ambiguity about the world beyond their immediate geography because:
  • They may lack recent or any personal experience in those contexts (e.g., never been to Cambodia).
  • They may not have personal contacts with expert knowledge or experience in those contexts.
• Because of this, people become more dependent on media depictions of those places, peoples, and issues.
• Example: If you have never visited a foreign country and don't know anyone from there, you rely more heavily on news coverage to understand developments in that region.

🔐 Exclusivity and power dynamics

🔐 Exclusive information increases power

When a media organization has exclusive information, it tends to have more power within its relationship with an audience member (and the broader ecosystem) because it increases the degree of information asymmetry.

• Exclusivity means being the only source for information at a given time.
• This is especially powerful if:
  • The information is in demand to satisfy an individual's valued goals.
  • Access to such information is tightly controlled.
• Example: In the early hours following a chemical explosion at a local plant, journalists may be the first to report it, giving them exclusive information before officials hold a press conference.

🚧 Institutional actors can restrict access

• Journalistic media do not inherently get exclusive information.
• Governments or private companies can restrict:
  • Media access to important resources and people.
  • Individuals' access to certain journalistic outlets.
• By doing so, these actors try to reorient dependency away from journalistic media and toward their own version of events.
• Example: A private company may prevent news media from accessing a manufacturing plant or speaking to employees; government officials may prevent journalists from broadcasting information until they give approval.

📱 Modern media ecology and intermediaries

• Media dependency theory was first proposed during a time of high media concentration (few major broadcast networks).
• Today's media ecology is far more complex:
  • Mobile devices and networked media (social media, messaging apps) allow individuals to serve as intermediaries between mass media and other people.
  • Individuals with large online followings can become key brokers of news information during an event, gaining power through others' dependence on them—even if only temporarily.
  • People can now more easily find videos and accounts posted by others who observed an event first-hand, reducing the exclusivity any one actor might have.
• Don't confuse: The theory still applies, but the system now includes more actors and pathways for information flow.

🏭 Importance of journalistic media in modern societies

🏭 Why journalistic outlets are often important

• Although journalistic outlets are just one of many constituents within information systems, they are often important.
• People generally need journalistic media to function in modern societies, which are more co-dependent than ever due to:
  • Increased specialization.
  • Globalization.
• Personal contacts and experience are no longer enough to satisfy all (or even most) of the things a person needs to know to fully participate in modern social life.

🔍 Journalistic media as a necessary resource

• Example: You might need journalism to learn where to vote, stay up-to-date on fashion trends, understand foreign policy, or grasp the implications of a new technology.
• The theory underscores that in complex, information-based societies, journalistic media help bridge gaps in knowledge that personal networks and direct experience cannot fill.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Framing theory explains how journalists shape audiences' perceptions of reality through selective presentation and emphasis of information, influencing not just what people think about but how they understand and evaluate issues.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Core premise: Reality is socially constructed; journalism cannot mirror reality but only approximates it through selective choices about what to include and emphasize.
• The framing process: Involves selection (what to include/exclude) and salience (what to emphasize/downplay), both consciously and subconsciously.
• Four framing acts: Diagnosing problems, diagnosing causes, making moral evaluations, and recommending treatments.
• Common confusion: Framing vs. agenda-setting—framing shapes attitudes toward issues, while agenda-setting influences perceived importance of issues.
• Impact variability: Frames interact with audiences' existing knowledge and experiences; effects are strongest when audiences lack personal experience with a topic.

🌍 Social construction of reality

🧩 Reality as construction, not objective truth

Social Construction of Reality: the perspective that a person's perception of reality is not entirely (or even mainly) objective but is instead a human and social construction shaped by lived experiences and socialization.

• What we perceive as "reality" is filtered through our previous experiences and social interactions.
• Different people construct different realities even when inhabiting the same spaces under the same circumstances.
• Why it matters: Individuals act based on their unique perceptions of reality, not on some universal "true" reality.

Example: Two witnesses to the same police incident may perceive completely different realities—one sees necessary force, the other sees brutality—and will act accordingly (e.g., protesting vs. supporting police).

📸 Why journalism cannot mirror reality

The excerpt identifies two reasons journalism cannot simply reflect reality:

Reason	Explanation
Human limitation	Journalists cannot fully capture "true" reality due to their own human shortcomings and perceptions
Practical constraint	Even if possible, journalists lack time/space to show everything; they must select what to include

• Even mechanical recording (e.g., pointing a camera at a protest) involves choices: camera angle, distance, framing.
• Journalists must make sense of events by connecting facts—an inherently interpretive and constructive act.

Don't confuse: "Approximation" doesn't mean journalism is false; it means journalism is necessarily partial and interpretive.

🔧 The framing process

✂️ Selection and salience

The framing process involves two key sub-processes:

• Selection: Choices about what to include or exclude about perceived reality.
• Salience: Choices about what to emphasize or downplay.

These choices are driven by practical necessity (limited time/space) and operate both consciously and subconsciously.

Example: A 30-second broadcast segment or a handful of tweets cannot convey everything about a protest; the journalist must choose which aspects to show and which to highlight.

🎯 Four acts of media framing

Media framing: the process by which an individual "selects some aspects of a perceived reality and makes them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation."

The excerpt describes four main framing acts:

Act	What it does	Example (protest coverage)
Diagnosing problems	Defines the issues associated with a topic	Problem = police excessive force OR vilification of police
Diagnosing causes	Identifies main forces driving the problem	Cause = hurtful police culture OR inadequate training
Making moral evaluations	Asserts whether agents/consequences are good or bad	Protests = good (catalyst for change) OR bad (divisive)
Recommending treatments	Describes potential solutions	Solution = systemic reform OR more support for police

Important: A single news story does not need to include all four acts; many stories (especially neutral ones) include only some elements.

🧠 Conscious and subconscious choices

• Journalists may consciously adopt a frame to address audience questions.
• They may subconsciously reject alternative frames based on what competitors have recently covered.
• Sources quoted in stories also shape frames—a journalist may add moral evaluation by including a source who calls police actions "brutal and unprofessional."

📊 Media frames and their construction

📝 What is a media frame?

Media frame: the written, spoken, graphical, or visual message that a communicator uses to contextualize a topic (person, event, episode, or issue) within a text transmitted to receivers by means of mediation.

• Media frames are tools that simplify and contextualize issues or events.
• They result from the selection and salience processes described above.
• They help audiences make sense of complex information within limited time/space.

💭 Impact on audiences

🎭 How frames influence understanding

Journalistic frames often impact audiences' understandings of and attitudes toward topics, influencing the realities audience members construct.

This includes:

• Basic interpretations (what happened)
• Broader notions (what's most important/problematic)
• Judgments (who are good/bad actors)
• Solutions (what are sensible responses)

🧪 Gain/loss framing example

The excerpt provides a concrete illustration:

Scenario: 600 people infected by dangerous virus; two treatment options.

• Brief 1 (positive frame): Treatment A saves 200 people; Treatment B has 1/3 chance of saving all 600, 2/3 chance of saving nobody.
• Brief 2 (negative frame): Treatment A means 400 die; Treatment B has 1/3 chance nobody dies, 2/3 chance all 600 die.

Key insight: The two briefs are functionally equivalent, but readers shown Brief 1 tend to prefer the risk-averse option (A), while those shown Brief 2 tend to prefer the risk-seeking option (B).

⚖️ Variability of frame effects

Modern theories reject the view that audiences passively accept frames. Instead:

• Audiences process messages in light of existing knowledge and attitudes shaped by lived experiences and non-media messages.
• Personal experience matters: someone with negative police encounters is more likely to accept (or reject) frames that center police as aggressors.
• Repeated exposure develops associations over time—e.g., repeated images of police brutality link "police" and "brutality" concepts.
• Counter-frames can weaken existing associations—e.g., repeated exposure to police doing good deeds challenges negative connections.

🌐 When frames are most powerful

Frames have greatest impact when:

• Individuals are highly dependent on journalistic media for understanding (limited personal experience).
• Greater ambiguity exists around an issue (fewer preexisting associations).
• Contexts, people, and ideas are new or foreign to the individual.

Don't confuse: High dependency doesn't mean total control—audiences still filter frames through their existing knowledge.

🔄 Journalists as audiences

📰 The feedback loop

Journalistic actors are themselves audiences who:

• Have their own lived experiences.
• Regularly consume media messages from other actors.
• Are impacted by repeated exposure to certain frames and associations.

Consequences:

• Journalists may subconsciously repeat elements of dominant frames in their work, reifying those frames and making associations more salient in society.
• Aware journalists may intentionally challenge dominant frames by including counter-frames that weaken problematic associations.

This creates a potential feedback loop where journalistic frames influence other journalists, who then reinforce or challenge those frames in their own work.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Agenda-setting theory demonstrates that journalistic media exert significant influence not by telling audiences what to think, but by shaping which issues audiences perceive as important through patterns of coverage frequency and prominence.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Core mechanism: More media attention on an issue → audiences perceive that issue as more important (regardless of actual importance).
• Not about attitude formation: Agenda-setting focuses on perceived importance of issues, while framing theory addresses attitude formation toward those issues.
• Context-dependent effects: Agenda-setting effects vary based on audience need for orientation (relevance + uncertainty), issue obtrusiveness, and media system openness.
• Common confusion: Agenda-setting is not a conspiracy to manipulate; it reflects practical constraints (time/space limits) and audience information needs.
• Intermedia influence: Journalistic outlets influence each other's agendas, creating feedback loops, though this dynamic is weakening as media ecosystems diversify.

📺 The core agenda-setting mechanism

📺 Issue salience drives perceived importance

Agenda setting: the process by which mass media present certain issues frequently and prominently, resulting in large segments of the public perceiving those issues as more important than others.

• The central causal mechanism is straightforward: issue salience in media → perceived importance by audiences.
• Example: Sustained journalistic coverage of immigration over several months leads news consumers to think immigration is an important issue at that time—even without strong personal opinions about it.
• This is about which issues matter, not how people feel about them.

🔍 How agenda-setting differs from framing

Theory	What it explains	Focus
Agenda-setting	Which issues are perceived as important	Relationship between coverage and perceived importance
Framing	How people think about issues	Connection between coverage and attitude formation

• Both address potential impacts of journalistic media coverage, but they are very different.
• Don't confuse: Agenda-setting = "what to think about"; Framing = "how to think about it."
• The excerpt quotes Bernard Cohen: media "may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about."

⚙️ Why agenda-setting happens

⚙️ Journalistic constraints force selection

• Time and space limitations: An evening news broadcast often has just 22 minutes to cover the day's most important issues and events.
• Journalists must make decisions about what matters most to their audiences.
• Even online, where space is less restricted, editors must organize information—placing a story at the top of a homepage offers a salience cue (it's presumed most important).
• This is not conspiratorial manipulation; it reflects practical realities of media production.

🧭 Audience need for orientation

Need for orientation: a desire to understand new or emerging situations, impacted by relevance and uncertainty.

• Relevance: "Do I think this issue is personally or socially important to me?"
• Uncertainty: "Do I feel I lack the information I need about this topic?"
• When both relevance and uncertainty are high, audience members pay greater attention to journalistic outlets' salience cues → stronger agenda-setting effect.
• Unobtrusive issues (those people have little personal experience with, such as international affairs) make audiences more likely to rely on media cues for assessing importance.

🌐 Contextual factors that shape effects

🌐 When agenda-setting is stronger or weaker

• Stronger effects: High relevance + high uncertainty; unobtrusive issues; open media systems.
• Weaker effects: Closed media systems (tightly controlled by governments)—people trust journalistic media less and actively seek other sources, drawing more on personal assessments.
• The excerpt emphasizes: "Agenda-setting effects are therefore not uniform or universal. They are instead dependent on the context."
• As Cohen wrote: "the world will look different to different people depending on the map that is drawn for them by writers, editors, and publishers of the paper they read."

🔄 Intermedia agenda-setting

Intermedia agenda-setting: the process by which journalistic media influence one another.

• Just as regular citizens turn to trusted journalistic outlets for cues about what is important, journalistic outlets themselves turn to other media they perceive as leaders.
• Example: The New York Times covers U.S. troops withdrawing from Syria → a local newspaper perceives this as important and devotes resources to covering a local angle (e.g., local families with returning service members).
• This historically led to reasonably consistent perceptions of which issues are most important at a given time, because journalistic outlets generally follow similar issue agendas.
• Don't confuse: This doesn't mean all outlets cover the exact same issues in the same way; rather, dominant coverage patterns often emerge across media.

📱 Changing media ecosystems

• Intermedia agenda-setting has required reconceptualization in recent years.
• The news ecology has become more complex: niche and alternative media have grown; social media have transformed news engagement.
• While elite journalistic outlets like The New York Times may still shape initial perception of issues, active audiences now blend messages from a greater range of journalistic and non-journalistic media.
• This ostensibly weakens elite outlets' agenda-setting power.
• Additionally, the transformation of news distribution (more social today) and new ways for audiences to engage with journalistic actors enable active audiences to increasingly shape media agendas themselves—a feedback loop.

🔗 Connection to priming theory

🔗 How memory mechanisms support agenda-setting

The excerpt briefly connects agenda-setting to priming theory (detailed in the following chapter):

• First pathway: Repeated journalistic coverage of an issue → individual associates that issue with more concepts → increases likelihood the issue will be triggered later (more opportunities to trigger it).
• Second pathway: Repeated journalistic coverage → increases availability of information related to that issue by bringing it to the top of an individual's mind → increases likelihood the issue will be triggered later (easier to access).
• Both pathways influence perceptions about how important an issue is because of how easily it is recalled.

🧠 Framing takes an extra step

• Framing theory draws on the same core propositions about human memory but differs from agenda-setting.
• Framing is not simply about availability of information; it argues media can also influence attitudes toward those issues by rewiring associations between that issue and different concepts.
• Example: Relating "climate change" to "bad" and "anthropogenic" (human-caused).

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Priming theory explains how media depictions activate related thoughts in audiences' minds by strengthening or weakening associations between concepts, which in turn influences how people recall information and form judgments.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Core mechanism: Media depictions stimulate related thoughts by activating associative networks in memory, where the direction and strength of ties between concepts matter.
• Two memory types: Explicit memory (conscious recall) vs. implicit memory (subconscious associations that guide behavior without deliberate thought).
• Recency and availability: People rely on shortcuts using the most readily available associations—especially recent ones from journalistic coverage—rather than all stored information.
• Connection to other theories: Agenda-setting focuses on issue availability and importance; framing goes further by rewiring attitudes toward issues through concept associations.
• Common confusion: Priming effects are neither uniform nor universal—they are often short-lived in isolation, context-dependent, and strongest when audiences lack existing knowledge about a topic.

🧠 How human memory works in priming

🔗 Associative network model

In this associative network model of memory, the direction and strength of the ties between ideas and concepts matter.

• Concepts are linked in networks where one idea can trigger another.
• Direction matters: Thinking about "extreme weather" may trigger "bad," but thinking about "bad" may not trigger "extreme weather" (or only sometimes).
• Strength matters: Stronger ties between concepts result in faster recall of associations.
• Example: If media repeatedly connects "climate change" with "extreme weather," that association becomes stronger and more easily activated.

🧩 Explicit vs. implicit memory

Memory Type	Definition	Key Characteristic	Example from Excerpt
Explicit	Things an individual actively tries to recall	Conscious recall; can explain associations	"Who is the best professor you've ever had?"
Implicit	Things not purposely recalled	Subconscious; may be hard to explain but guides behavior	How to ride a bicycle without falling

• Don't confuse: Both types store associations, but explicit memory involves conscious effort while implicit memory operates automatically.

⚡ Shortcuts and availability

• People do not use all stored associations when making sense of information.
• Instead, they take shortcuts to connect an information need to the most readily available previously stored associations.
• Recent associations are emphasized—particularly recent journalistic coverage of relevant issues.
• This explains why recent media exposure has disproportionate influence on judgments.

🔄 Connections to agenda-setting and framing

📰 Agenda-setting and priming

The excerpt describes two related pathways:

1. More concept connections: Repeated coverage associates an issue with more concepts, increasing opportunities to trigger it later.
2. Increased availability: Repeated coverage brings an issue to the top of mind, making it easier to access.

• Both pathways influence perceptions of issue importance through ease of recall.
• The focus is on availability of information, not attitudes toward it.

🖼️ Framing and priming

• Framing theory shares core propositions about memory mechanisms but takes an extra step.
• It's not just about availability—framing argues media can influence attitudes toward issues by rewiring associations.
• Example: Relating "climate change" to both "bad" and "anthropogenic" shapes not just recall but evaluation.

🎯 Stereotypes and counter-priming

• Scholars use these frameworks to assess journalistic roles in promoting associations like "people of color" with "poverty," "crime," and "urban blight."
• Such associations may result from over-representation in coverage (e.g., crime involving people of color in local TV news).
• Counter-priming: Depicting people of color as successful, community leaders, in pleasant neighborhoods can strategically counter stereotypes.
• Rejection risk: Primes can backfire—a story about police self-defense may be rejected by someone with multiple negative police encounters.

⏱️ Duration and context of priming effects

⚡ Short-lived but cumulative

• In isolation, priming effects are often short-lived—lasting as little as 90 seconds.
• Effects weaken over time if not triggered again.
• However: Repetition strengthens associations, leading to more lasting effects.
• The strongest associations are often promoted during youth and reinforced throughout life within lived contexts.
• Example: Higher local TV news viewing → more crime stories featuring people of color as perpetrators → greater concerns about people of color or perception that such crime is important.

🎤 Journalists' responsibility with sources

• Effects don't depend solely on journalists' own words.
• Journalists may use careful language and avoid stereotypes, but they quote individuals who may use language strengthening or weakening concept associations.
• Critical point: Audiences often do not meaningfully differentiate between journalists' words and sources' words.
• This underscores journalists' responsibility when selecting who and what to quote.

🌍 When priming is most and least powerful

💪 Maximum impact conditions

• Media priming is most powerful when individuals have little existing knowledge about a target concept (e.g., "nuclear power").
• Audiences are more susceptible to media-driven associations when contexts, people, and ideas are new or foreign.
• Put another way: Priming is especially impactful when audiences are most dependent on journalistic outlets for understanding.

🛡️ Limiting factors

Three main reasons priming effects are not uniform or universal:

1. Message complexity: News is incredibly complex with many competing cues within a single message (e.g., an article), triggering multifaceted responses.
2. Media environment complexity: Journalistic outlets operate alongside entertainment, popular culture, politics, etc.
3. Personal experience dominance: Individuals establish associations—often the strongest ones—based on personal experiences or those relayed by trusted sources like family and friends.

• Key conclusion: To fully understand a priming effect, one must understand the environment and context around the prime.
• Don't confuse: Media priming is one influence among many, not the sole determinant of associations.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

News avoidance—whether intentional or unintentional—has grown in recent decades despite increased journalism production, posing challenges to democratic participation and journalistic sustainability, though strategies like constructive journalism and transparency may reduce avoidance.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• What news avoidance is: audiences reducing journalistic media consumption over a continuous period, often excluding certain genres (e.g., political journalism) while consuming others (e.g., sports journalism).
• Two types of avoidance: intentional (conscious tuning out due to negativity, distrust, or overload) vs. unintentional (preference for non-journalistic content).
• Temporary states: news fatigue (exhaustion requiring a break) and compassion fatigue (gradual lessening of compassion from repeated trauma exposure) are often temporary rather than permanent.
• Common confusion: news fatigue vs. compassion fatigue—fatigue is general exhaustion from any issue; compassion fatigue specifically involves numbing to traumatic phenomena and can lead to desensitization and resistance to helping.
• Why it matters: avoidance reduces political knowledge and engagement, shrinks audience size (harming outlets economically), and can decrease support for humanitarian initiatives.

📉 Understanding news avoidance

📖 Definition and scope

News avoidance: a phenomenon where audiences reduce their consumption of journalistic media over a continuous period of time due to either an active dislike for news or a preference for other kinds of media content.

• Many theories assume large portions of the public regularly consume journalistic media, but large segments actually don't.
• Although more journalism is produced today than ever before, the number of people avoiding journalism has increased in recent decades.
• Avoidance is typically genre-specific: people may consume sports journalism while intentionally avoiding political journalism.

🏛️ Democratic and economic consequences

Democratic impact:

• Higher news exposure has historically been linked to greater political knowledge and engagement.
• Avoidance undermines the well-informed citizenry that democratic societies presumably rely upon for self-governance.

Economic impact:

• Reduces the potential audience size for journalistic outlets.
• Fewer resources mean less capacity to produce quality journalism, which also harms non-avoiders.

🎯 Types of avoidance

🚫 Intentional avoidance

Intentional avoidance is the consequence of individuals consciously tuning out news media, linked to three main negative dispositions:

Reason	Explanation	Mechanism
Perceived negativity	News coverage seen as too negative and pessimistic	Negative news linked to increased negative emotions and decreased well-being over time; desire for positive emotions drives avoidance
Lack of trust	Perception that outlets push their own political/economic interests	Belief that coverage is selective and biased against one's viewpoints or reality encourages avoidance
Information overload	Massive amount of accessible journalistic products	Seemingly endless pool of issues and stories creates stress, confusion, and anxiety; avoidance helps reclaim positive emotional state

• Example: A person perceives that "the media" as a whole is being selective about topics and information, creating bias against their worldview, so they consciously stop consuming those outlets.

🎬 Unintentional avoidance

Unintentional avoidance is based on relative preference for non-journalistic media.

• Not actively seeking to avoid journalistic media; simply prefer another choice more strongly.
• Example: A person chooses to watch a new movie instead of news—the avoidance isn't because they dislike news, but because their preference for the movie is stronger.
• Historical context: Large television news audiences in the 1960s–1970s were partly due to people watching news while waiting for evening entertainment programs that followed newscasts.

⚖️ Don't confuse

• Intentional vs. unintentional: Intentional = conscious rejection of news due to negative disposition; unintentional = simply preferring other content without active dislike.

😓 Temporary exhaustion states

🔋 News fatigue

News fatigue: a temporary feeling of exhaustion that can be addressed through a period of disconnection (recharging).

• News avoidance does not have to be permanent; it is often a temporary state.
• Occurs when individuals feel overwhelmed and need a break from an issue.
• Example: During the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, a person exposed to several pandemic stories daily for months may disconnect from news sources to protect their mental state, then resume consumption after a break (and perhaps need another break later).
• Can occur with any issue or genre (royal weddings, political journalism), but typically most pronounced with natural disasters, illnesses, poverty, and political issues that already engender negative emotional responses.

💔 Compassion fatigue

Compassion fatigue: the gradual lessening of compassion over time as a result of repeated exposure to traumatic phenomena.

• Example: The Syrian Civil War refugee crisis (at least 13 million Syrians displaced and needing humanitarian assistance)—as the war dragged on over years, audiences moved from shock to numbness to psychologically protect themselves from repeated exposure to death and destruction.
• Associated with increased feelings of hopelessness and negative attitudes.
• Can lead to desensitization and even resistance to helping if the issue is perceived as intractable (impossible to manage or change).
• Individuals may seek to turn off certain emotions as best they can.

🌍 Broader impacts of compassion fatigue

Political and economic consequences:

• Can impact support for initiatives to address the issue.
• Example: Well-informed but fatigued news consumers may be less likely to become involved in protests against the Syrian Civil War than their less-informed but non-fatigued counterparts.

Beyond audiences:

• Not limited to news audiences or journalism; impacts doctors, child welfare workers, lawyers.
• Profound impacts on journalists themselves, especially foreign correspondents shuttled from crisis to crisis.
• Affects not only emotional and mental states but also the depictions and tropes journalists incorporate into their work.

⚖️ Don't confuse

• News fatigue vs. compassion fatigue: News fatigue is general exhaustion from any issue requiring a recharge; compassion fatigue specifically involves gradual lessening of compassion from repeated trauma exposure, leading to numbness and potential resistance to helping.

🛠️ Strategies to combat avoidance

✨ Constructive and solutions journalism

Constructive journalism:

• Aims to rebalance journalism by accompanying predominantly negative news stories with more positive coverage illustrating "bright spots" related to that issue.
• Example: Stories about how some Syrian refugees successfully relocated and started new lives, or how a local non-profit provided aid to displaced refugees.

Solutions journalism:

• Not only diagnoses problems (e.g., reasons for Syrian displacement) but also adopts a forward-looking perspective identifying possible solutions.
• Tends to offer concrete suggestions for audiences to become part of solutions.
• Example: Providing contact information for local nonprofits or identifying specific humanitarian aid legislation under consideration.

🔍 Increasing trust through transparency

• Being more transparent about how stories are reported and explaining journalistic processes.
• Example: Appending an information box to a story with anonymous sources that explains the organization's policy on granting anonymity.
• Example: Explaining that a product reviewer was not paid for the review, but the outlet may receive money if audiences purchase the product from an affiliated online store.

🐢 Slow journalism alternatives

• Moves away from many short, episodic breaking news products (e.g., breaking news stories or tweets).
• Promotes fewer, longer, and more holistic news products (e.g., a well-reported, in-depth story published a couple of days after news first broke).
• Not intended to replace traditional journalism, but to offer a complement for those stressed by information overload.

⚠️ Limitations

• Some measure of avoidance is inevitable despite these strategies.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

The Hierarchy of Influences Model demonstrates that news content is shaped by multiple factors operating simultaneously across five levels—from individual journalists to entire social systems—rather than by any single force.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• What the model does: formalizes the idea that many different factors influence news content, and these factors operate across different levels from micro (individual) to macro (society).
• Five levels identified: individual, routine, organizational, social-institutional, and social systems—arranged as concentric circles from smallest to broadest scope.
• No hierarchy of importance: the model does not claim any one level is more important than another, nor does it propose one-directional causality; all levels act upon one another simultaneously.
• Common confusion: the model is not about "if X then Y" causal relationships; it is a descriptive framework for appreciating the range of influences on journalism.
• Dynamic nature: as journalism and its environment change (e.g., new technologies, new actors like Facebook and Google), the factors and their influence also change.

🧑 Individual level influences

🧑 What shapes individual journalists

The individual level: the biographical, psychological, and sociological characteristics of an individual social actor.

• Attributes that matter: age, gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, class status.
• Why they matter: previous life experiences associated with these attributes may color interpretation of issues or what a journalist prioritizes when covering them.
• Values and beliefs: personal religious beliefs, political attitudes, and role orientations (what the journalist thinks the purpose of journalism is) all impact how they cover stories.

🧠 Conscious vs subconscious influence

• Many individual-level factors operate subconsciously.
• Example: a journalist may not knowingly decide to adopt a particular story angle because of their political leaning; instead, their political preference may subconsciously orient them toward that angle because they believe certain philosophies (like personal choice or the social good) are especially important.
• Don't confuse: individual influence is not always deliberate or conscious decision-making.

🔄 Routine and organizational levels

🔄 Routine level: patterned practices

The routine level: the patterned, repeated practices, forms, and rules that journalistic actors use to do their jobs.

• News values: criteria journalists apply to determine newsworthiness (e.g., if controversy is valued, controversial issues are more likely to be covered, especially when institutional elites disagree).
• Balance preference: institutional preference to offer "both sides" of an issue an equal voice, which can position both voices as equally legitimate even when that is not the case.
  • Example: climate change coverage often gave voice to skeptics (implying lack of scientific consensus) to appear balanced, even though leading scientists had long considered anthropogenic climate change real.
• Presentation styles: e.g., the inverted pyramid (organizing information from most recent/important to least), which is efficient but often comes at the expense of compelling narrative.
• These factors operate at a higher level because they reflect what is seen as appropriate or normal among fellow journalistic actors.

🏢 Organizational level: policies and economics

The organizational level: the policies, unwritten rules, and economic imperatives within journalistic organizations.

• Commercial vs professional balance: outlets must balance commercial concerns with professional ones; for-profit organizations face pressure to generate profits even though important journalism is often not cost-effective.
• Non-profit constraints: even non-profit media must work within a budget and promote their work to attract funding from benefactors (e.g., foundations).
• Media ownership: some owners are hands-off (as long as economic objectives are met); others actively dictate coverage priorities or become directly involved in shaping reporting of specific issues.
• Primary medium: whether the outlet focuses on print, online-first strategy, etc., impacts how they present information.
  • Example: a print-focused organization would not be expected to invest much in interactive data visualizations that only work online.
• Geographic location and bureaus: where the organization is based and whether they have satellite offices elsewhere affects the social make-up of journalists and the values/priorities reflected in coverage.

🌐 Social-institutional and social systems levels

🌐 Social-institutional level: external actors

The social-institutional level: the norms, individuals, and organizations that operate outside a given journalistic organization.

• Information sources: witnesses or interviewees shape news by the words they choose, the information they share, or simply by being willing or unwilling to talk.
• Other journalistic outlets: some serve as "pack leaders" that others follow or imitate; they can also influence coverage by publishing stories that competing organizations then avoid (because those stories are seen as "already having been done").
• Advertisers:
  • Can demand ads only appear alongside positive coverage (not wanting products associated with negative emotions), which can result in inadequate coverage of important but exhausting stories.
  • Can threaten to withdraw ads if they perceive the outlet represents values that do not reflect their own.
• Media policy:
  • Can restrict what outlets report on or how (e.g., state secrets laws prevent publishing anything the government deems threatening to national security).
  • "Fake news" laws enable authorities to fine or shut down journalists/outlets that produce news authorities disagree with.
  • Can have a "chilling effect" on what journalists choose to write or write about.
  • Conversely, can protect journalists from frivolous lawsuits by implementing penalties for individuals who sue journalists in bad faith.

🌍 Social systems level: societal frameworks

The social systems level: the symbolic frameworks of norms, values, and beliefs that reside at the societal level.

• This is the most macro level; it reflects ideas more generally accepted within a broad society.
• Example: United States:
  • Capitalism is the dominant economic system → issues are more likely framed in terms of how they affect private ownership, free markets, and pursuit of profit.
  • Democratic values remain dominant → journalists believe their role is to inform citizens so they may better participate in self-governance.
• Contrast with other systems:
  • In less-capitalistic systems, issues may be framed primarily in terms of the collective good.
  • In autocratic systems, journalists are more likely to believe their job is to help the government maintain social order.

🔗 How levels interact and why it matters

🔗 Mutual influence, not hierarchy

• The model does not presume any level is more important than another.
• It makes no claims about directionality of influences (e.g., social systems shaping individuals or vice versa).
• Instead, levels frequently act upon one another: individuals collectively shape values and norms at the social systems level, even as those values and norms help enable and restrict individual behaviors.

🔗 Independent or combined factors

• Each factor can operate independently or in conjunction with one or more others.
• Example (independent): advertiser influence on an organization may be entirely independent from the dominant presentation style; regardless of advertising, the organization may continue using the inverted pyramid style.
• Example (combined): if an organization is for-profit with aggressive profit targets, the existing influence of advertisers may become even stronger.

📚 Recognizing the range of influences

• The excerpt covers only a few factors; there are dozens more (detailed in the most recent edition of Mediating the Message).
• It is less important to classify each influence into a particular level; it is very useful to simply recognize that many things can influence journalists and journalism, and these influences can emanate from individuals to society as a whole.
• Don't confuse: the goal is not memorizing a taxonomy, but appreciating the breadth and complexity of influences.

🔄 Journalism is rapidly changing

• New social actors, technological actants, and journalistic activities are emerging or becoming increasingly important.
• Example: companies like Facebook and Google have staked important positions in news production and distribution, even though they claim they are not media organizations.
• Example: new digital advertising technologies have made it harder for advertisers to know where their ads will be placed online, and for online news organizations to know which ads will appear alongside their stories.
• As journalism and its environment change, so do the factors that might influence it, as well as the nature and extent of the influence those factors exert.
• What remains unchanged: journalism is regularly influenced in important ways by an array of different things.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

U.S. journalistic culture is characterized by high editorial autonomy, a strong commitment to professional ethics and neutrality, a focus on educating the public about civic affairs, and deep skepticism toward political institutions—all of which shape how journalists think, act, and legitimize their work to society.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Five core values of Western journalism: public service, impartiality/objectivity, independence, immediacy, and strong professional ethics form the occupational ideology.
• U.S. journalists report exceptional editorial autonomy: over 90% say they have complete or great freedom in deciding what to cover and how to emphasize stories, placing the U.S. at the high end globally.
• Role orientation emphasizes civic education and monitoring power: U.S. journalists prioritize reporting facts accurately, educating audiences for political participation, and scrutinizing political leaders—while rejecting advocacy or government support roles.
• Common confusion—values vs. practice: journalistic cultures describe how journalists think about their work and legitimize it, not necessarily how journalism is always practiced in reality.
• Why it matters: journalistic cultures shape journalists' decisions, determine what peers celebrate as "good" journalism, and influence how society grants access and protections to the press.

🌍 Journalistic cultures across contexts

🌍 Western occupational ideology (Deuze's framework)

Media scholar Mark Deuze identifies five central values that comprise the occupational ideology of journalism in Western societies (Global North):

1. Public service: journalists should serve citizens of a given country.
2. Impartiality, fairness, objectivity: journalists should be neutral and balanced.
3. Independence: journalists must work free from external control.
4. Immediacy: journalists must quickly report emerging developments.
5. Strong professional ethics: journalists must adhere to a broader professional code of ethics.

These values form the cultural identity and legitimization framework for journalists, even when practice does not always reflect them.

• Example: American movies often portray journalists as independent truth-tellers, reinforcing these cultural values.
• Don't confuse: these are ideological values (how journalists think about their identity), not descriptions of actual practice everywhere.

🔍 Moving beyond universal models

• Deuze's framework reflects Western ideology and implicitly assumes:
  • Separation of powers and checks-and-balances systems.
  • Journalistic outlets can remain independent from government.
• These assumptions do not hold in many countries (e.g., autocratic regimes).
• Scholars now prefer comparative frameworks that examine journalistic cultures across contexts rather than seeking one universal culture.

🗺️ Worlds of Journalism project dimensions

The Worlds of Journalism project compares journalistic cultures across dozens of countries using five dimensions:

Dimension	What it measures
Editorial autonomy	Independence in selecting and reporting news
Perceived influences	What factors journalists believe affect their work
Role orientations	What journalists see as their primary functions
Ethical considerations	How journalists approach ethical dilemmas
Trust in institutions	Journalists' confidence in political and social institutions

🇺🇸 Characteristics of U.S. journalistic culture

🗽 High editorial autonomy

Based on 2013 Worlds of Journalism interviews, U.S. journalists report consistently high editorial independence:

• Over 90% say they have "complete" or "a great deal" of freedom in deciding what aspects of a story to emphasize.
• Almost 90% report freedom in selecting which news stories to report.
• This places the U.S. at the high end globally; journalists in other countries typically report less independence.

⏱️ Perceived influences on work

U.S. journalists recognize several influences, but not government censorship or heavy external pressure:

High influence:

• Time limits: almost 70% say time pressure to publish quickly is "extremely" or "very influential."
• Editorial supervisors and policy: almost 70% report these are highly influential.

Low influence:

• Far fewer feel influenced by managers or owners of their news organizations.
• Government censorship, advertising pressures, and pressure groups (trade associations, lobbyists) are generally not perceived as highly influential.

🎯 Role orientations: civic education and monitoring power

Nearly all U.S. journalists prioritize the following roles:

🎯 Reporting things as they are

• It is "extremely" or "very important" to never fabricate information, even if fabrications might tell a 'broader truth.'
• Accuracy and factual reporting are paramount.

📚 Educating audiences for civic participation

• The vast majority believe it is important to educate audiences and provide information people need to make political decisions.
• Producing information that allows citizens to participate in civic and political processes is seen as a core job function.

🔎 Monitoring and scrutinizing political leaders

• U.S. journalists perceive acts of monitoring and scrutinizing political leaders to be among the most important functions of their job.
• This reflects the "watchdog" role of journalism in democratic societies.

🧊 Detached observation and neutrality

• Journalists generally believe they should be detached observers of events.
• They focus on allowing people to express their views in stories.
• Few believe in advocating for social change or striving to influence public opinion.
• Relative to journalists worldwide, U.S. journalists are more likely to value neutrality and balanced reporting.

❌ Rejecting government support roles

• U.S. journalists almost never see supporting national development or supporting government policies as important roles.
• Stark contrast: in countries like China, Ethiopia, and Thailand, journalists are far more likely to show support for government officials and policies in their reporting.

⚖️ Ethical considerations: professional codes over personal judgment

U.S. journalists show near-unanimous agreement on the importance of professional ethics:

• Journalists should always adhere to professional codes of ethics (e.g., Society of Professional Journalists code).
• Only one in ten journalists support the notion that ethics are a matter of personal judgment.
• Nearly two-thirds reject a situational approach to ethics.
• An even larger majority say extraordinary circumstances are not enough to warrant setting moral standards aside.

Interpretation: U.S. journalists believe they should defer to the dominant set of ethical values promoted within the profession, rather than relying on their own personal ethics.

🚫 Widely rejected practices

Most U.S. journalists consider the following unacceptable:

• Publishing unverified content.
• Altering photographs.
• Claiming to be someone else (going undercover dishonestly).
• Paying people for confidential information.

🏛️ Trust in institutions: deep skepticism

U.S. journalists have little trust in political and societal institutions:

Institution	Level of trust
News media (fellow journalists)	Highest trust, but still fewer than 40% have "complete" or "a great deal" of trust
Military, judiciary, police	Relatively high trust
Politicians and political parties	Just over 1% have a great deal of trust
U.S. Congress	4% trust
Executive Branch	11% trust

• U.S. journalists are far more skeptical of political and societal institutions than journalists in other countries.
• Skepticism is a cherished value among U.S. journalists.

🔄 Why journalistic cultures matter

🧠 Shaping how journalists think and act

Journalistic cultures shape (and are shaped by) how journalists think and, consequently, impact how they act.

• There is often a disconnect between what journalists think and what they do.
• Nevertheless, what they do is often influenced—at least initially—by what they think.
• Example: A journalist may choose not to go undercover or lie about their identity because they believe that violates a professional code of ethics, and they may thus try to get the story another way.

🏆 Defining legitimate work among peers

Journalistic cultures impact what is seen as legitimate work among fellow journalistic actors:

• This determines who and what are symbolically celebrated—who gets treated as a "good" journalist and what gets treated as "good" journalism.
• Material implications: symbolic rewards translate into increased job offers, job security, promotions, awards, etc., for individuals and products seen as "good" by peers.

🗣️ Legitimizing journalism to society

Journalistic cultures impact how journalistic actors legitimize their work to society:

• This affects how societies think about journalism.
• It influences the kinds of access and protections that other institutional actors (e.g., governments, sports teams) are willing to grant journalists.
• Example: In the United States, where journalists are believed to provide important checks and balances to governmental authorities, society is likely to support limited government intervention in news production and distribution.

🔄 Journalistic cultures are not static

• Journalistic cultures can and do change over time.
• Example: U.S. journalistic culture only adopted the value of neutrality as a central tenet in the 20th century.
• More recently, there have been discussions within U.S. journalism about shifting away from "balance" toward a "weight-of-evidence" approach, especially when covering scientific issues like climate change.

🌐 Changing journalism landscape

🌐 New actors and technologies

Journalism is rapidly changing as new social actors, technological actants, and journalistic activities emerge:

• Companies like Facebook and Google have staked important positions within news production and distribution, even though they claim they are not media organizations themselves.
• Digital advertising technologies have made it harder for:
  • Advertisers to know exactly where their ads will be placed online.
  • Online news organizations to know which ads will appear alongside their stories.

🔄 What remains unchanged

• As journalism and its operating environments change, so do the factors that might influence it and the nature and extent of those influences.
• However, what remains unchanged is that journalism is regularly influenced in important ways by an array of different things.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

News values are the benchmarks journalists use to decide which potential stories are newsworthy, and these values reflect—and reinforce—the dominant ideologies within a journalistic culture.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• What news values are: criteria journalists apply to decide which developments deserve coverage and audience attention.
• How they work: the more news values a story contains, the more likely it is to be covered; conversely, stories lacking these values are often ignored.
• Common confusion: news is not a "natural" thing that just exists—it is constructed by editorial actors through selection and framing, though "constructed" does not mean "fake."
• Why they matter: news values shape what gets covered and how, meaning the material facts of an event only partially determine coverage; they also privilege certain perspectives (often the powerful) while marginalizing others.
• Relativity: news values vary by culture and regime; the values identified by scholars like Harcup and O'Neill reflect Western democratic journalistic cultures in the Global North.

📋 The 15 news values

📋 Core criteria for newsworthiness

According to media scholars Tony Harcup and Deirdre O'Neill, most published news stories contain at least one of the following 15 elements:

News Value	What it means	Example from excerpt
Exclusivity	Available first or only to one outlet	Exclusive interview with Mark Zuckerberg
Power elite	Involves powerful individuals/organizations	The U.S. president
Magnitude	Impacts many people or a few significantly	Court ruling affecting thousands of immigrants
Relevance	Involves issues/groups relevant to the audience	Major local employer relocating
Surprise	Deviates from the norm or shows stark contrasts	A man who bites dogs
Conflict	Involves controversies, arguments, fights	Politician breaking from their party
Drama	Concerns unfolding drama (battles, trials)	A major criminal trial
Bad news	Negative overtones (death, tragedy)	A plane crash
Good news	Positive overtones (rescues, cures)	Development of a new vaccine
Entertainment	Human interest, humor, drama	How to spend 36 hours in Bucharest
Celebrity	Concerns already-famous people	Ryan Gosling
Audio-visuals	Compelling photos, video, audio, data visualizations	Large protests
Shareability	Likely to generate social media sharing/comments	Content likely to "go viral"
Follow-up	Advances a story already being covered	Result of a vote on previously covered legislation
Outlet's agenda	Fits the organization's identity/focus	Focus on a particular issue like foreign policy

⏰ Timeliness and evergreen stories

Timeliness: a crucial factor; news is typically presumed to be new, so journalists are sensitive to how recent information is.

• Evergreen stories: not connected to breaking developments but part of an ongoing issue or event.
• Example: A timely story about homelessness may cover city council funding approval; an evergreen story can cover homelessness as a persistent issue.
• Why evergreen matters: provides content for slower news days.

🏗️ News as construction

🏗️ What "constructed" means

• News is not a "natural" thing that just exists; it is something constructed by editorial actors (journalists) and even technological actants (newswriting algorithms).
• "Constructed" does not imply news is arbitrarily invented or fake; it recognizes that news is the product of human and technological interventions.
• News is shaped by the contexts in which it is identified, gathered, verified, structured, and presented as recognizable "news."

🔍 Why only some events become news

• Only a tiny fraction of developments happening in the world at any moment get covered.
• First barrier: journalists are unlikely to be aware of most developments.
• Second barrier: only a small portion of what they are aware of is deemed worthy of being constructed as news stories.
• News values help journalists decide which developments are worthy of their time and their audiences' attention.

📦 News as a selective version of events

News can be understood as a highly selective version of events (and, arguably, nonevents) that have been chosen and packaged to match a news organization's objectives, its output requirements, and the information needs or entertainment wants that its target audiences are believed to have.

• The material attributes of a development—what actually happened—only have some bearing on whether and how it is covered.
• Example: An online rant about immigrants may be newsworthy solely because it was tweeted by a sitting U.S. president; coverage may focus on the controversy (not the substance) because opposing party leaders traded barbs over it.

🚫 What doesn't get covered

🚫 Why certain developments are ignored

• News values help explain why certain developments do not receive coverage.
• Example: An evening TV news broadcast may skip an event because it is unlikely to produce good visuals (e.g., a corruption investigation) or if the organization lacks access to visuals (e.g., a detention camp in a remote foreign area).
• Instead, the broadcast may allot limited time to an arguably less-important event that produces more visually captivating images (e.g., an accidental house fire).
• Don't confuse: importance of an event ≠ likelihood of coverage; visual appeal and access matter greatly.

💭 News values as ideology

💭 Reflection of dominant ideologies

• News values are a reflection of the dominant ideologies within a journalistic culture.
• They have also been critiqued as examples of journalistic media straying from their stated missions.

🔎 The Propaganda Model (Herman and Chomsky)

• Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky argue that mainstream journalism tends to support the status quo.
• Why: the selection of topics for news coverage ultimately privileges the perspectives of the most powerful while marginalizing the voices of less powerful sections of the population.
• Crucially: Herman and Chomsky are not arguing that mainstream journalists do this intentionally or as part of a deliberate conspiracy.
• Instead, they argue that there are structural filters that impact what is selected as newsworthy, creating distortions that favor existing power brokers and marginalize outside-the-mainstream viewpoints.
• This is an example of critical theory, which seeks to interrogate power structures in media industries.

🌍 Relativity of news values

🌍 Cultural and regime differences

• News values are relative.
• The 15 values identified by Harcup and O'Neill are most reflective of journalistic cultures in democratic Western societies in the Global North, since those are the cultures scholars have most studied.
• News values in autocratic regimes are likely to be different; there may be less emphasis on values like conflict or exclusivity.
• What we still need to learn: much remains unknown about news values in other parts of the world.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Truth-seeking in journalism requires more than accuracy—it demands systematic practices that mitigate inherent biases while recognizing that neutrality itself is a form of bias, and that facts are often complex, selective, and subject to interpretation.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Two views of truth: the realism perspective sees truth as universal and separate from human perspectives, while the critical view recognizes that complex facts can be measured multiple ways and journalists must select among them.
• Multiple forms of bias: journalistic bias includes issue bias (which topics), framing bias (how topics are presented), source bias (whose voices are heard), and visibility bias (how much prominence each receives).
• Neutrality's paradox: striving for neutrality and balance is itself a bias; it can lead to false balance that distorts reality by treating unequal sides as equal.
• Common confusion: accuracy vs. truth—reporting something accurately (e.g., "someone said X") does not make it true; accuracy must be supplemented by commitment to truth-seeking.
• Structural filters matter: news values and selection processes can systematically privilege powerful perspectives without journalists intending bias, as Herman and Chomsky's Propaganda Model argues.

🔍 What is truth in journalism?

🔍 The realism perspective

Realism perspective: truth is a judgment that accurately describes, or corresponds with, the way the world actually is—a universal reality separate from subjective human perspectives.

• Most U.S. journalists subscribe to this view.
• They argue that "facts" exist and conveying them is central to journalism.
• This perspective treats truth as something that can be discovered and reported objectively.

🧩 The problem with "just the facts"

• Even seemingly simple facts can be tricky.
• Example: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics offers six different calculations of the unemployment rate:
  • Percentage of labor force without a job who actively looked for work in the past four weeks
  • Percentage unemployed for 15 weeks or longer
  • Percentage unemployed and not actively looking due to discouragement from economic conditions
• Which facts? When audiences say they "just want the facts," the question becomes: which measurement, which selection?

⚠️ Two critical realities about facts

1. Multiple ways to measure complex facts: Unlike simple counts (e.g., students enrolled in a course), complex phenomena have multiple valid measurements.
2. Time and space constraints: Journalists cannot list all permutations; they must select some facts at the expense of others.
   • Stories can only be so long.
   • This selection is inherent to journalism, not optional.

🌐 Beyond listing facts

• Journalism requires making sense of facts—helping audiences understand context and implications.
• This is the basis of framing theory and the sense-making function of journalism.
• Don't confuse: the critical view does not reject facts as meaningless or entirely relative; it calls attention to complexity and selection.

🚨 Bad-faith rejections of facts

• Be cautious of arguments that "facts don't exist," "truth isn't truth," or "alternative facts."
• Such simplistic rejections are often made in bad faith to make competing measures seem equal when they are not equally supported by evidence.
• Especially dangerous when people in power urge dismissal of unfavorable information.
• Instead: think critically about how facts were arrived at; avoid reflexively accepting or rejecting them.

🎭 Understanding journalistic bias

🎭 What is journalistic bias?

Journalistic bias: prejudice toward certain ideas, issues, perspectives, or groups or individuals in the production and distribution of journalistic content.

• Journalists' inherent need to be selective often leads to allegations of bias, especially when news deviates from audiences' worldviews.
• Note: In the U.S., the widely held belief in liberal media bias has little evidence in non-partisan studies; while journalists hold more liberal values, professional emphasis on neutrality and systematic newsgathering limits one-sided coverage.

📊 Four types of bias

Type	Definition	Example
Issue bias	Proclivity toward certain kinds of issues	Overemphasis on crime or immigration
Framing bias	Propensity to frame issues through particular prisms or use certain language	Framing immigrants as threats vs. benefits; "illegal" vs. "undocumented" immigrants
Source bias	Differential treatment depending on who the main actors are; giving certain sources a larger voice	More positive coverage to one political party; quoting government officials more than activists
Visibility bias	Amount of attention or prominence given to certain issues, frames, or sources	Longer quotes in prominent positions (near the top) for one party; prime-time vs. daytime placement

🔗 How visibility bias connects the others

• Visibility bias runs through all three other categories.
• Example: A journalist may quote equal numbers from two opposing parties, but routinely offer longer quotes in more prominent parts of the story to one party.
• Example: Cable news networks focus on immigrant misdeeds in prime-time, relegating positive coverage to less-watched daytime shows.

⚖️ Neutrality, balance, and their pitfalls

⚖️ The "view from nowhere"

"A view from nowhere": offering a perspective without a position or that takes no side.

• Journalists claim neutrality to combat allegations of bias.
• Common enactment: occupy a middle ground by capturing and broadcasting opposing viewpoints, giving equal weight to competing sides.
• Crucially: such attempts avoid conveying the journalist's own opinion.

🔄 Neutrality is itself a bias

• This proclivity toward neutrality and balance is itself a form of bias.
• It is especially prevalent among U.S. journalists.
• This is not to say the approach is bad, but it represents a predisposition toward a particular way of presenting news.

❌ The danger of false balance

False balance: assigning equal blame or acclaim when one side is more culpable or deserving of it.

• Example: Taking the position that "all politicians lie" or "both sides share blame" to appear neutral may obfuscate that some politicians make more verifiably false claims, or that one side is more responsible for an outcome (e.g., less willing to negotiate).
• Journalists distort reality when promoting false balance and thus do a disservice to truth and audiences.

🏈 "Working the refs"

• Bad-faith institutional actors (politicians, public officials) have exploited the "view from nowhere" approach.
• If journalists are arbiters of truth (like referees in a game), subjects can allege bias to intimidate journalists from scrutinizing their claims.
• Critical evaluations can be pointed to as "further evidence" of alleged bias.
• Why this matters: False or inaccurate claims carried by trusted journalistic outlets are granted legitimacy—audiences may see them as true or evaluate them less skeptically, presuming journalists filtered out untruthful information.

🎯 Accuracy vs. truth-seeking

🎯 Accuracy alone is not enough

Accuracy: a focus on precision and the avoidance of errors.

• Accuracy is central to journalism (many aspiring journalists fail assignments for factual errors).
• However, accuracy is not, on its own, enough for satisfying truth.

📸 Three examples of accurate-but-not-true

1. Reporting what someone said: It may be accurate to report that one person said 75% of peer-reviewed studies say climate change is not real (they may have said it). However, it is not true that such a proportion of studies say that.

2. Camera framing: Accurate to zoom in on a small crowd to fill the frame (looks large) or zoom out (looks sparse). Neither picture was doctored. However, the resulting image's connotation of a large or small crowd may be an "untrue" depiction.

3. Photo selection: Equally accurate to show a mug shot of a dejected person or their happy family photo in a crime story. However, difficult to ascertain which best represents the truth about what that individual is like.

🔍 Truth-seeking as a process

• Accuracy must be supplemented by commitment to truth.
• Truth-seeking views truth as more of a process wherein the journalist aims to approximate truth as best as they can.

🛠️ How truth-seeking works

Truth-seeking typically involves an objective approach:

• Systematically observe and record developments
• Interview sources with intimate knowledge (e.g., eye-witnesses)
• Verify claims by seeking generally accepted facts and official documents
• Produce a story with the most truthful (plausible) representation

🧭 Recognizing and mitigating bias

• Truth-seeking recognizes that journalists are inherently biased.
• It accepts that it is impossible for journalists to be unbiased because of their backgrounds and structural constraints.
• However, by systematically adopting best practices, journalists can mitigate some biases and avoid traps like false balance.
• The goal: strive toward the ambitious goal of reproducing truth.

🌍 Different journalistic cultures

• In some countries (e.g., Pakistan, Indonesia), journalistic outlets are openly biased and explicitly reject neutrality and balance.
• Journalists in these cultures believe openly advocating for social change and staking clear positions—sometimes substantiating them through intuition or agreement with ethical/religious principles—is a better way of serving truth.
• Different journalistic cultures approach truth-seeking in different ways.

🏛️ Structural filters and power

🏛️ Herman and Chomsky's Propaganda Model

• Mainstream journalism tends to support the status quo because the selection of topics for news coverage privileges the perspectives of the most powerful while marginalizing less powerful voices.
• Crucially: Herman and Chomsky are not arguing that journalists do this intentionally or as part of a deliberate conspiracy.
• Instead, there are structural filters that impact what is selected as newsworthy, creating distortions that favor existing power brokers and marginalize outside-the-mainstream viewpoints.

🔬 Critical theory approach

• This is an example of critical theory, which seeks to interrogate power structures in media industries.
• The filters operate systematically, not through individual journalist intent.

🌐 News values are relative

• News values (benchmarks of newsworthiness) are ideologies within a journalistic culture.
• The values identified by scholars like Harcup and O'Neill are most reflective of democratic Western societies in the Global North.
• News values in autocratic regimes are likely different (e.g., less emphasis on conflict or exclusivity).
• We still have much to learn about news values in other parts of the world.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Gender and racial gaps in American journalism—where women and people of color remain underrepresented despite educational parity—limit the diversity of perspectives and stories covered, leading to biased reporting and reduced public trust.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Historical exclusion: Women were long seen as news consumers rather than subjects or producers; people of color remain dramatically underrepresented in newsrooms.
• Current disparities: Women make up 42% of newsroom employees and produce only 37% of stories; people of color comprise just 21% of print newsroom staff despite being 39% of the U.S. population.
• Systemic barriers: Industry norms like unpaid internships, closed hiring networks, pay gaps, and cultural expectations make it harder for women and people of color to enter and succeed in journalism.
• Coverage impact: Lack of diversity creates gaps in stories covered and leads to stereotyping through schemas and double binds, reducing empathy and trust.
• Common confusion: More women graduate with journalism degrees than men, yet men dominate the profession—the gap is not in education but in systemic professional barriers.

📜 Historical context of women in journalism

📜 Women as consumers, not subjects

• For much of U.S. journalism history, women were viewed primarily as a market for news rather than a community reflected in it.
• They were seen as consumers, not worthwhile subjects of coverage.
• Pathways into journalism were limited; it was primarily a male profession.

🎨 The "women's pages" pathway

• Women gained greater entrance through cultural journalism in the second half of the 20th century.
• The so-called "women's pages" focused on the four Fs: family, fashion, food, and furnishings.
• These pages:
  • Covered women's issues seen as less important
  • Were physically separated from "serious" news
  • Featured less newsy, more personal writing
  • Focused on trends and celebrity profiles
• Over time, they influenced creation of less gendered beats like The Washington Post's style section.

⚠️ Persistent gendered divisions

• The gap between news and culture coverage remains today.
• Women journalists are more likely to write about health and lifestyle topics.
• They are less likely to cover economics, politics, sports, or write for opinion sections.

📊 Current gender disparities in newsrooms

📊 Employment and byline gaps

• Women make up roughly 42% of newsroom employees despite being over half the U.S. population (2019 ASNE report).
• Women journalists produce only 37% of news stories (2019 Women's Media Center report).
• Gender parity exists only in specific categories:
  • Entertainment: 49% women
  • Lifestyle and leisure: 52% women
  • Health: 58% women

👥 Representation in coverage

• 77% of people mentioned in articles are male.
• 70% of faces pictured in news articles are male.
• These discrepancies suggest male perspectives dominate American news coverage, with female voices peripheral.

🎓 The education paradox

• Two-thirds of journalism/mass communication graduates in the U.S. are women (Columbia Journalism Review).
• Yet women remain underrepresented in professional practice.
• This reveals systemic factors—from social expectations to professional cultural values—that make it harder for women to enter and succeed.

💰 Pay and hierarchy gaps

• Distinct gender-based gaps exist in pay and hierarchy.
• These gaps intersect with race and ethnicity:
  • White male journalists at The Associated Press earn an average of $15,000 more than Black female journalists
  • Female employees at The Washington Post earn 86 cents for every dollar white male employees earn
• Given already low average journalism salaries, these obstacles can make it impossible for many women—especially from economically disadvantaged backgrounds—to enter or remain in journalism.

🌈 Racial and ethnic disparities

🌈 The largest and slowest-changing gap

Racial and ethnic disparity remains the largest and slowest-changing gap in American journalism.

• White journalists greatly outnumber journalists of color.
• People of color make up just 21% of newsroom employees in print outlets (2019 ASNE survey).
• Online-only outlets are slightly better: almost 31% are people of color.
• Local TV news: about one-fourth are people of color.
• Local radio journalism: just 15% are people of color.
• These gaps are striking considering 39% of the U.S. population is not white.

🏢 Major outlets remain predominantly white

Major national outlets show significant racial gaps:

• The Boston Globe: 85% white
• The Los Angeles Times: 64% white
• The Wall Street Journal: 79% white
• The Washington Post: 71% white

This is particularly discouraging because large coastal cities (where these outlets are located) tend to be more racially diverse than average American cities.

👔 Management disparities

• Journalists of color are less likely to hold management positions.
• Roughly 19% of managers at print and online-only outlets are people of color.
• Within racial/ethnic categories, men are more likely to be employees or managers (except among Asians, where women were more likely to hold both positions).

🚧 Systemic barriers

Industry norms stack the deck against journalists from less-affluent backgrounds and those who are not well-connected:

• Unpaid internships for early-career journalists
• Closed networks in hiring practices
• Lack of diversity in journalism program faculties

📢 Recognition and response

• The demographic discrepancy is not new or secret.
• Organizations have called for change for years.
• Some outlets (e.g., NPR) now document employment and coverage of women and people of color.
• Recent years have seen public leadership changes and pledges to shift hiring and coverage practices.
• An emerging culture of peer critique has developed where outlets identify and critique cultural violations in each other's coverage.
• However, increased attention doesn't guarantee increased representation; it's unclear if changes are momentary or sustained.

📈 Younger employees show some improvement

• Younger newsroom employees are equally likely to be male and female.
• They're less likely to be white than older counterparts.
• However, they are still much more likely to identify as white than with a minority racial or ethnic group.

🗳️ Public awareness

• According to a 2020 Gallup study, more Americans say news media are doing poorly in reflecting U.S. diversity than say they are doing well.
• Approximately 69% believe reflecting diversity is either a "critical" or "very important" role of media.
• However, respondents were divided on how outlets could better fulfill that role.

🎯 Impact of demographic gaps on journalism

🎯 Missing stories and limited perspectives

As journalist Gabriel Arana wrote:

"Ultimately, the value of diversity to journalism is not about skin color, gender, sexual orientation, or social class. It's about the stories people can tell."

• Demographic gaps limit the stories covered by reducing the richness of lived experiences in the newsroom.
• American journalism misses many important stories when it doesn't represent the population it serves.
• Lack of representation creates gaps in coverage and can lead to flawed or biased reporting practices.

🧠 Schema theory and stereotyping

Schema theory: People organize knowledge into categories, or schemas, in their minds, then retrieve these schemas when confronted with media messages depicting these categories.

How schemas work in journalism:

• Schemas can become entangled with loaded cultural meanings that lend themselves to stereotypes.
• Journalistic outlets rely on pre-existing schemas (mental shortcuts) to help audiences quickly call up information and synthesize new content.
• This framework is similar to priming theory and associative network models of human memory.

🚨 Crime coverage example

• Crime coverage featuring racial stereotypes can connect those stereotypes to particular groups.
• When presented with a story about crime with an unknown perpetrator, people draw upon existing stereotypes (e.g., assuming it was a Black male).
• According to The Marshall Project:
  • Mainstream journalists are less likely to cover Black victims of homicide
  • When they do, coverage results in less complex, less humane portrayals
  • This results in lower levels of empathy for Black victims and Black people as a whole

⚖️ Double binds in gender coverage

Double binds: Over-simplifications of complex and dynamic people, organizations, or groups into one-dimensional, either-or narratives.

Example: The femininity vs. competence double bind

• Common in depicting powerful women
• The idea that competent women can't be feminine and feminine women can't be competent
• Appears in coverage of female political candidates:
  • Plays up stereotypically feminine attributes (motherhood, attractiveness)
  • De-emphasizes stereotypically masculine attributes (leadership)

🤝 Unintentional ignorance, not malice

• Journalists generally don't intend to stereotype populations, oversimplify experiences, or miss relevant story angles.
• Instead, journalists (like the general population) are simply ignorant about important issues and ideas more salient to communities and groups outside their own.
• They lack firsthand experience with perspectives different from their own.

✅ Benefits of representative newsrooms

More representative newsrooms are an asset because they allow journalists to:

• More readily and proactively identify problems with coverage (or lack thereof)
• Address issues before publication
• Generate not only better journalism but also increase public trust in that journalism

🔑 Key distinctions and common confusions

🔑 Education vs. professional representation

Don't confuse: Educational representation with professional representation

• Women greatly outnumber men in journalism higher education programs
• Yet men outnumber women in the profession itself
• The gap is not in training or interest but in systemic barriers to entry and advancement

🔑 Online vs. traditional media diversity

Comparison: Online-only outlets vs. traditional media

Dimension	Online-only outlets	Traditional media
Racial diversity	~31% people of color	~21% people of color (print)
Geographic concentration	40% in Northeast	More distributed
Representativeness	Better but still far from representative	Less representative

🔑 Intent vs. impact

Don't confuse: Journalist intent with coverage impact

• Journalists don't intend to create biased or stereotypical coverage
• However, lack of diverse perspectives leads to unintentional gaps and stereotypes
• The problem is structural ignorance, not individual malice

🔑 Awareness vs. change

Don't confuse: Recognition of the problem with solving it

• The demographic discrepancy is well-known and has been for years
• Organizations have called for change
• Some outlets have made pledges and documented their gaps
• However, it's unclear whether recent changes represent a sustained trend or a temporary moment

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Partisan divides in American news consumption and trust have deepened significantly, driven by selective exposure patterns, geographic concentration of journalists on the coasts, and attacks on media credibility by political elites.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Trust gap: Republicans distrust most mainstream outlets while Democrats trust them; this gap has widened between 2014 and 2020, with no outlet trusted by more than half of Americans.
• Partisan selective exposure: People increasingly consume media that reinforces their existing beliefs and avoid divergent perspectives, creating echo chambers and filter bubbles.
• Geographic concentration: About 22% of U.S. newsroom employees live in Los Angeles or New York City, with coastal clustering raising concerns about representation of rural and Southern communities.
• Common confusion: People conflate bias with inaccuracy—outlets perceived as biased are also seen as inaccurate, even though these are distinct concepts.
• Real-world impact: Partisan news consumption influences voting decisions, policy preferences, and political participation, while motivated reasoning makes correcting misinformation increasingly difficult.

📊 The partisan trust divide

📊 Survey findings on media trust

A 2020 Pew Research Center survey revealed stark partisan differences:

Group	Distrust rate	Trust patterns
Republicans	Distrusted 2/3 of 30 news sources	Trusted only 10 sources, mostly right-leaning (Fox News, conservative talk radio)
Democrats	Distrusted 8 of 30 sources	Trusted 22 of 30 sources
All Americans	79% believe news organizations favor one side	No source trusted by more than half of Americans

• The eight sources Democrats distrusted overlapped with the 10 sources Republicans trusted.
• This represents an increase in perceived partisanship compared to earlier surveys.

📺 Consumption patterns

Republicans consume political news from fewer mainstream outlets than Democrats:

• Republicans: Fox News was the only outlet used by at least one-third in the week studied.
• Democrats: Consumed news from CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, and/or MSNBC in the same week.
• CNN was most trusted by Democrats; Fox News was most trusted by Republicans.

📉 Deepening gap over time

Between 2014 and 2020:

• Democrats' trust in established outlets remained firm.
• Republicans became more distanced from and distrusting of mainstream outlets.
• At least 15 outlets were trusted less by Republicans in 2020 than in 2014.
• Republican distrust of The Washington Post, The New York Times, and CNN grew the most.

🎯 Attacks on media credibility

🎯 Historical context

Politicians and powerful actors have labeled U.S. journalists as "liberal elites" for decades, with talk radio decrying liberal bias in mainstream media since at least the 1980s.

🎯 Recent intensification

Attacks have become more common, targeted, and intense in recent years, originating from the highest levels of government:

• Former President Donald Trump called news media "the enemy of the American People" and "fake news" three months after taking office.
• He named The New York Times, NBC, ABC, CBS, and CNN specifically.
• His administration prevented some long-time White House journalists from press briefings while granting access to highly partisan outlets offering favorable coverage.
• Administration members called journalists "sick people" who wanted "to take away our history and our heritage."

🎯 Contagious effects

Research shows that exposure to "fake news" allegations by elite actors (powerful politicians) causes people to:

• Display less trust in journalistic media.
• Be less likely to correctly identify what news is real.

Don't confuse: These attacks are not new in kind, but they are new in intensity and in coming from the highest levels of government.

🔄 Selective exposure and echo chambers

🔄 Partisan selective exposure

Partisan selective exposure: a pattern in which people consume media content that reinforces their opinions and choose to opt out of divergent perspectives.

• People seek out news from outlets that align with their political views.
• They avoid outlets that challenge their beliefs.
• Over time, this conditions audiences to reinforce existing opinions rather than encounter diverse perspectives.

🔄 Echo chambers and filter bubbles

• Echo chambers: Environments where people increasingly seek out content that reinforces their views.
• Filter bubbles: Technological systems (like YouTube recommendation algorithms) unintentionally push users toward content reinforcing existing beliefs.

Example: YouTube automatically queues up "suggested" videos after you finish watching one, often recommending like-minded content.

🔄 Online amplification

People who consume political news online or from non-mainstream sources are more likely to:

• Believe news reflecting their partisan beliefs is more credible.
• Seek out confirmatory sources (outlets reinforcing their worldviews).
• Have easier access to a larger number of sources, including highly partisan and pseudo-journalistic outlets.

Don't confuse: This is not a function of technology itself but rather that online spaces offer easier access to more diverse sources, including partisan ones.

🧠 Psychological mechanisms and impacts

🧠 Motivated reasoning

Motivated reasoning: a psychological process where highly partisan news consumers treat counter-factual information (news that goes against their preconceptions) as false information.

• After rejecting contradictory news, reasoning processes may make false information become more entrenched in original preconceptions.
• This presents a significant challenge to correcting inaccurate information.
• Fact-checking outlets (e.g., Politifact) have found themselves under increased attack.

🧠 Growth of partisan outlets

Motivated reasoning helps explain the rapid growth of increasingly partisan news outlets:

• As worldviews become more radicalized, motivated reasoning pushes people toward even more partisan outlets.
• A 2021 Pew study found that while Fox News remained primary for Republicans and Moderates, more conservative Newsmax and One America News continued to grow.
• These newer outlets were especially appealing to more conservative Republicans and older, White Americans.
• Media scholars generally regard Newsmax and One America News as poor sources of information.

🧠 Conflation of bias and inaccuracy

According to a 2018 Knight Foundation study:

• Americans consider 62% of news they consume on TV, newspapers, and radio to be "biased."
• They consider 44% to be inaccurate.
• Americans do not distinguish between bias and inaccuracy—outlets believed to be biased are also seen as promulgators of inaccurate information, and vice versa.

🧠 Impact on media literacy

Lack of trust has negative implications:

• People with more trust in news media are more likely to distinguish real news from opinion.
• Lower trust makes it harder to identify credible information.

🗺️ Geographic concentration of journalists

🗺️ Coastal clustering

According to a 2019 Pew Research Center study:

• Approximately 22% of U.S. newsroom employees live in Los Angeles or New York City.
• New York City alone is home to 12% of all U.S. newsroom staffers.
• Much political journalism originates from Washington D.C. due to increased focus on national politics.
• 40% of journalists working for online-only outlets live in the Northeast.
• Many popular digital news sites are headquartered in major cities in that region.

🗺️ Cluster theory explanation

Cluster theory: points out the advantages industries gain when they establish themselves in specific regions.

When businesses cluster in a geographic area:

• Their actors, resources, and skills are also clustered.
• This promotes innovation and competitive advantages.
• It makes them more productive.

However, clustering also creates representation problems—the U.S. South is very much under-represented in terms of journalists working there.

🏙️ Impacts of coastal concentration

🏙️ Political liberalism

The tie to coasts contributes to journalists being more politically liberal than the average American:

• Journalists tend to self-identify with traditionally liberal values.
• U.S. journalistic culture promotes procedural tactics to mitigate this (interviewing opposing stakeholders, promoting balance).

🏙️ Cultural experience gaps

Life in major cities and industrial hubs differs from life in smaller and rural areas:

• Journalists concentrated on coasts may reflect a particular cultural experience.
• This can result in stereotyping of non-hub areas and those within them.
• It can lead to misrepresentation of their interests, attitudes, and beliefs.

🏙️ Economic barriers

Coastal areas are more expensive to live in than most of the country:

• Would-be journalists cannot afford to live there, especially when starting careers or applying for unpaid internships.
• They may also not want to live in such places.
• This artificially limits the potential talent pool.
• It systematically disadvantages journalists from non-wealthy and/or non-urban backgrounds.

🏙️ Local journalism impacts

Concentration on the edges of the country is a disservice to local journalism:

• Important local and regional issues may be under-covered or poorly covered.
• The perception that journalists don't reflect their communities can have downstream impacts on trust in local journalism.
• This is especially problematic when local outlets are attached to a generalized "the media" umbrella.
• It makes it harder for local outlets to attain resources and audiences in today's media attention economy.

🗳️ Political and policy consequences

🗳️ Voting and participation

Exposure to partisan news influences:

• Audiences' voting decisions.
• Their political participation levels.
• When people read only news agreeing with their beliefs, they become more radicalized and want to participate further in politics.

🗳️ Democratic decision-making problems

Highly motivated individuals become convinced they are right based on information (understanding of reality) that diverges widely from those who don't share their perspective.

🗳️ Policy preferences

A 2021 Pew study found partisan media consumption affects policy views:

Group	Media consumption	Policy impact
Republicans	Only right-leaning sources (Fox News, talk radio)	Less open to international cooperation; different foreign policy priorities than other Republicans
Democrats	Only left-leaning sources (MSNBC, Washington Post)	Higher priority on multilateralism and addressing climate change than other Democrats

Example: A Republican who consumes only Fox News and talk radio may have different views on international cooperation compared to a Republican who consumes a broader range of sources.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Treating news as a market commodity creates a fundamental tension between profit-driven incentives and the public-service journalism that democratic societies require, leading to market failure where civically valuable journalism is under-produced.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• What commodification means: news is produced and sold as a profit-generating good in the marketplace, making it responsive to market forces rather than democratic needs.
• The dual-product market: commercial news organizations produce news content to create audience attention, which they then sell to advertisers—most revenue comes from ads, not subscriptions.
• The newsroom 'wall': a metaphorical separation between journalists and business staff designed to protect editorial independence, though this barrier has weakened in recent years.
• Market failure problem: individual rational economic behavior (by owners, advertisers, and audiences) does not produce the expensive public-service journalism that benefits society as a whole.
• Common confusion: advertising subsidy vs. editorial independence—while ads make news affordable to mass audiences, they also create pressures that can undermine journalistic quality and civic value.

📦 News as a unique commodity

📦 What makes news different from other goods

Commodification of news: the process through which news is translated into a commodity, or a good or service designed to earn its producer a profit when it is sold in a market.

News has unusual economic characteristics:

• Weightless and instant: since the telegraph, news can be transported over vast distances nearly instantaneously.
• Limited exclusivity: competitors can quickly repackage the same information.
• Short lifespan: news quickly loses value as it ages.
• Non-rivalrous consumption: one person's consumption does not diminish supply to the next person (unlike physical goods like ice cream).

⚖️ The core tension

• Commodities are "responsible only to the marketplace"—indifferent to democratic quality or societal values as long as buying, selling, and profit-making are permitted.
• Key implication: the more news is treated as a market commodity, the less certain it is to supply the information a democratic society requires.
• This tension has been a central dilemma in journalism for over a century.

💰 The dual-product market system

💰 How commercial news organizations operate

Dual-product market: journalistic organizations produce and market one product (news) so they can produce another product (audience attention) that can then be sold to advertisers.

• The majority of revenue comes from advertising, not directly from audiences via subscriptions.
• Since the invention of mass advertising, news has generally been subsidized (newspapers) or outright paid for (broadcast TV) by someone other than the audience.
• This allows audiences to receive content for far less than it costs to produce.

🔗 Mutual interdependence

Mutual interdependence: journalistic organizations need advertising revenue to subsidize their activities, but the amount of advertising revenue is often related to the amount of audience attention the organization can deliver.

• To increase revenue necessary for quality journalism, outlets must deliver larger numbers of readers, viewers, or listeners.
• Ideally, quality journalism is what helps bring in larger audiences—but the relationship creates pressures.

Example: An organization wants to fund expensive investigative reporting, but it can only do so if it attracts enough audience attention to sell to advertisers.

🧱 The newsroom 'wall' and its erosion

🧱 What the 'wall' was designed to do

The metaphorical 'wall': a separation between the business side of the organization and its newsroom operations.

Structure:

• One side: journalists and editors developed content for citizens, with limited regard for business implications.
• Other side: managers and sales staff worked with advertisers to sell audience attention.

Purpose: grant journalists greater autonomy (independence from business concerns) to produce journalism.

Implementation methods:

• Different social rules and physical obstacles to reduce interactions.
• Placing business personnel on one floor, newsroom personnel on another.
• Different supervisors for each side.

💵 Why the 'wall' was possible historically

• Journalism was a very profitable enterprise for much of the past century.
• Major newspapers were regarded as "cash cows" three decades ago.
• High profitability allowed organizations to maintain separation without immediate economic pressure.

🔓 How the 'wall' was never fully impervious

Historical breaches:

Mechanism	How it worked	Impact
News hole	Amount of space for news depended on advertisements sold	More ads → more pages → more news space
Pressure for 'happy' stories	Business side pushed for advertising-friendly content	Not favorable stories about specific advertisers, but stories that left audiences in positive emotional states

Why advertisers wanted positive context:

• An advertisement appearing next to a happy story makes audiences more likely to transfer that positive feeling to the advertised product.

Example: An advertiser like a grocery store would be happier if its ad appeared next to uplifting news rather than depressing news, making readers more receptive to the ad.

📰 Native advertising and recent erosion

Native advertising: a newsroom has a team of 'content creators' (sometimes former journalists) who work directly with advertisers to create semi-advertisements that look and feel like typical journalistic stories.

How it works:

• Stories are labeled as 'sponsored content' or with other aesthetic signifiers.
• Readers and viewers often do not make that distinction.
• The appeal to advertisers is precisely that audiences will mistake native ads for editorial content.

Trade-off:

• Profitable revenue source.
• May erode audiences' trust in the journalistic organization.

Don't confuse: Native advertising is not traditional advertising (clearly separate from editorial content) nor is it journalism (despite looking like it)—it deliberately blurs the line.

⚠️ Market failure in journalism

⚠️ The Utopian vision vs. the concern

Utopian vision (why advertising was welcomed):

• Advertising would end or ease journalism's dependency on political parties that used to finance newspapers.
• Market forces would empower audiences, producing news information more useful to them.

The concern:

• Market sensitivities would create market-driven journalism: not "all the news that's fit to print" but "all the news that's fit to sell."

🚫 The free rider problem

Free rider problem: people can experience many of the benefits of a product without having to pay for it.

How it applies to journalism:

• Quality journalism provides fundamental benefits to democratic society that the market fails to adequately compensate.
• Example benefits: well-informed voters can choose wise leaders; deterrence of corruption from active monitoring.
• Yet in a market-oriented system, only a very small proportion of people pay for news.
• Result: what is civically valuable but goes unrewarded in the marketplace (expensive public-service investigations) ends up being under-produced, since there's no economic incentive.

📉 Rational-choice theory and misaligned incentives

Rational-choice theories of economics: individuals and organizations act to maximize their own economic returns.

What each actor rationally does:

Actor	Rational behavior	Result
Managers/owners	Produce least expensive content that generates largest audience attractive to advertisers	Avoid expensive investigations
Advertisers	Seek largest audience at lowest cost; favor softer, simpler stories that leave consumers in positive emotional state	Pressure against hard news
Audiences	Do not always financially reward content that benefits them most in the long run	Under-reward civic journalism

Don't confuse: Individual rationality vs. collective good—each actor's rational choice makes sense for them, but together these choices fail to produce what society needs.

💥 What market failure means

Market failure: inefficient production and distribution of goods and services within a free market resulting from the fact that individual incentives for rational behavior do not lead to the best outcomes for a group (or society).

Evidence of market failure in U.S. journalism:

• Newspaper advertising market: robust growth 1950–2000, then declined to 1950 levels in just the next 12 years.
• Newsroom employment declined by 51% between 2008 and 2019.
• Hundreds of small community newspapers forced to close.
• By 2019, almost half of U.S. counties had only a single local newspaper (often published weekly).
• The 2020 coronavirus pandemic increased pressures: a third of U.S. newspapers experienced layoffs that year.

🔄 Current responses and challenges

• Commercial newsrooms are rethinking how to serve civic objectives while remaining economically viable.
• Efforts focus on diversifying revenue models to make up for drastic advertising losses.
• Local and national television journalism outlets face intense economic and political pressures to move away from expensive public-service journalism.
• Many calls to address market failures, but the challenge persists.

Key finding from scholars: The more responsive a newsroom is to market forces, the less it tends to serve the public interest through civic-minded efforts like 'watchdog' journalism.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Digital audience analytics have given journalistic organizations far more complete data about what audiences actually consume, but the shift from bundled products to unbundled online content has eliminated the subsidies that once allowed expensive civic journalism to be funded by cheaper popular content.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• What changed with digitization: passive, mass tracking replaced small-sample, self-reported methods, giving journalists complete quantitative records of audience behavior instead of partial, biased data.
• Bundling vs. unbundling: historically, newspapers bundled expensive investigative journalism with cheap popular content (sports, classifieds) in one product; now audiences access only specific content they want, eliminating cross-subsidies.
• Economic pressure vs. journalistic autonomy: audience metrics create pressure to cater to audience desires more efficiently, though professionalized newsrooms still rely heavily on newsworthiness judgments.
• Common confusion: more readers/viewers does not mean more revenue—digital ad costs are exponentially lower than analogue, and unbundling means ads only generate revenue for accessed content.
• Lost monopolies: journalistic outlets no longer control classifieds (now Craigslist, Indeed), engagement announcements (now Facebook), or entertainment, removing key dual-channel revenue sources.

📊 What audience measurement means

📊 Definition and scope

Audience measurement: the goal-oriented process of collecting, analyzing, reporting, and interpreting data about the size, composition, behavior, characteristics, and preferences of individuals interacting with particular media brands or products.

• It is not just counting readers; it includes understanding who they are, what they do, and what they prefer.
• The excerpt emphasizes this is a goal-oriented process, not passive observation.

📜 Historical methods and limitations

Before digitization, journalists and organizations used crude measures:

• Informal feedback: friends, family, letters to the editor.
• Formal research: consultants, focus groups, surveys, broadcast diaries.

Two major limitations:

1. Partial data: small samples, often not representative of the entire audience.
2. Self-reported bias: people say what they think they should want (e.g., international affairs) rather than what they actually crave (e.g., celebrity news about Ryan Gosling).

Example: A survey respondent might claim interest in international affairs to seem cultured, even though they actually prefer entertainment news.

💻 Digital audience analytics and metrics

💻 Passive, mass tracking

Digital systems enable automatic recording when someone accesses content:

• What is tracked: fact of access, time of access, rough location, device type, time spent with content.
• Who tracks: computer systems of the journalistic organization and often other companies.
• Key difference from past: can gather information about all audience members, not just samples, and the information is not limited to what audiences want to report.

Don't confuse: This is a more complete record quantitatively, but it cannot tell journalists how people feel about content—only what they do.

📈 Audience analytics

Audience analytics: a form of audience measurement enabled by digital infrastructure that was not possible before the internet age.

• Personalization use: systems can link to past behavior records to customize content placement.
• Example: If tracking shows a user frequently accesses Ryan Gosling content, the system may place such content more prominently or suggest it as the next article.

📊 Audience metrics

Audience metrics: aggregate measures about the audience.

Common metrics include:

• Number of unique people exposed to content.
• Where individuals came from (geographically and which website/platform led them there).
• Average time spent with content.
• How far the average person scrolled down the page.

Benefit: Journalists get a quantified sense of readership and interaction instead of assuming based on their friends' reactions (who likely share the same interests).

⚖️ Tension with journalistic autonomy

• Historical resistance: Journalists marginalized audience data, viewing it as intrusion on autonomy and independence.
• Role orientation: Journalists believed they had to give audiences certain news regardless of popularity because it was a civic necessity.
• Past vs. present: High profitability made resistance easier in the past; economic challenges and new technologies now create greater pressure to use metrics to more efficiently cater to audience desires.

Positive uses: Metrics can and arguably should help understand what audiences want in order to make civically important content more appealing—in substance or presentation—and to encourage engagement and loyalty.

Research finding: Highly professionalized newsrooms like The New York Times and The Guardian are not blindly making decisions based on metrics alone; they still draw heavily on newsworthiness conceptions.

📦 Bundling and unbundling

📦 What bundling meant historically

Bundled product: a person rarely bought a single piece of news or just news; instead, they bought a single product that included multiple types of content.

What was bundled together:

• Local news, national news, sports, arts.
• Comics, classifieds, advertisements.
• Engagement announcements, obituaries.

Why it worked:

• Allowed journalistic outlets to make money from two mutually dependent sources—audiences and advertisers—with a single media vehicle (e.g., a newspaper).
• Example: A local business pays to list a job opening; local citizens pay for the newspaper to find job openings.

💰 Cross-subsidization mechanism

• Cheap content subsidized expensive content: post-game reports from local high school football (cheap to produce) helped pay for investigative series on local corruption (expensive).
• Audience behavior: Citizens bought the newspaper for local sports and might stick around for the investigative series.
• Organizational priorities: Journalistic organizations saw investigative series as more central to mission and as status markers (major awards), viewing cheaper popular content as a way to pay for it.

🔓 The unbundling shift

How behavior changed:

• Audiences now less likely to go directly to a journalistic outlet's homepage or app.
• Far less likely to seek a single source for all information needs.

Example: An individual may go to:

• The Boston Globe for regional politics/policy.
• BuzzFeed for entertainment news.
• A local sports enthusiast's blog for high school football analysis.
• BBC for international affairs coverage.

Economic consequences:

• Journalistic outlets place all news online for free or under 'soft' paywalls.
• Individuals access only some content.
• Advertising revenue only generated for things that are accessed.
• Pressure on commercial outlets to focus on narrower sets of content that can pay for itself.

🚫 Lost monopolies and revenue sources

Journalistic outlets have lost control over key dual-channel revenue sources:

Past monopoly	Current alternative
Classifieds (job listings)	Craigslist, Indeed
Engagement announcements	Facebook
Obituary notices	Facebook
Entertainment content	Plethora of free and paid alternatives far exceeding what outlets offered

Conclusion from excerpt: The structural advantages and subsidies that enabled commercial journalism to operate as it did in the past no longer exist in such advantageous ways.

🔑 Key implications

🔑 Measurement capabilities vs. economic reality

• Better data: More quantifiable measurements of individual audience members and audiences as a whole.
• Economic pressure: Great pressure to use audience metrics in guiding editorial decisions.
• Professional resistance: Professionalized newsrooms still draw heavily upon conceptions of newsworthiness when making decisions.

🔑 The bundling paradox

• Reduced subsidization ability: Can no longer subsidize expensive, civic-minded news through cheaper, more popular content in the same bundled product.
• Reduced revenue opportunities: Lost opportunities to generate revenue from non-news content (classifieds, announcements, etc.).
• Structural change: The "happy coincidences" that allowed the system to work reasonably well for many decades no longer hold true.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Third-party platforms like Google and Facebook now control advertising, distribution, and audience access for journalism, capturing most of the economic benefits from news production while journalistic outlets bear the costs and lose brand recognition.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Digital paradox: Journalistic outlets now reach larger audiences online than ever before, yet advertising revenue has drastically declined.
• Ad-tech intermediaries: Platforms like Google AdSense manage online advertising through programmatic systems, driving ad prices down and taking service fees, so outlets receive only a fraction of already-reduced rates.
• Distributional control: Facebook, Google, Apple, and Twitter act as intermediaries between news producers and audiences, benefiting from content they don't produce while avoiding journalistic responsibilities by claiming to be neutral technical platforms.
• Brand erosion: When audiences find news on social media, less than half remember the journalistic outlet that published it, but most remember the platform—weakening outlets' brand value and incentive for quality.
• Common confusion: Platforms claim algorithmic neutrality, but algorithms reflect platform owners' values and economic interests, exercising judgment by promoting engagement-driving content.

💰 The digital advertising paradox

📉 Larger audiences, lower revenue

• Journalistic organizations now have access to far larger potential audiences through digital channels—often more readers, viewers, and listeners than ever before.
• Yet they have experienced a drastic reduction in advertising revenue.
• This appears paradoxical at first: more audience should mean more revenue, but the opposite has occurred.

💵 Why digital ads pay less

Two main reasons explain the revenue collapse:

1. Lower cost per ad placement:

• Placing an ad on a digital offering (e.g., a website) costs exponentially less than placing the same ad on an analogue offering (e.g., a newspaper).
• Example: An ad on the Daily Hampshire Gazette's website is much cheaper than the same ad in its print newspaper.
• Online audiences have historically been seen as less valuable by producers and advertisers.
• The increased supply of content online (billions of websites) means advertisers have far more choices, driving prices down.

2. Third-party platform intermediaries:

• Much of today's advertising is managed through third-party platforms that govern pricing and take a hefty cut.
• Example: If an organization wanted to advertise in The Japan Times newspaper, it might work directly with the paper. But to advertise on The Japan Times' website, it may need to work with an intermediary like Google AdSense.

🤖 How ad-tech platforms work

🎯 Programmatic advertising

Programmatic advertising: automated systems that make ad placement decisions in microseconds based on demographic targeting and pricing.

How it works:

• An advertiser (e.g., UMass promoting its Journalism Department) sets a target demographic and maximum price.
• The ad-tech intermediary (e.g., Google AdSense) creates user profiles from different data points.
• Any website visited by any user matching that demographic can show the ad, so long as the website accepts the advertiser's pricing limits.
• All decisions are made by automated systems in microseconds.

📉 Downward price pressure

• Rational advertisers seek to advertise on websites that require the least money while delivering the desired audience.
• This pushes websites to accept lower rates to ensure they have advertisements to serve.
• Journalistic outlets receive less money per ad and only get a portion of that amount after the intermediary takes a service fee.

🚫 Black-listing and editorial impact

• Ad-tech systems allow black-listing: some websites cannot show ads if they contain certain keywords.
• Usually restricted to offensive language, but can extend to sensitive topics like human rights abuses.
• This may discourage the production of news stories about those topics.

🏆 Who captures the gains

While digital ad spending has grown immensely, gains are highly concentrated:

Company	Share of global digital ad spending
Google & Facebook combined	More than half
Alibaba (China-based)	Distant third
Journalistic outlets	Small fraction

Key insight: The uptick in online ad revenue has not come close to replacing losses in offline ad revenue for many journalistic outlets. Many still rely on offline products for the majority of advertising revenue, even with much larger audiences online.

Why legacy products persist: Traditional media companies still orient themselves around media vehicles seen as being phased out (e.g., newspapers) because they have more control over and can extract more value from these legacy products.

🌐 Distributional intermediaries

🏢 Who controls distribution

In the United States, much of Europe, and elsewhere, a small group of Silicon Valley-based companies largely control how audiences find and access news:

• Google (web search)
• Facebook (social media)
• Apple (mobile applications)
• Twitter (social media)

💸 Economic benefits without costs

Those companies generally realize many of the economic benefits from news production while not suffering its costs.

How platforms benefit:

• User-generated content: Platforms benefit from users' posts, including any news they may break.
• News aggregation: Many people rely on platforms like Facebook as their primary news source via links shared by friends.
• Free promotion: Journalistic outlets use platforms to promote their content, often offering portions for free.
• Negligible cost: Platforms don't pay any of these people for the content that makes the platform worthwhile.

Example: Facebook benefits from all the news content shared on its platform without paying the journalistic outlets that produced it.

🛡️ Claims of neutrality

Platform owners' argument:

• They claim to offer only neutral, technical infrastructures.
• They do not produce journalistic content of their own.
• Their platforms are governed by supposedly impartial algorithms, rather than humans.
• Therefore, neutrality should shield them from journalistic responsibilities and legal risks like libel accusations.

Why this argument is weak:

• Algorithms reflect the values and/or economic interests of platform owners.
• Algorithms exercise a form of judgment when they promote content expected to elicit further engagement on the platform.

Don't confuse: "Algorithmic" does not mean "neutral"—algorithms embody choices and priorities made by their creators.

🏷️ Brand erosion and loyalty challenges

🔍 How audiences find news today

Past behavior	Current behavior
Audiences went directly to trusted outlets	Audiences go to news aggregators (Apple News)
Actively sought out information	Wait for news to find them on social media
Strong brand association	Content disassociated from brand

🧠 Memory and attribution

Research findings on brand recall after reading a news story:

How story was found	% who remember the journalistic organization
On social media	Less than 50%
On the organization's website	80%

However: Most people who found a story on social media could remember which social media platform they used to find it.

Consequence: Social media platforms receive more credit for content published by journalistic outlets than the outlets themselves.

📉 Impact on quality incentives

• Brand erosion reduces the worth of the organization's brand.
• It reduces the incentive to produce high-quality content to help the brand stand out in a crowded marketplace.
• When audiences don't remember who produced the content, investing in quality becomes less valuable.

🔗 Network effects and platform power

🌍 Why platforms are hard to ignore

Network effects: a product or service becomes more useful as more people use it, creating conditions for monopolies or outsize power.

• The massive size of third-party platforms (Facebook alone counts billions of users worldwide) makes them difficult for journalistic outlets to ignore.
• Their structural positions as intermediaries make them difficult to displace.
• Many journalistic outlets believe they must not only have a presence on those platforms but must engage with audiences there, too.

⚖️ The participation dilemma

Journalistic outlets face a difficult trade-off:

Short-term benefits	Long-term concerns
Tapping into new audiences	Ceding further control over content
Remaining relevant on popular platforms	Ceding further control over processes

• Such participation further tethers outlets to these platforms.
• More outlets have begun to distance themselves from some third-party platforms in recent years.
• However, such efforts often come at great risk.

Key insight: The cost of non-participation on platforms often exceeds the cost of participation, forcing outlets to remain engaged despite the challenges.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Non-profit journalism has grown significantly as commercial models have failed, filling public-service gaps through audience contributions and philanthropic grants, though funders' demands for measurable impact and sustainability create both opportunities and constraints.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• What defines non-profit journalism: outlets driven by public-service missions rather than commercial profit, filling gaps from market failures or advancing social causes.
• Why non-profits have grown: the collapse of advertising revenue and audiences' reluctance to pay for online content exposed the vulnerability of commercial journalism's "happy coincidence" model.
• How they are funded: primarily through audience contributions (subscriptions, donations, crowdfunding) and philanthropic grants, supplemented by advertising, sponsorships, and events.
• The impact-sustainability tension: funders require non-profits to demonstrate measurable impact and a path to self-sufficiency, often forcing an inflection point around year four or five.
• Common confusion: non-profit journalism still resembles commercial journalism in form and news values—it is tweaked and less economically constrained, not wholly different.

🎯 Mission and context

🎯 What non-profit journalism is

Non-profit journalistic outlets are not driven by commercial concerns but are instead dedicated to furthering a public-service mission, filling gaps resulting from market failures, or advancing a particular social cause.

• They focus on content perceived to go unrewarded by market forces.
• Expensive or less-captivating genres are prioritized: investigative journalism, international journalism, topics like homelessness and mass incarceration.
• Example: The Associated Press (founded 1846 as a non-profit cooperative to lower newsgathering costs), The Guardian (UK), Malaysiakini (Malaysia—providing alternative voices in tightly controlled media environments).

📉 Why non-profits have grown recently

• For much of the 20th and 21st centuries, a "happy coincidence" allowed advertising and subscription revenue to support robust commercial journalism.
• There is no inherent reason this model has to work to support journalism's public-service responsibilities.
• The drastic drop in advertising revenue and audiences' reluctance to pay for online content in high-choice environments illustrated the model's vulnerability.
• Many non-profits were founded by journalists from commercial outlets concerned about the ability of commercial media to provide public-service journalism, especially in democracies lacking strong state-supported public broadcasting.

🔍 How non-profit journalism relates to commercial journalism

• Non-profits share many dominant role orientations, norms, and news values with journalism in their context.
• Conceptions of newsworthiness are not wholly different—they are tweaked and less encumbered by economic concerns.
• For content to be considered journalism by audiences, it must still resemble the forms and formats recognized as journalism in that context (which dominant commercial or state-supported outlets largely shape).
• Don't confuse: non-profit journalism is not a completely different genre; it is journalism with different constraints and priorities.

💰 Funding sources and revenue models

💰 Primary funding sources

Source	Description	Examples
Audience-derived contributions	Subscription fees, voluntary donations, crowdfunding campaigns	Similar to commercial subscriptions but includes voluntary giving
Philanthropic grants	Funding from non-profit organizations and foundations devoted to civic good	Knight Foundation (U.S.) provides up to $100 million/year; foundations worldwide gave $9 billion 2009–2017 (significant portion in U.S.)

• These two sources alone are rarely sufficient for non-profit journalistic organizations.

💰 Supplemental revenue sources

• Advertising and sponsorships: used but dependence is generally lower than commercial counterparts.
• Additional activities: hosting conferences, social events, workshops, webinars—usually only a small proportion of overall revenue.
• Favorable tax status: in some countries (including the U.S.), contributions are tax-deductible and non-profits pay fewer taxes.

📊 The impact and sustainability challenge

📊 What funders require

• Funders receive more requests than they can fund, so they require organizations to justify merit by demonstrating:
  • Impact: the effect or reach of the journalism.
  • Sustainability: a path toward self-sufficiency over time.

📊 Why impact is difficult to measure

• Impact is immensely difficult to measure and demonstrate.
• Funders develop different ways of understanding impact:
  • Reach: how many readers, viewers, or listeners attracted.
  • Policy and governance impact: e.g., passing of new legislation or ousting of corrupt figures.
  • Coverage generated: e.g., local investigations resulting from a national dataset compiled by the non-profit.
• Such developments can be difficult to track and tie directly to the non-profit's work.
• They may not become apparent for a long time.
• The measures of impact imposed by a funder can significantly shape the journalism produced—in both positive and negative ways.

📊 The sustainability expectation

• Many (though not all) funders ask non-profit organizations to demonstrate a path toward self-sustainability.
• Much funding comes as 'seed grants': intended to help an organization get off the ground, with the expectation that it will find sufficient revenue sources over time to no longer require assistance from that particular funder.
• Many non-profit journalistic outlets face an inflection point around their fourth or fifth year of operation.
• Many that fail to establish themselves financially by then are forced to close.
• Philanthropic funding can thus be an unstable and temporary source of revenue.

📊 How impact and sustainability link in practice

• One way to demonstrate impact is to point to a growing, loyal audience, which can then be monetized through donations and subscriptions.
• To reach a larger audience and increase impact, non-profit organizations often partner with larger, commercial journalistic outlets to distribute the work.
• Example: ProPublica launched its first investigation in 2008 in partnership with CBS's 60 Minutes; has since worked with The New York Times, BuzzFeed, and NPR to increase reach.
• In some instances, works are collaborations (both outlets devote resources); often, the non-profit provides content for free simply to reach more people.
• This is because some non-profits publish infrequently and their own websites and distribution channels have smaller audiences.
• Even when funders directly support a non-profit like ProPublica, they are also offering indirect subsidies to the commercial organizations that use the non-profit's work.

🧑‍💼 Freelance journalism funding

🧑‍💼 Support for independent journalists

• Although the chapter focuses on funding for organizations, there is also a robust sector of philanthropic funding for freelance journalists (journalists who work independently and are not attached to any one organization).
• Such journalists may work with an established journalistic outlet (e.g., PBS) or even a non-traditional partner (e.g., Netflix) to ensure wider distribution of their work.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

State-supported journalism encompasses both independent public-service outlets that correct market failures and state-controlled media that serve as government propaganda tools, with the key distinction lying in the presence or absence of structures protecting editorial independence.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• What state-supported journalism is: journalism directly funded by state governments, ranging from independent public-service outlets to state-controlled propaganda.
• Why governments support journalism: to safeguard high-quality public-interest journalism when commercial markets fail, or to efficiently spread government messaging.
• How independence is protected: through independent governance models (e.g., separate boards, royal charters) that create distance between government funding and editorial decisions.
• Common confusion: state-supported vs. state-controlled—funding alone doesn't determine control; the governance structure and editorial independence mechanisms make the difference.
• Impact difference: well-regarded public-service broadcasters correlate with better-informed citizens, while state-controlled media systematically exclude critical perspectives and over-include favorable ones.

🏛️ Two models of state support

🏛️ Independent state-supported journalism

Independent state-supported journalism: journalism funded by the state but operating through governance structures that maintain editorial independence from government influence.

• The government provides funding, but does not directly control editorial decisions.
• Common in many countries worldwide, typically rooted in radio and television broadcasting due to the natural scarcity of airwaves (historically treated as public goods).
• The central challenge: how can government pay for journalism without unduly influencing or intervening in the editorial process?

🎭 State-controlled media

State-controlled media: government-funded organizations that appear journalistic but functionally serve as propagandist organs of the government.

• Organizations seek to appear journalistic but advance the political interests of the state.
• Control doesn't require fabrication or disinformation (though some outlets do produce false information).
• Instead, control operates through:
  • Systematic exclusion of stories and perspectives critical of the state
  • Systematic over-inclusion of stories and perspectives favorable to the state
• Common under authoritarian regimes and sometimes in semi-democratic societies where perspectives shift with ruling parties.

🛡️ Protecting independence

🛡️ Independent governance model

Independent governance model: a managerial structure that creates separation between government funding and editorial operations.

How it works:

• Establish a separate company or organization with its own board of directors
• Create an executive committee for day-to-day operations
• Set up funding mechanisms that don't require direct government approval for each decision

Example: The BBC

• Funded directly by citizens through an annual license fee set and collected by the government
• Funds transferred to an independent company with its own board and executive committee
• Operates under a royal charter charging it to produce public-interest journalism for all UK citizens
• Remains largely separate from the British government, maintaining independence
• BBC News is well-regarded internationally and is the world's largest broadcast newsgathering operation

💰 European public policy framework

European countries have developed frameworks that grant state subsidies while maintaining journalistic independence:

Support mechanism	How it works	Purpose
Direct cash payments	Selected projects receive funding	Support specific public-interest initiatives
General incentives	Reduced mailing rates, tax benefits	Create favorable economic conditions for public-interest journalism
Public-service broadcasters	Organizations like BBC (UK), France24 (France), NRK (Norway)	Produce public-service journalism, often among biggest news producers in their countries

Key finding: Researchers have found that countries with well-regarded public-service broadcasters tend to have better-informed citizens.

🇺🇸 United States comparison

The U.S. offers minimal government support compared to European counterparts:

• National Public Radio (NPR): Less than 1% of funding comes from the federally funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) or federal agencies
• Most NPR funding comes from corporate sponsorships and member station dues
• Member stations: Receive only 12% of funding from CPB and other federal, state, and local government sources
• Overall: Public media in the U.S. receives relatively small state support; most public and non-profit outlets rely on charitable contributions from individuals, corporations, and foundations

Don't confuse: The U.S. model is not "independent state-supported journalism" in the European sense—it's primarily philanthropic and crowdfunded journalism with minimal state involvement.

🚨 When state support becomes state control

🚨 Absence of independence structures

Without structures to protect independence, state-supported media becomes state-controlled media.

How control manifests:

• Organizations appear journalistic on the surface
• Functionally serve as propagandist organs
• May or may not involve fabrication (some do produce false information)
• Primarily operate through systematic bias in story selection

🇨🇳 Example: Xinhua News Agency

What it is:

• Official state-run press agency of the People's Republic of China
• Biggest and most influential media organization in China
• Arguably the world's largest news organization by personnel
• More than 170 news bureaus worldwide (one of the most international news organizations)

Governance and control:

• Governance structure places it under direct supervision of Communist Party officials
• Reporters Without Borders calls it "the world's biggest propaganda machine"
• Deep connection to the Communist Party of China

Dual function:

• Domestic: Communicates citizens' needs to party officials; conveys party policies and initiatives favorably to citizens
• International: Instrument for increasing China's foreign influence

Operational reach:

• Multiple mediums: print, broadcast, online
• Multiple languages: Arabic, Chinese, French, English, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian
• Recent expansion: commercial real estate in Times Square, bolstered English-language staff, English-language satellite news network

Journalistic capability:

• Capable of producing strong journalism, especially on matters loosely related to China
• But efforts are generally driven by desire to spread perspectives aligned with the Chinese state

🌍 Global presence of state-controlled journalism

Where it exists:

• Authoritarian regimes: Eritrea, North Korea, Turkmenistan
• Semi-democratic societies: state-controlled media may reflect ruling party positions
• Bellwether effect: In some cases, dominant perspectives conveyed by outlets change drastically as political power transitions between parties, making state-controlled media an indicator of power shifts

🎯 Why governments support journalism

🎯 Market failure correction

The rationale:

• Governments feel responsible for safeguarding sustainable, critical, high-quality journalism
• Commercial media serves owners, shareholders, and advertisers—not necessarily the public
• Self-regulated markets prove inefficient or incapable of producing news serving the public interest
• State support is needed to correct this market failure

What it should enable:

• Journalism that monitors and holds accountable institutions of government, commerce, and civic life
• Public-service journalism that advances accountability, transparency, critical thinking, and well-informed debate

🎯 Government messaging efficiency

The alternative purpose:

• Government funds media organizations to efficiently reach large audiences with government messaging
• Media works to advance political interests of the state as the state's mouthpiece
• Interests may be advanced both domestically and internationally

Don't confuse: These two purposes represent fundamentally different philosophies—one seeks to hold government accountable, the other seeks to promote government positions.

📡 Broadcasting and public goods

📡 Why state support is common in broadcasting

Natural scarcity of airwaves:

• Only so many broadcasting frequencies available
• Frequencies have historically been treated as public goods
• This scarcity justifies government involvement in allocation and support

Media forms:

• State-supported outlets typically rooted in radio and television broadcasting
• Some instances of state-supported print media and digitally native media exist
• But broadcasting remains the dominant form due to the public-goods nature of airwaves

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Audience fragmentation—the breakup of mass audiences into many small audiences with divergent media habits—poses challenges to both democratic institutions and the journalism industry by enabling echo chambers and intensifying competition for attention.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• What fragmentation means: a mass audience (or few audiences) splits into many small audiences because people consume media in different ways.
• Civic challenge: the paradox of choice and selective exposure can trap people in echo chambers, increase polarization, and make democratic dialogue harder.
• Professional challenge: fragmentation pushes outlets to specialize and compete fiercely in an attention economy where supply of content far exceeds audience attention.
• Common confusion: more choice sounds positive, but it can lead to fatigue, avoidance of news, and narrower information diets rather than broader perspectives.
• Trend: fragmentation will likely continue and deepen as new technologies give audiences more control and personalize their news experiences.

📺 From mass audiences to fragmented audiences

📺 Historical context: concentration in the past

• In the 1960s, the majority of Americans watched one of just three evening TV newscasts (ABC, CBS, NBC).
• 96% of the American population watched TV news coverage of President Kennedy's assassination—a level of concentration hard to imagine today.
• Back then, broadcast news was pervasive and options were few.

🌐 Today's explosion of options

Today's audiences can choose from:

• Media vehicles: text, broadcast, radio, digital, live video, social video, 360 video, virtual/augmented reality.
• Outlet types: mainstream or independent, partisan or non-partisan.
• Geographic scope: international, national, local, hyper-local.
• Timing: live or on-demand.

Audience fragmentation: a process whereby a mass audience (or few audiences) is broken up into many small audiences by virtue of divergent media consumption habits.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Illustration: divergent media diets

• Ask your friends where they get political news: each will likely list a different set of sources (with some overlap due to shared interests).
• Ask your parents and their friends: they will list even more distinct sources, different media vehicles (e.g., TV vs. online), and different schedules (e.g., live at a certain time vs. on-demand).
• Visit a retirement community a few towns away: you'll find an even more distinct media diet.
• Result: today's news audiences have fragmented from a few mass audiences to many small audiences.

🏛️ Civic implications of fragmentation

🤔 The paradox of choice

Paradox of choice: having access to so many options can make it tough for news consumers to leave their comfort zones or even avoid news altogether.

• Example: signing on to Netflix to watch something, spending 10 minutes browsing, and no longer being in the mood to watch anything at all.
• A similar fatigue occurs in an over-saturated news ecosystem.
• Don't confuse: more options ≠ better outcomes; too many choices can lead to decision paralysis and avoidance.

🔁 Selective exposure and echo chambers

Selective exposure: people actively choosing to pursue a fraction of the available information or information sources, typically along some lines of preference (e.g., political preferences).

• Having many options allows people to more easily turn to slanted news sources that support their existing points of view.
• This can trap news consumers in echo chambers that limit exposure to new and divergent perspectives.
• Result: increased polarization within societies, particularly on political affairs.

🗣️ Challenges to democratic dialogue

When audiences are fragmented and polarized:

• Citizens approach opposing viewpoints with greater antipathy.
• They draw on very different bodies of information about the world.
• Consequence: dialogue, debate, and compromise—the cornerstones of democratic society—become difficult.

💼 Professional implications of fragmentation

🎯 Incentives to specialize

• Generalist outlets that provide overviews of many topics are less desirable to audiences who know what they want and want in-depth or exclusive information.
• By specializing in niche areas, journalistic outlets can capture smaller but loyal audiences.
• Trend: generalist outlets will still exist, but there are likely to be fewer of them in the future than in the past.

⚡ Competition in the attention economy

Attention economy: a context where outlets must compete furiously with one another because there is a greater supply of news content than there is attention to take it in.

• Outlets compete not only with one another to produce good journalism but also to capture the attention of increasingly fragmented audiences.
• Competition is magnified when factoring in non-news media competitors (e.g., beauty vlogs, video game streams, history podcasts).
• Example: in 2019, 500 hours of video were uploaded to YouTube alone every minute.
• Result: journalistic outlets face even more pressure to stand out.

🔮 Future outlook

🔮 Continued and deepening fragmentation

• It is unlikely that the processes underlying fragmentation will be reversed in the coming years.
• The opposite is more likely: audiences will probably become even more fragmented.
• Drivers: new technologies give audiences more agency; technological actants further personalize audiences' news experiences.

🔧 Adaptation required

• Journalistic outlets and society at large must continue to adapt to the existence of niche audiences.
• These audiences frequently draw upon divergent bodies of knowledge about current affairs and the broader world.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

User-generated content has transformed journalism from a one-way broadcast model into a participatory platform, creating both opportunities for audience engagement and challenges around quality control and professional boundaries.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• What UGC is: content created and shared by users of platforms (text, photos, videos, audio, memes) rather than professional producers.
• Evolution in journalism: from limited letters-to-the-editor to widespread integration of audience contributions across news websites, apps, and social media.
• Benefits: gives audiences a voice, increases engagement and loyalty, and provides low-cost content alternatives.
• Challenges: blurs professional boundaries, may include misinformation or unprofessional content, requires moderation, and shifts control to third-party platforms.
• Common confusion: audiences often don't meaningfully distinguish between professionally produced news and embedded user content, even when clearly labeled.

📱 What is user-generated content

📱 Definition and scope

User-generated content (UGC): content that is created and shared by users of platforms and products, including social media and news websites.

• UGC comes in many forms: text, photos, videos, audio, and memes.
• The proliferation of networked devices and interactive platforms has led to an explosion of UGC.
• Many popular websites depend entirely or partially on UGC: TikTok (user-submitted videos), Yelp (citizen reviews), Rotten Tomatoes (user ratings alongside professional reviews), Facebook and Twitter (could not exist without UGC).

🔄 The "produser" concept

• Some scholars argue for an in-between category called produsers: individuals who readily interchange between being users of a product and producers of product-related content.
• Example: highly motivated fans of a TV show create a wiki-based community detailing backstories and offering original analyses.
• This blurs the traditional distinction between producers and audiences.

📰 UGC in journalism context

📰 Historical evolution: letters to the editor

Before the internet:

• Letters to the editor were the most common way for audiences to contact news producers.
• People wrote letters to reflect on news, share stories, complain, ask questions, or share news tips.
• Some letters appeared in the Opinion section—an early form of UGC.

Limitations of letters to the editor:

• Limited to text only
• Depended on publisher's schedule and willingness to publish
• Subject to editor's alterations (often abridged)
• Space constraints meant only a tiny fraction were published
• Rarely published on the letter-writer's terms

📰 Modern UGC integration

How news outlets use UGC today:

• Slideshows of sporting events feature fan-taken photos
• Comments sections invite readers to share thoughts about news
• Facebook accounts ask readers for stories (e.g., worst weather-related disasters)
• Hashtags connect user stories and images to news coverage through widgets
• Community members can upload events to online calendar pages
• News aggregation websites source from popular fan blogs

Why outlets use UGC:

• To provide the public a forum for engaging with civic information
• To make journalism more participatory
• As a cheap source of content
• To increase time users spend on the website

The extent and methods of UGC incorporation vary widely across outlets, but the industry as a whole uses far more user-generated content today than in prior decades.

✅ Benefits of UGC for journalism

✅ Ideological benefits

• Gives news audiences a voice in coverage and dissemination of information
• Engages audiences with the news and the reporting process
• Example: CNN's iReport was an early platform designed to help audiences easily share their own video-based citizen journalism.

✅ Economic benefits

• Increased engagement and loyalty: Research suggests creators of UGC tend to become more active and loyal members of the spaces they contribute to.
• Financial outcomes: Engaged users may visit more frequently and feel more motivated to pay subscription fees or make donations.
• Cost savings: UGC can be a free alternative to professionally produced content (e.g., fan photos replacing a photojournalist's work) or inexpensive filler (e.g., free opinion columns or replacements for person-on-the-street interviews).

⚠️ Challenges and complications

⚠️ Blurred professional boundaries

• UGC elevates the work of non-professional actors who aren't trained in professional norms and ethical standards of journalism.
• User-generated photos or embedded social media posts are usually clearly distinguished by credit lines and other signals.
• The confusion problem: Research shows audiences often do not meaningfully distinguish messages produced by different authors (who may employ different standards).
• While audiences can accurately identify that a news story and an embedded tweet were produced by different people, they often muddle the messages together.

⚠️ Content quality and moderation issues

Problems with forum-style UGC (e.g., comments under news stories):

• May feature personal opinions and stories that are more overtly biased than journalistic standards allow
• May include misinformation and disinformation
• May include deeply unprofessional elements: insults or curse words

Moderation challenges:

• Journalistic outlets have an ethical duty to engage in content policing
• Morally problematic: determining what kind and amount of moderation is appropriate
• Economically challenging: having to hire a team of moderators
• Legally problematic: if a journalist excerpts defamatory user-generated content without engaging in basic fact-checking measures

⚠️ Loss of control to third-party platforms

• User-generated content and online discussions about news are increasingly produced or taking place on platforms outside journalistic outlets' own sites.
• The shift: Letters to the editor were previously sent to the journalistic outlet (giving them control over if and how to use that content); today's engagement occurs on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
• Consequences:
  • Less journalistic control over the content
  • Increased dependency on third-party platforms
  • Professional journalistic work is becoming a content subsidy for discourses that largely take place on forums outside the outlet's own

🔄 Summary comparison

Aspect	Letters to the editor (past)	Modern UGC (present)
Format	Text only	Text, photos, videos, audio, memes
Control	Outlet controlled publication	Often on third-party platforms
Editing	Subject to editor's alterations	Varies; often unmoderated
Volume	Tiny fraction published	Much larger volume integrated
Timing	Publisher's schedule	Real-time or near-real-time
Boundaries	Clear separation from professional content	Blurred boundaries with professional journalism

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Crowdsourcing and ambient journalism represent new forms of news production that harness public participation through digital platforms, transforming audiences from passive consumers into active contributors while creating both opportunities and risks for professional journalism.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• What crowdsourcing means in journalism: harnessing the cultural (knowledge), social (networks), or economic (money) capital of the public for specific news production tasks.
• Five types of participation: voting, witnessing, sharing personal experiences, offering specialized expertise, and completing tasks.
• Ambient journalism as a distinct form: journalism produced continuously via social media where the journalist serves as a clearinghouse for crowdsourced information, requiring audience participation and presenting news in fragmented bites.
• Common confusion: crowdsourcing is not just free labor—it serves multiple purposes including improving accuracy, building brand loyalty, and making journalism more sustainable.
• Key risk: crowdsourcing can go wrong when verification fails, as illustrated by the Boston Marathon bombing misidentification.

🤝 What Journalistic Crowdsourcing Is

🤝 Core definition

Journalistic crowdsourcing: a practice by which the cultural (i.e., knowledge), social (i.e., networks), or economic (i.e., money) capital of some public is harnessed for a specific task in the news production process.

• "Crowd" = not just the outlet's audience but the broader public reachable via multiple channels (Twitter, Facebook, etc.).
• "Sourcing" = collecting resources (knowledge, material, or money) needed to advance organizational or news production tasks.
• Can involve non-journalists in identifying news, gathering information, verifying information, making sense of it, and distributing the final product.
• Crowdfunding is a sister practice: soliciting ad-hoc contributions to support particular stories or projects.

🎯 Where audiences can participate

• Formative stages: identifying stories, collecting basic information, verifying collected information (most common).
• Dissemination: helping spread stories to increase reach.
• Editing stages: rarely happens but theoretically possible.
• The excerpt notes that audiences "rarely ever have a chance to participate in the editing stages."

🎯 Why Outlets Use Crowdsourcing

🎯 Three main motivations

Motivation	How it works	Example from excerpt
Free labor	Access to more material than reporting team can process	Large leaks of private documents; governments overloading journalists with materials
Improving quality	More eyes reduce mistakes and identify things reporters missed	Traditional journalism improvement
Building sustainability	Audiences feel part of a team, increasing brand loyalty	Making journalism more sustainable

🏆 What participants get (usually non-monetary)

• Symbolic rewards: recognition such as icons or "badges" next to usernames; appearing on leader boards.
• Intrinsic satisfaction: feeling of contributing to social good or addressing a social problem.
• Skill/knowledge gain: belief that they've learned something through participation.
• The excerpt emphasizes: "journalistic outlets rarely ever pay or reimburse participants for their labor."

🔍 Five Types of Crowdsourcing Activities

🗳️ Voting

• The crowd helps prioritize which stories reporters should tackle.
• Flags phenomena of interest.

👁️ Witnessing

• Sharing first-person accounts of what happened during a breaking event.
• Direct observation from people on the scene.

💬 Sharing personal experiences

• Conveying experiential knowledge to reporters.
• Different from witnessing: focuses on lived experience rather than observation of a specific event.

🎓 Offering specialized expertise

• Members contribute expert knowledge from professional experience or hobbies.
• Taps into specialized skills the newsroom may lack.

✅ Completing a task

• Volunteering time for semi-structured (sometimes menial) efforts.
• Examples: sorting documents, cleaning datasets, flagging information of journalistic interest.

📰 Real-World Example: The Guardian's Expenses Project

📰 How it worked

• The task: The Guardian published 700,000 pages about British Parliament members' expenses and asked the public to review them.
• The system: Website randomly assigned documents to visitors; visitors flagged interesting pages (e.g., overly expensive dinners, government funds for personal expenses like mortgages); multiple people reviewed each document; system averaged scores to surface most-flagged documents to professional journalists.
• The results: Over 20,000 people participated; 170,000 pages covered within first four days.

🎮 Gamification strategy

• Participants received no monetary reward.
• Symbolic resources: usernames appeared on a leader board on The Guardian's website.
• The excerpt notes this "gamified the experience to increase participation."
• Main motivation: "feeling like they were part of something bigger."

⚠️ When Crowdsourcing Goes Wrong

⚠️ Boston Marathon bombing case

• What happened: After the bombing, online crowds on Reddit examined pictures to identify perpetrators; they zeroed in on two men and published photos as supposed proof.
• Media amplification: The New York Post enlarged one picture to cover its entire front page, suggesting those men were responsible.
• The problem: Those men were not the bombers.
• The consequences: By the time actual perpetrators were charged and convicted, the wrongly accused men's names were public, reputations tarnished, and they received ongoing online and offline abuse that "did not go away."

🚨 Key lesson

• Verification failures in crowdsourcing can cause lasting harm.
• Speed and crowd participation do not guarantee accuracy.
• Professional journalistic standards (fact-checking, verification) remain critical.

🌐 Ambient Journalism as a New Form

🌐 Definition and characteristics

Ambient journalism: journalism that is produced, distributed, and received continuously via new communications technology, such as social media and microblogging, and within which the journalist serves as the clearinghouse for crowdsourced information.

How it differs from traditional journalism:

• Fragmented: news typically presented in small bites (e.g., tweets), though not necessarily.
• Requires audience participation: focuses on gathering information from streams of collective intelligence on social media platforms.
• It is "a particular approach to crowdsourcing journalism."

🧑‍💼 The journalist's role in ambient journalism

Three primary functions:

1. Monitor: actively watch networked media (e.g., Twitter) for newsworthy information.
2. Triangulate and verify: work with other actors on those platforms (e.g., other Twitter users) to confirm information.
3. Serve as authoritative source: act as a reliable clearinghouse within that platform.

Don't confuse: the journalist is not just passively collecting information—they actively verify and contextualize it.

📱 Case Study: Andy Carvin's Revolution Coverage

📱 The context

• Event: Revolutions in Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt in 2011.
• Problem: Few Western outlets had people on the ground; governments cracked down on reporters and restricted communication; some foreign correspondents didn't fully understand the movements.
• Carvin's position: Digital media strategist at National Public Radio (not even a foreign correspondent).

📱 Carvin's approach

• Recognition: Many people in those countries were tweeting experiences and capturing video.
• Strategy: Tap into collective intelligence of citizens instead of hoping NPR could dispatch journalists to the right places at the right times.
• Dealing with bias: Recognized most sources were either anti-government or pro-government activists with evident biases.

🔍 Triangulation method

• Video verification: If he saw video of government forces attacking protesters, he'd ask others to share videos from different angles or visit the location to capture aftermath footage.
• Translation/contextualization: Asked Libyans, Tunisians, and Egyptians on the network to translate or explain coded speech.
• Building trust: As sources demonstrated reliability, he would return to them.

🏆 Impact and legacy

• Earned huge online following during the revolutions.
• Seen as reliable and trustworthy clearinghouse amid constant information stream.
• Audiences had confidence material was verified, reliable, or clearly qualified as unvetted.
• Other journalists followed his lead as he broke information.
• Later left NPR and started his own outlet existing primarily on social media.
• Similar efforts followed: larger teams like Bellingcat covering international affairs; individuals covering local communities and issues.

🔄 Cultural and Technological Shifts

🔄 Moving away from solitary journalism

• Historically, journalists worked in a more solitary fashion.
• Today, journalists are more likely to:
  • Work within teams in their organization.
  • Participate in collaborations across organizations.
  • Involve audiences in different aspects of news production.

🔄 What enabled these changes

• Technological: new communication technologies and platforms make it easier for audiences to engage with each other and with journalists.
• Cultural and economic: cultural changes and economic imperatives have made audience participation appear more beneficial to—and sometimes necessary for—producing "good" journalism.
• New roles: new kinds of journalists have emerged whose job is to tap into and synthesize the collective wisdom of the general public by monitoring their exchanges.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Violence against journalists—both physical and rhetorical, online and offline—has escalated globally and even in the United States, threatening press freedom and disproportionately affecting women, minorities, and freelancers in conflict zones.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Global trend with U.S. decline: Violence against journalists is especially acute in countries with weak press freedom protections, but the U.S. has dropped to 44th in the World Press Freedom Index and seen surging attacks since 2013.
• Correlation between rhetoric and violence: Research shows that rhetorical attacks by political elites against journalists correlate with increased physical and online violence.
• Disproportionate impact on vulnerable groups: Female journalists face more gendered online violence (cyber-bullying, doxxing, sexual threats); minority journalists face ethnic slurs; freelancers in conflict zones lack institutional support and face higher mortality.
• Common confusion—rhetoric vs. physical harm: Both are forms of violence; elite rhetoric ("enemy of the people," "fake news") is not merely speech but a driver of physical assaults, detentions, and killings.
• International implications: The U.S. is no longer seen as a press freedom beacon; European officials and watchdog organizations now call on the U.S. to protect its own journalists.

🇺🇸 Attacks against the U.S. press

📉 Declining press freedom rankings

• The 2021 World Press Freedom Index ranks the U.S. 44th out of 180 countries—below Taiwan, Botswana, and Trinidad and Tobago.
• The U.S. has not ranked better than 40th since 2013, indicating a sustained decline.
• One factor in the ranking is violence against journalists.

🔢 Surge in assaults and detentions

• According to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, nearly 400 journalists were assaulted and more than 130 detained in 2020 alone.
• This represents a significant increase from five years earlier.
• The excerpt attributes this to "changing attitudes—and, namely, increased animosity—toward journalists by different segments of society."

🎤 Elite rhetoric driving violence

• Popular figures and media personalities have called journalists "enemies of the people."
• Former President Donald Trump's public attacks on specific journalists, outlets, and journalism as an institution are credited with influencing the exceptional violence during his presidency.
• Example: At Trump rallies, supporters yelled at journalists and wore t-shirts reading "Rope. Tree. Journalist. No assembly required."

👮 Police violence during protests

• Scores of journalists were detained, arrested, and attacked by police while covering protests after George Floyd's murder in May 2020.
• One photojournalist was left blind in the left eye from a foam bullet.
• Journalists were shoved to the ground and prevented from working despite being clearly credentialed.
• Example: In Minneapolis, police arrested a credentialed CNN reporter live on air.
• The excerpt notes that journalists' behavior was not different from the past; what changed was the authorities' response and the lack of public condemnation by elites.

🌍 International concern

• European government officials called on American officials to better protect journalists and respect press freedom.
• The U.S. is no longer seen as a beacon of press freedom but as a place where journalists need support to carry out their duties.
• Watchdog organizations (Reporters Without Borders, Committee to Protect Journalists) and multiple journalistic outlets echoed these concerns in editorials.

🗣️ Online and offline violence

📊 Correlation between rhetoric and violence

Research shows that violence against journalists is correlated with rhetorical attacks against journalists in elite discourse.

• As rhetorical attacks have risen, so have different forms of violence.
• This is of particular concern because partisan rhetorical attacks have become more frequent and sustained in recent decades.

📻 Historical context of media attacks

• Right-wing radio has assailed "the mainstream media" since at least the 1970s.
• Mainstream politicians, especially Republicans, have become increasingly bold with attacks on news media over the past two decades.
• Example: In 2019, former President Trump used "fake news" on Twitter 273 times and called the press "the enemy of the people" 16 times.

🚫 Administrative actions against the press

• Trump's administration barred well-regarded journalists from covering certain events.
• The historically traditional daily White House press briefing was canceled, all under the guise of fighting "unscrupulous journalists."
• An edited montage video depicting then-President Trump shooting and stabbing journalists was played publicly at an event for his supporters.

🧠 Public perception shift

• A Pew Research study found that people who supported Trump perceived journalists to be less ethical.
• Mainstream journalists covering Trump's administration were frequently subject to online name-calling every time they posted a story.

👊 Physical violence example

• In May 2017, Republican U.S. House candidate Greg Gianforte body-slammed a journalist covering his campaign, sending the journalist to the hospital.
• Gianforte was convicted of assault but his actions were publicly praised by Trump and celebrated in some corners of society.
• Gianforte went on to win two terms in the U.S. House and become governor of Montana.
• Don't confuse: This was not an isolated incident but part of a pattern where violence against journalists is rewarded rather than condemned.

🌏 Violence against journalists abroad

📈 Global scale of violence

• The Middle East, Latin America, and parts of Asia are especially dangerous for journalists.
• More than 800 journalists worldwide have been killed on the job during the past decade alone (likely an underestimate).
• Many more incidents include kidnapping, detention, and torture.

🇸🇦 Jamal Khashoggi case

• Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post writer, reported critically about political corruption in the Middle East.
• In October 2018, he was assassinated in gruesome fashion by Saudi government actors who wished to silence him.
• Evidence linked his murder to the Saudi crown prince, yet few concrete sanctions were placed on Saudi Arabia by countries that advocate for press freedom.
• The case has become a "terrible symbol of the need to increase protections for journalists worldwide."

🇵🇭 Maria Ressa case

• Maria Ressa, a Filipino-American journalist who founded Rappler, was convicted of cyberlibel in the Philippines in 2020.
• She had reported critically on Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte for years.
• Press freedom advocates allege the Duterte government was behind the lawsuit and pressured courts to interpret a 2012 law (intended to combat child pornography, identity theft, and libel) in a "Kafkaesque" way to criminalize critical journalism.
• The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines and international watchdog groups decried the ruling as authorities using legal mechanisms to restrict critical journalism.

📸 Freelance journalists in conflict zones

• Declining news budgets have resulted in more conflict journalism being performed by freelancers.
• Freelancers receive limited institutional assistance compared to staff reporters:
  • Limited legal support
  • Little access to on-the-ground resources like security details
  • Lack of access to emergency extractions
• Freelancers often take greater risks to gather front-line information (e.g., photographs) in order to get picked up by major outlets and get paid.
• Consequently, freelancers are disproportionately more likely to get killed when reporting abroad, especially in war zones.

👩‍💼 Female and minority journalists

🚺 Gendered online violence

• Research finds that women in journalism are more susceptible to violence than male counterparts, particularly online.
• A 2020 International Center for Journalists study documented "gendered online violence":

Gendered online violence includes acts like cyber-bullying and online harassment, targeted toxic attacks, threatened sexual violence, and violations of digital security and online privacy (e.g., 'doxxing').

• These acts complicate the already difficult online environments journalists operate in and make female journalists especially vulnerable.
• Attacks occur on multiple platforms: online news comment streams, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media.

🧑🏾‍💼 Minority journalists

• Journalists belonging to minority ethnic groups are more likely to face online harassment than majority counterparts.
• Attacks often come via ethnic slurs and coordinated action.
• These attacks tend to be more personal in nature.

🛡️ Institutional responses

• Newsrooms, in coordination with law enforcement, continue to develop best practices for preventing and reacting to harassment.
• Measures include creating clear standards for interactions allowed on news websites.
• The excerpt concludes: "All of this serves as a reminder that the practice of journalism is not only difficult but also dangerous."

🔑 Key implications

Dimension	What the excerpt shows	Why it matters
Elite rhetoric	Rhetorical attacks by political leaders correlate with physical violence	Speech by powerful figures is not harmless; it incites and legitimizes attacks
U.S. example	The U.S. has dropped to 44th in press freedom; European officials now call for U.S. to protect its journalists	The U.S. is no longer a model but a cautionary tale
Vulnerable groups	Women, minorities, and freelancers face disproportionate violence	Press freedom is not equally distributed; structural inequalities amplify risk
Global pattern	800+ journalists killed in a decade; high-profile cases like Khashoggi and Ressa	Violence is systemic, not isolated; legal and extralegal mechanisms are both used to silence journalists

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Early U.S. journalism evolved from government-controlled, elite-focused publications into an independent force that shaped public opinion and secured constitutional press freedoms, though it operated very differently from modern journalism and was far from politically neutral.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Colonial press characteristics: no headlines/images, international focus, single-person operations, elite audience, and direct government/patron subsidies.
• Path to independence: journalism shifted from licensed, government-approved content to critical, opinion-driven publications that consolidated public sentiment against British rule.
• Truth as legal defense: the 1734 Zenger case established truth as a defense against libel, reversing the prior logic that truthful criticism was more punishable because it was more damaging.
• Common confusion: the colonial press was not neutral—it was highly interpretive, subjective, and often explicitly supported independence, with loyalist papers facing violent pressure to shut down.
• Constitutional guarantee vs. practice: the First Amendment promised "no law" abridging press freedom, yet laws like the 1798 Sedition Act criminalized criticism, especially during partisan conflict.

📰 What early colonial journalism looked like

📰 Format and content differences

Early U.S. newspapers bore little resemblance to today's publications:

• No visual aids: no headlines or images; journalists depicted events with words alone.
• International, not local: focus on foreign affairs because covering domestic issues risked angering local leaders who could shut down the paper.
• Outdated "news": information was often weeks or months old by the time it was printed, creating a very different understanding of what counted as "news."

👤 Roles and audience

• A single person often served as publisher, editor, and reporter.
• Content came from things heard from travelers arriving from abroad or read in texts they brought.
• Written for political and mercantile classes: issues tailored to economic/political interests, language suited to the well-educated.

💰 Funding and control

• Much of the early press was subsidized directly by government or wealthy patrons.
• This created risks: journalists who upset local officials or benefactors faced consequences.
• Example: Publick Occurrences (1690, Boston) was the first multi-page U.S. newspaper but lasted only one issue—the colonial government shut it down for lacking a license.

🗽 The shift toward independence

🗽 Licensed vs. critical press

Early newspapers operated under government control:

• Boston News-Letter (1704) was the first licensed newspaper, proudly stating it was "published by authority" of the governor.
• Heavily subsidized by the British government; primarily contained transcripts of political speeches and European politics/wars.

By 1721, independence emerged:

• The New-England Courant: James Franklin published it; his brother Benjamin wrote scathing critiques of local government under a pen name.
• James Franklin was imprisoned for refusing to reveal the author, but the paper's critical tone made it popular, especially among independence-minded citizens.
• This popularity encouraged other newspapers to adopt a more critical tone and spurred new, even more critical publications.

🔓 Why censorship began to fail

Governmental restrictions on speech and publication were the norm in colonial America and much of Europe, but they started to loosen:

• Censorship made governments appear fearful and could intensify curiosity, speculation, and rumors.
• Publishers sometimes evaded orders by relocating operations or simply changing the newspaper's name.

📣 Journalism as a vehicle for public opinion

During this period, journalism became a vehicle for capturing and consolidating public opinion, and for conveying citizens' concerns to public officials.

• The expanding reach meant officials could no longer easily pretend to be unaware of concerns raised in publications.
• Officials realized that establishing friendly ties with news organizations (supplying favorable stories, sometimes direct income) served their interests better than outright censorship.
• New political party-sponsored newspapers also emerged.

⚖️ Legal milestones and press freedom

⚖️ The Zenger case (1734)

John Peter Zenger published articles in The New York Weekly Journal critical of New York's royal governor, William Cosby, and was charged with making claims harmful to Cosby's reputation.

The old rule (England and colonies):

• Defendants faced more severe penalties if their claims were truthful.
• Logic: a truthful claim was even more harmful to a person's reputation than a false one because the allegations were, well, true.

The breakthrough:

• Zenger's attorney was the first to successfully argue that the press has "a liberty both of exposing and opposing tyrannical power by speaking and writing truth."
• This was a fairly novel argument at the time and captured growing public support for independent, critical journalism.
• Result: truth became a legally recognized defense against libel and defamation, further bolstering public support for press freedom.

📜 The Stamp Act (1765)

To generate revenue and maintain control, the British government passed the Stamp Act:

• Imposed a tax on colonial publishers.
• Required many printed materials in the colonies be produced on stamped paper from London.
• Violently resisted in the colonies—spurred cries of "no taxation without representation."
• The British government soon had to rescind it.

🎯 The colonial press was not neutral

By 1775, roughly 37 weekly newspapers existed in the colonies:

• They played a major role in defining colonists' grievances against the British government.
• Generally supported by different political factions; wrote in a highly interpretive, subjective manner.
• Many wrote in support of independence.
• Don't confuse: the colonial press was hardly neutral—it was partisan and advocacy-driven.
• Loyalist newspapers were increasingly forced to shut down due to pressure—sometimes violent—from colonists.

🇺🇸 Press freedom in the new nation

🇺🇸 Constitutional guarantee

Shortly after independence, the U.S. became a world leader in official guarantees for freedom of expression:

• Nine of the 11 revolutionary-era state constitutions expressed that liberty of the press ought to be "inviolably" preserved or "never" restrained.
• The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states:

Congress shall make "no law" abridging freedom of the press.

🚨 The gap between principle and practice

Such absolute guarantees did not manifest in practice:

• Deviance from the principle has been especially pronounced during times of hysteria and partisan animosity.

Example: The Alien and Sedition Acts (1798):

• The Federalist majority in Congress responded to international and domestic tensions by passing these acts.
• The Sedition Act criminalized making false statements critical of the federal government.
• Used to prosecute and convict many Jeffersonian newspaper owners who disagreed with the government.
• The Act expired shortly after Federalists lost control in 1800.

Continued legal issues:

• Truth continued to be recognized as a defense against sedition charges.
• However, some journalists were still convicted when their expressed opinions were not provably true.

🏛️ Positive developments

Despite unfortunate incidents, the new United States generally promoted press freedoms:

• Opening legislative branches to the press: galleries were established to allow journalists and citizens to observe both branches of Congress.
• Continuing a tradition of open courtrooms.

📊 Summary comparison

Aspect	Early colonial press	Growing independence era
Government relationship	Licensed, subsidized, "published by authority"	Critical, independent, sometimes party-sponsored
Content focus	International affairs, political speeches	Domestic grievances, critical commentary
Tone	Neutral/official	Interpretive, subjective, partisan
Legal status of truth	Truthful claims = more punishable	Truth = defense against libel/sedition
Public role	Information for elites	Consolidating public opinion, mobilizing action

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Journalism in the 19th century transformed from a politically subsidized, limited-circulation information good into a widely available commercial commodity driven by mass markets, technological innovation, and profit motives.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• The Penny Press shift (1830s): social (rising literacy), economic (rising income), and technological (steam presses) factors combined to make newspapers cheaper and more accessible, expanding circulation dramatically.
• Telegraph's impact: redefined time and space in journalism by enabling rapid long-distance transmission, creating the correspondent role and the inverted pyramid writing style still used today.
• Commercialization and magnates: the press became increasingly profit-driven, with powerful newspaper owners like Scripps and Hearst emerging; competition drove demand for speed, accuracy, and entertainment.
• Yellow journalism vs. investigative work: sensationalized, misleading yellow journalism (e.g., Hearst's war-provoking coverage) coexisted with pioneering investigative reporting (e.g., Ida B. Wells on lynching).
• Common confusion: not all 19th-century journalism was sensationalized—while yellow journalism represented commercial excess, serious investigative work also flourished, especially in the Black press and among reform-minded journalists.

📰 The Penny Press era and expanding access

📚 What changed in the 1830s

Three converging factors made newspapers cheaper and more widely circulated:

• Social: literacy rates rose, creating larger potential audiences.
• Economic: disposable income increased for some residents, raising the standard of living.
• Technological: high-speed steam presses allowed faster printing than ever before.

The Penny Press period: newspapers became cheaper and gained even wider circulation, further commodifying news within a capitalist framework.

• Newspapers remained partisan tools, especially in rural areas where owner/editors were involved in local politics.
• Additional commercial options emerged alongside partisan papers.
• Example: a small-town editor might still use the paper for political advocacy, but urban papers increasingly focused on commercial viability.

🌍 International recognition and overlooked issues

• French intellectual Alexis de Tocqueville traveled the U.S. in the early 1830s and wrote Democracy in America, noting almost every community had its own periodical.
• He saw this as evidence of popular power and American sovereignty; his writings elevated the U.S.'s international stature on press freedom.
• What was overlooked: journalists and editors struggled to write about inequality and discrimination; the white press often refused to cover issues affecting Black communities.
• Freedom's Journal, the country's first Black-owned newspaper, was founded in New York in 1827 in response to many pro-slavery newspapers.
  • It operated for only two years, illustrating challenges alternative and minority-owned media would face.
  • Even abolitionist papers often characterized Blacks as powerless or ignorant and rarely gave them a voice.

📡 The telegraph and journalism's transformation

⚡ How the telegraph redefined news

• Developed in the 1830s; the first commercial U.S. telegraph was created by Samuel Morse.
• The device allowed messages to be quickly transmitted across large distances via electrical wires.
• Redefined time and space: news from afar could actually be new—events in Virginia could appear in the next day's New York newspaper.
• Submarine cables linking the U.S. to Europe and other countries made it easier to bring global news to local audiences in a timely fashion.

👤 New roles: correspondents and war correspondents

• The telegraph created a new class of reporter: the correspondent, who traveled to different parts of the country and sent dispatches via telegraph to an editor.
• The American Civil War led to the creation of the war correspondent, who could offer frequent updates on battles from the front lines.
• Example: a correspondent at a battle site could send updates immediately, rather than waiting days or weeks for mail delivery.

✍️ The inverted pyramid writing style

Inverted pyramid: a news story structure that begins with the most newsworthy information on top, followed by important contextual details, and concluding with relevant background information.

• Why it emerged: the cost and unreliability of the telegraph promoted terse writing.
• Since transmissions sometimes failed partway through, correspondents produced shorter stories and prioritized information.
• Correspondents often transmitted only the most important information, leaving editors to fill in background at the bottom.
• Legacy: the inverted pyramid remains the most commonly used writing style at many U.S. journalistic outlets today.
• Don't confuse: this style was not chosen for aesthetic reasons but for practical reliability—if the wire cut out, the most important facts were already sent.

💼 Commercialization and the rise of magnates

📈 Changing content and demand

• Popular demand and growing commercialization led to important changes in content and ownership.
• New content demands: entertainment, crime stories, and business news—especially financial news from London, then the financial capital of the world.
• Increased competition sparked pressure for journalists to produce news quickly, accurately, and reliably.

🏢 Newspaper magnates and ownership models

Magnate	Approach	Example
Edward W. Scripps	Hands-off: lent money to launch publications, acquired control of successful ones, granted local editors autonomy as long as they met revenue objectives via ads and subscriptions	Built a large portfolio by focusing on financial performance
William Randolph Hearst	Hands-on: purchased newspapers in the 1890s, routinely intervened in editorial decision-making, used them to publish his personal views	Used New York Morning Journal to provoke outrage against Spain through sensationalist, often false articles

• Hearst's coverage contributed to the Spanish-American War in 1898 and sparked a circulation rivalry with Joseph Pulitzer's New York World.
• Example: a magnate like Scripps might allow an editor to choose local stories freely, while Hearst would dictate coverage to advance his political agenda.

🎪 Yellow journalism and investigative pioneers

📰 What yellow journalism was

Yellow journalism: journalism that sought to draw larger audiences by using misleading, eye-catching headlines in huge print (even for minor news), accompanied by sensationalized and highly suspect articles.

• Characteristics:
  • Fake interviews, pseudo-science, scandal-mongering, dramatic emotional language.
  • Lavish illustrations that bore little resemblance to reality and simply dramatized events.
• What it represents: commercialism run amok; an era of powerful proprietors exploiting newspapers to advance personal whims.
• Hearst's Morning Journal was emblematic of this style.
• Don't confuse: yellow journalism was not just "biased" or "partisan"—it actively fabricated content and used deceptive presentation to boost sales.

🔍 Investigative journalism alongside sensationalism

Not all journalism during this time was poor or sensationalized; pioneering investigative work also emerged.

Example: Ida B. Wells

• Documented lynching in the United States throughout the 1890s.
• Investigated claims that lynchings were reserved for Black criminals only.
• Brought to light the barbarism of lynchings and how they were used to intimidate Blacks who created economic and political competition for whites.
• Her publishing office and press was destroyed by a white mob, forcing her to relocate from Memphis to New York to continue reporting.
• Her work was then carried nationally by the growing Black press.

🔄 The century's overall transformation

📊 From limited to mass commodity

• Early 1800s: journalism was an information good available to a relatively limited number of people.
• End of the century: journalism became a widely available commodity oriented toward giving mass audiences consumer choice.
• It was no longer gathered and distributed primarily for political communication, trade, and pleasure.
• Instead, it was commodified with an eye toward the creation of mass media markets.

⚖️ The victory and excesses of commercialism

• The 19th century is crucial to journalism history because it represents the victory of commercialism in the U.S. press.
• It also illustrates some of commercialism's worst excesses (e.g., yellow journalism, war provocation, destruction of minority voices).
• Don't confuse: "commercial" does not automatically mean "bad journalism"—the same commercial pressures that enabled yellow journalism also funded investigative work and expanded access to information for millions.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Early 20th-century journalism saw the rise of investigative muckraking and the professionalization of the field, while the modern emphasis on objectivity emerged primarily as a business strategy rather than an ethical ideal, and public relations developed as a distinct industry aimed at influencing journalists.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Muckraking journalism: investigative reporting that exposed social ills and corruption through meticulous research, exemplified by exposés on city corruption and corporate abuses.
• Professionalization: journalism schools were established in 1908, though most journalists remained non-university-educated until the 1960s, and formal training gradually promoted shared best practices.
• Objectivity as business strategy: neutrality and objectivity only became norms in the 1920s, driven not by journalistic ideals but by the desire to appeal to broader audiences and avoid offending readers.
• Common confusion: "muckraker" has two meanings—both deep investigative journalism and (pejoratively) sensationalized agenda-driven reporting.
• Public relations emergence: PR developed as a distinct practice focused on influencing intermediaries (journalists) rather than selling directly to consumers, with both government and corporations adopting it by the 1930s.

📰 Industry growth and muckraking

📈 Expansion of print media

• Between 1880 and the start of the 20th century, English-language daily newspapers grew from 850 to 1,970.
• Weekly newspapers tripled in number.
• New magazines thrived by developing specialized niches and providing longer feature stories about daily life.
• Print journalism became a major industry with more consumer options than ever before.

🔍 What muckraker journalism was

Muckraker journalism: a form characterized by the use of journalism to critically interrogate and expose social ills and corruption.

• Often driven by an expressed agenda (e.g., showing shortcomings of capitalism or democracy).
• The agenda was supplemented with meticulous reporting, not just opinion.
• The magazine McClure's led this movement, reaching 400,000 circulation by 1898.

🏛️ Lincoln Steffens and city corruption

• Steffens wrote "The Shame of Minneapolis" (1903) as part of a series examining corruption in major U.S. cities.
• He discovered the mayor was working with police to ignore illegal gambling and prostitution in exchange for bribes.
• His exposé led the mayor to flee the state, throwing city government into disarray.
• A new mayor replaced many officials and fired many police officers.
• Example: investigative reporting leading directly to political consequences and institutional change.

🛢️ Ida Tarbell and Standard Oil

• Standard Oil was the largest oil refiner in the world and one of its most ruthless companies at the turn of the century.
• Tarbell acquired and reviewed hundreds of thousands of pages of documents scattered around the country.
• She interviewed oil executives, competitors, government regulators, and academic experts.
• Her work was serialized into 19 articles in McClure's, demonstrating Standard Oil's strong-arm tactics, manipulation of competitors, and worker abuse.
• The story's success played a major role in the U.S. government's decision to break up Standard Oil into 34 companies under antitrust laws.

⚖️ Two meanings of "muckraker"

• Positive meaning: investigative journalism that "digs deep for the facts," like Tarbell's work.
• Pejorative meaning: sensationalized, agenda-driven journalism.
• The negative connotation was popularized by President Theodore Roosevelt, who criticized progressive journalism and remarked that "the men with the muck rakes are often indispensable to the well being of society; but only if they know when to stop raking the muck."
• Don't confuse: the same term describes both rigorous investigation and sensationalism, depending on context and speaker.

🎓 Professionalization of journalism

🏫 Establishment of journalism schools

• The first journalism schools were established in 1908 at the University of Missouri and Columbia University in New York.
• These universities launched the process of formally training journalists via shared education.
• Formal training promoted more widespread adoption of best practices and eventually the creation of professional codes of ethics.
• Important limitation: relatively few journalists were university-educated at that time; this remained the case until the 1960s.

📚 Connection to literature

• Many journalism schools began within English or Literature departments.
• This created a strong connection between journalism and literary non-fiction.

🎯 The shift to objectivity and neutrality

The contemporary cultural emphasis on neutrality and objectivity in U.S. journalism is a historically recent phenomenon.

• Objectivity and neutrality only became norms in the 1920s.
• Before that, journalism was incredibly pointed and took clear positions on issues.
• Evidence: the progressive ideals of muckraking and the clear political affiliations of many news organizations in prior centuries.

💼 Why objectivity emerged: business, not ethics

• Scholars argue the shift was not primarily driven by changing journalistic ideals.
• It was largely a business decision.
• As potential audiences grew and competitors increased, newspaper owners found they could differentiate themselves and have broader appeal by acting as observers.
• Not offending as many readers meant reaching more customers.
• Don't confuse: modern objectivity norms are often presented as ethical principles, but they originated as a commercial strategy.

🤝 Public relations as a distinct industry

📢 What public relations focused on

Public relations focused on influencing intermediaries (like journalists) in order to promote more favorable representations of companies and their products or services.

• In contrast to advertising, which sold products and services directly to people.
• PR involved a new skill-set, sharpened over decades, to make positive coverage of clients (companies or celebrities) appear natural.

🏢 Early PR agencies

• The first news-oriented public relations agency, the Publicity Bureau, was established by George Michaelis in Boston in 1900.
• In 1902, William Wolf Smith, a former reporter at The New York Sun, established the first Washington D.C.-based PR agency.
• This cemented the linkages between public relations, journalism, and public affairs.
• Clients ranged from Harvard University to railroad syndicates, hired to generate support for favorable legislation and fight industry reform legislation pushed by the Roosevelt administration.

🏛️ Government adoption of PR

• By 1910, the U.S. government began employing press agents tasked with sending handouts to Washington-based newspapers.
• The first governmental press conferences were held later that decade, under the Woodrow Wilson administration.
• Presidential administrations increasingly tried to cultivate favorable perceptions in a highly organized fashion.
• By the 1930s, the federal government and many large companies had established press relations offices or hired PR agencies.
• Although the word "spin" would not be commonly used until the 1980s, the practice was already established.

🎭 PR tactics: truthful and dishonest

Approach	What press agents do
Truthful	Promote accurate accounts of their organization's or client's good deeds
Dishonest	Selectively release information; issue 'non-denial' denials; bury toxic information within long press releases filled with less-consequential positive information; delay information release to minimize impact

• Journalists have had to become very attuned to their sources' motivations.
• They must approach information with a critical eye.
• Example: An organization releases a long press release with mostly positive news but buries a single line about a major problem—journalists must learn to spot this tactic.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Technology drove rapid change in U.S. journalism after the early 20th century, but its intersection with broader social, cultural, political, and economic shifts—not technology alone—shaped modern journalistic practices and disrupted the industry's economic foundations.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Continuity amid change: New technologies (radio, TV, internet) initially mimicked older formats (radio read newspapers; TV looked like radio with pictures; websites copied newspaper layouts) before developing distinct styles.
• Technology enabled direct communication: Radio and later technologies allowed leaders to bypass journalists and speak directly to citizens (e.g., FDR's fireside chats), changing journalism's gatekeeping role.
• Visual and entertainment pressures: Television increased the need for compelling visuals and, by the late 20th century, shifted toward entertainment news, shorter sound bites, and action-oriented reporting driven by commercial consultants.
• Internet disruption: The internet democratized news production, upended advertising markets, made journalism interactive and instantaneous, and challenged traditional outlets' economic models—newspapers responded very slowly.
• Common confusion: Technology vs. technology + context—the excerpt emphasizes that technology played a major role but it was the intersection with broader phenomena (social, cultural, political, economic) that produced today's journalism, not technology in isolation.

📻 Radio journalism development

📻 Early radio and the press-radio war

• Regular U.S. evening broadcasts began in 1919; the first major network (NBC) was founded in 1926.
• Initially, radio presenters simply read major stories from newspapers.
• This triggered a "press-radio war": newspapers and news associations sued radio broadcasters to limit news distribution on radio.
• The lawsuits were largely unsuccessful; by 1935, wire services became major content providers to radio programs.

✍️ Developing a distinct radio style

• As small newsrooms grew within radio stations, they cultivated a unique communication style.
• Radio copy was written with fluidity and tailored for the ear, unlike newspaper copy.
• Early bulletins were just five minutes long, with 7–10 stories, each rarely longer than 75 words (except the top story).
• Example: Instead of dense newspaper prose, radio scripts used conversational, spoken-language phrasing.

🌍 World War II and radio's rise

• News and commentary programs greatly expanded at the beginning of World War II.
• Technological advancements allowed reporters to bring the sound of war to listeners.
• Entertainment programs were frequently interrupted for news reports from various cities and the globe.
• Some radio journalists (Edward Murrow, William Shirer) became household names.

🎙️ Bypassing journalists: the fireside chats

Radio provided a means for elected leaders and other powerful actors to communicate directly with citizens, rather than to have their words interpreted and/or partially re-broadcasted by journalists.

• President Franklin Roosevelt's "fireside chats" (radio addresses throughout the 1930s and early 1940s) illustrated this shift.
• Roosevelt used radio to calm national fears and promote his policies directly.
• The addresses reached up to 58% of U.S. households and were credited with bolstering his popularity.
• Don't confuse: This was not journalists reporting on the president; it was the president speaking directly to the public, bypassing journalistic interpretation.

📡 Transistors and format expansion

• By 1948, the transistor made radios smaller and no longer dependent on fixed electrical connections.
• This increased radio listening away from home, especially important with automobile proliferation post-war.
• FM radio technology led to more stations, including all-news radio stations and new formats.
• By the 1960s, National Public Radio (NPR) was established as a network of noncommercial stations funded by listener donations and government subsidies.

📺 Television journalism evolution

📺 Early television: mimicking radio

• One of the world's first TV stations (W2XB) began broadcasting in New York in 1928.
• Regular TV newscasts began in the U.S. in 1941 when CBS started airing 15-minute daily news programs.
• Initially, local stations hired employees who were simply filmed reading wire news copy—much like early radio.
• Later, stations hired teams of reporters and videographers to produce original content, making TV news its own form.
• NBC's Camel News Caravan (1949) is often considered the first major national TV newscast; Camel (a cigarette company) sponsored it and had considerable influence.

📈 Explosive growth in the 1950s–1960s

Year	Household TV ownership	Key development
1950	9%	Beginning of adoption
1960	87%	Remarkably fast adoption

• This was a truly remarkable pace for technological adoption, and television news capitalized on it.
• Throughout the 1950s, the 16-millimeter camera gained widespread adoption, making TV news production more mobile.
• This magnified the value of immediacy and increased the need for compelling visuals—stories lacking compelling visuals became less likely to be featured.
• The 1950s also saw the invention of the teleprompter, allowing presenters to look straight into the camera, creating a more personal connection with viewers (compared to anonymous radio and newspaper reporters).

📰 Television becomes the primary news source

• By the early 1960s, television was establishing itself as the primary source of news information for Americans.
• Televised newscasts became immensely profitable; local and network newscasts adopted longer formats (30 minutes to one hour).
• Several critical events glued Americans to their televisions:
  • JFK assassination: An estimated 96% of American households tuned in for more than four days.
  • Civil rights protests, Vietnam War, Apollo moon landing: Vivid images defined the decade.
• CBS' Walter Cronkite became one of the most trusted people in America by the 1960s, commanding extraordinarily large audiences for nearly two decades.

🎬 Commercialization and the eyewitness news style

• Starting in the late 1960s, TV news outlets turned to news consultants to increase viewership and commercial success.
• This led to the eyewitness news style: more action-oriented and visually appealing (e.g., reporters outside crime scenes or in the middle of weather events).
• Television news transformed to include:
  • More entertainment news
  • Shorter sound bites
  • Reduced coverage of government and public affairs
• News consultants believed these changes would increase appeal and profitability.
• The excerpt notes: "In important ways, the commodification of news during the late 20th century was most acute in mainstream TV journalism."

📡 Cable, satellite, and 24-hour news

📡 CNN and the birth of 24-hour news

• Starting in the 1970s, nationally distributed TV channels expanded via cable technology.
• The first 24-hour television news network was CNN (Cable News Network), launched in 1980.
• CNN was commercially successful throughout the 1980s but distinguished itself in the early 1990s.
• Gulf War coverage (1991): CNN broadcast directly from Baghdad as U.S. troops invaded, providing live, around-the-clock coverage and leveraging satellite technology to reach global audiences.
• CNN pioneered portable satellite newsgathering equipment, allowing small teams to report live under distressed conditions worldwide.

🌐 The CNN effect

CNN effect: A phenomenon wherein 24-hour news networks had become so powerful that they could influence the political and economic climate.

• Scholars found that 24-hour news networks are particularly influential among policymakers and political junkies who consume disproportionate amounts of political news.
• Critics argued that 24-hour news networks:
  • Promoted needless dramatization of less-important news to make the mundane seem riveting.
  • Hyper-activated a culture of chasing episodic, breaking news.
• Throughout the 1990s, the phrase "wag the dog" gained popularity, capturing the phenomenon wherein politicians create diversions (e.g., launching a military strike to distract from allegations of impropriety) that inevitably receive ample news coverage.

🦊 Fox News, MSNBC, and opinion formats

• CNN's success spawned more 24-hour news networks, including Fox News and MSNBC.
• Fox News: Branded itself as a moderate (later conservative) alternative to "the liberal mainstream media."
  • Within a decade, Fox News had the nation's largest cable network viewership, establishing itself as the centerpiece of conservative journalism.
  • Helped popularize opinion news show formats more akin to entertainment than journalism.
  • Fox News has repeatedly defended itself in legal cases by arguing that key figures are entertainers providing opinions, not journalists making factual claims.
• MSNBC: Subsequently attempted to establish itself as a liberal alternative to Fox News, but with far less commercial success.

🌍 International satellite distribution

• Satellite technology helped spread U.S. news channels to Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and other parts of the world.
• It also made it easier for international outlets (Japan-based NHK World, Qatar-based Al Jazeera English, Turkey-based TRT World) to distribute journalism to global audiences.
• As a result, non-Western perspectives on world issues have gained a wider audience in recent years.

🌐 The internet and journalism disruption

🌐 Slow adoption and initial mimicry

• Although the internet was initially developed in the 1960s, it did not gain widespread adoption until the early 1990s.
• Internet access was at first quite slow, largely limiting websites to text and some images.
• Traditional journalistic outlets generally failed to see the internet as transformative and were very slow to react.
• Newspaper websites were made to look very similar to newspapers themselves, with content placed online for free (even as the same content was charged for in print).
• Industry analysts attribute some of newspapers' current financial challenges to their slow response—though other missteps and societal shifts also played a part.

🔄 Four ways the internet challenged journalism foundations

🔄 Democratization of news production

• The internet arguably democratized news production and distribution.
• It enabled any person to create a micro news outlet without investing the vast sums required to start a newspaper or broadcast station.
• This drastically increased competition and created a seemingly endless menu of consumer choices.
• Example: An individual could start a blog or website covering local issues without needing printing presses or broadcast licenses.

💰 Upending the advertising market

• The internet gave advertisers more non-news options where they could reach audiences.
• It also allowed advertisers to reach audiences directly through their own websites and social media channels, thereby bypassing traditional media.
• Don't confuse: This is not just about online ads replacing print ads; it's about advertisers no longer needing journalistic outlets as intermediaries.

⚡ Interactivity and instantaneousness

• The internet made journalism interactive and even more instantaneous.
• This altered audience expectations for when and how often news is published, including expectations for personalized, on-demand content.
• It enabled shorter, incremental forms of news production, such as live tweeting.

🌍 Expanded distribution range

• The internet increased the distribution range for journalistic outlets.
• It enabled local U.S. publications in Massachusetts to reach expats in Asia while enabling Asian publications to reach immigrants in Massachusetts.
• Example: A regional newspaper could now have a global readership without additional distribution infrastructure.

📜 Historical context and future outlook

• The excerpt contrasts two timelines:
  • ~200 years for modern newspaper technology to emerge → journalism adapted progressively to social and cultural changes.
  • Past century: Much faster technological revolution → significantly disrupted journalism's economic underpinnings.
• U.S. journalism is likely to reinvent itself again in the coming years, as it has in the past.
• What is certain: journalism's future will be shaped in part by its long history and may yet come to resemble aspects of its past.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

The First Amendment serves as the cornerstone of journalistic freedom in the United States by protecting speech and press from government interference, with courts granting especially strong protection to political expression that serves democracy.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• What the First Amendment protects: freedom of speech and press from government interference, initially only at the federal level but later extended to states.
• How courts interpret it: the Supreme Court acts as the final arbiter when First Amendment freedoms clash with other interests, having issued nearly 900 major rulings since 1804.
• Political vs commercial expression: political and public affairs journalism receives greater legal protection than commercial speech because courts recognize its role in democracy.
• Common confusion: the First Amendment does NOT grant journalists blanket immunity or special rights—it offers protection but does not forbid all regulation of journalism.
• Why it matters: it provides the primary legal defense for U.S. journalists against government intervention and civil charges, offering stronger protections than in most other countries.

📜 The text and its origins

📜 What the First Amendment says

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

• Initially applied only to laws enacted by Congress.
• Over time, courts interpreted its provisions more broadly to encompass any form of government interference.
• Few countries offer such unequivocal statements of support for journalistic work within their legal frameworks.

🏛️ Historical roots and Madison's role

• Thomas Jefferson and James Madison corresponded about the need for a Bill of Rights shortly after U.S. independence.
• Madison championed the document because he believed it would:
  • Enable independent courts to protect individual rights
  • Educate citizens about their rights and responsibilities in the new democratic republic
• Madison pushed to change weaker words like "should" or "ought" (used in earlier state declarations) to less equivocal language like "shall."
• Jefferson wrote: "Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost."

⚖️ Federal vs state application

• Madison strongly pushed to have the First Amendment apply to both federal government and states.
• Legislators could only agree on federal application initially.
• Not until the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 (after the Civil War) was the First Amendment consistently applied at the state level.
• Don't confuse: For much of the first century of U.S. existence, legal protections for journalists on libel, prior restraint, and other issues varied from state to state.

⚖️ How the courts shape press freedom

⚖️ The Supreme Court as arbiter

• Despite the First Amendment's unequivocal language, Congress and state legislatures have passed laws that abridge freedom of speech and press.
• Legislators have tried to promote other ideals (national unity, contemporary notions of decency) that sometimes infringe on speech and press freedoms.
• The U.S. Supreme Court is often the final arbiter when the First Amendment clashes with other interests.
• Since 1804, there have been nearly 900 major rulings by the Supreme Court and other courts directly involving First Amendment freedoms.
• The 20th century was a particularly busy period, with many decisions expanding speech and press rights.

📰 Journalism-related issues tested in court

Issues most closely related to journalism that have been tested include:

• Access to information and places
• Anonymous speech
• Protection of sources
• Copyright
• Free association
• Incitement
• Prior restraint
• Privacy
• Publication of confidential information

Key insight: Much guidance about which journalistic activities are legally permissible comes not only from laws passed by the legislative branch but also from interpretations of the First Amendment by the judicial branch.

🗳️ Political expression gets special protection

🗳️ The marketplace of ideas

Political expression receives greater legal protection than commercial expression.

• Courts have long recognized the importance of a 'marketplace of ideas' in the political realm.
• Under this perspective:
  • Ideas should be allowed to freely compete with one another
  • The best ideas should emerge victorious from robust competition
  • This should result in a better-functioning democracy
• To permit robust competition, restrictions on communication—especially political communication—should be limited.

🔍 Limitations of the marketplace metaphor

The excerpt acknowledges significant limitations:

• Some people effectively have a louder voice than others because of their position in society.
• People are not fully rational beings.
• Despite these limitations, the metaphor has resulted in courts holding public affairs journalism and political opinion pieces in high regard.

🏛️ Journalism as the 'fourth branch'

• Courts see journalism as central to promoting founding ideals of sovereignty and self-governance.
• U.S. courts have explicitly referenced the value of promoting a vibrant journalism ecosystem that can serve as a 'fourth branch' of government.
• Journalism serves as a watchdog against corruption and public misdeeds.
• Example: Former Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black wrote in 1971 that "only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government … and … prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people."

⚖️ Balancing protection with other interests

⚖️ How courts weigh competing interests

Courts often weigh:

• Public benefit of a journalistic product (e.g., news article or broadcast segment)
• Against harms it could cause to an individual (e.g., their privacy) or the country as a whole (e.g., national security)

🛡️ What the First Amendment does and doesn't do

What it DOES	What it does NOT do
Offers greater protection to journalism than to advertising and entertainment (unless political in nature)	Grant journalists or outlets blanket immunity against legal liability
Provides the cornerstone for most legal defenses of U.S. journalists	Forbid legislators from regulating journalists and journalism
Grants stronger protections than in most other countries	Give journalists special rights beyond other citizens

📺 Examples of differential protection

• Restrictions on fraudulent advertising are less likely to be seen as violating the First Amendment.
• Restrictions on political editorials that contain false information are more likely to be seen as violations.
• Don't confuse: Greater protection does not mean absolute protection—regulation is still possible, but faces higher scrutiny for political expression.

🌟 Why the First Amendment matters for journalism

🌟 Its central role

• It is the cornerstone for most legal defenses of U.S. journalists and their activities.
• It grants journalists in the U.S. stronger protections against:
  • Government intervention
  • Civil charges from the subjects of their stories
• These protections are stronger than those afforded to journalists in most other countries.

🇺🇸 Symbolic importance

• Its placement at the top of the U.S. Bill of Rights signals that journalism and free expression lie at the heart of the so-called American Experiment.
• It is not an accident that the First Amendment, and its protection of speech and the press, leads the Bill of Rights.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Journalists in the U.S. generally have the same access rights as ordinary citizens—not special privileges—but benefit from laws presuming government transparency, while facing legal risks when protecting sources or recording in private settings.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• No special journalist privileges: Journalists receive the same access to government files and public property as any other member of society; they are treated like any other citizen under the law.
• Presumption of government transparency: Laws like the Freedom of Information Act and the Government in the Sunshine Act presume access to government documents and proceedings unless narrow exemptions apply.
• Sources can be compelled: Journalists can be legally forced to reveal anonymous sources and face imprisonment for contempt of court if they refuse.
• Common confusion—public vs. private spaces: Recording is generally allowed in public spaces, but "public" can be tricky (e.g., a public university classroom may still have privacy expectations); private spaces require consent.
• Recording consent varies by state: Some states require all parties to consent to recording private conversations (two-party consent), while others require only one party; Massachusetts is a two-party consent state.

🏛️ Access to information and places

📂 What access journalists have

Journalists often receive the same access to information or places as any other member of society.

• The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that journalists do not have special access or rights to government files or public property.
• However, the Court has generally promoted permissive (open) access to information produced by the government and to public spaces.
• This means:
  • Journalists have a right to gather news on property open to the general public (e.g., public parks, outside public buildings).
  • Journalists are presumed to have access to public proceedings (e.g., city council meetings and meeting minutes).
  • Journalists are generally presumed to have access to government data and reports, unless narrow exemptions apply (e.g., privacy or national security).

🚫 Where journalists cannot go

• Courts have been unsympathetic to those who try to gather news on private property (homes, places of business) without the proprietors' consent.
• Journalists can be arrested for trespassing, even if their work involves a story in the public interest.
• Example: A journalist entering a private business without permission to investigate a public-interest story can still be charged with trespassing.

📜 Federal laws governing access

Law	What it governs	Key principle
Freedom of Information Act	Access to documents produced by the federal government	Presumed access unless narrow exemptions apply
Government in the Sunshine Act	Access to official federal government proceedings and meetings	Presumed openness

• State-level laws: States have their own open records and open meetings laws within their jurisdiction (e.g., local courthouses).
  • Some states (e.g., Florida) have permissive transparency laws.
  • Other states (e.g., Massachusetts) have more restrictive laws.
• Important limitation: These laws only apply to government agencies (and sometimes private companies acting on behalf of the government). Private companies and corporations generally do not have to comply with records requests.

🛡️ How to enforce access rights

• Any government rejection of a public records request must be accompanied by a written explanation that includes the statutory reason for denial.
• Government employees sometimes do not understand the laws themselves, so it falls to the journalist to educate them.
• Aspiring journalists must familiarize themselves with regulations about access to information so they can:
  • Trigger the relevant legal requirements when asking for information.
  • Push back when their request is improperly rejected.

📰 Publishing confidential or leaked information

• The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled in favor of allowing journalists to publish confidential information and leaked information about matters in the public interest.
• Key case—Bartnicki v. Vopper (2001):
  • A teacher union's chief negotiator was illegally recorded speaking with the union president about a contentious negotiation.
  • The recording was shared with a talk radio host, who played it on his show.
  • The Court ruled (6-3) that as long as someone did not violate a law in obtaining information—in this case, the host simply received and published the recording and did not illegally record it himself—then that person may generally publish the information so long as it involves a "matter of public concern."
• Recent caution: While this decision was affirmed in United States v. Stevens (2010), recent national security and anti-espionage laws have tested the Court's resolve. Journalists still run a legal risk when publishing leaks and information obtained through illicit means, especially if such information intersects with national security concerns.

🕵️ Anonymity and sourcing

🔒 First Amendment protection of anonymity

• The Supreme Court has generally protected anonymity under the First Amendment.
• However, such rights have been balanced against competing interests in areas of political activity, national security, and campaign finance.

⚖️ Journalists can be compelled to reveal sources

Journalists can be legally compelled to reveal their anonymous sources.

• Journalists may be held in contempt of court or face obstruction of justice charges for failing to reveal who a source is during a civil or criminal proceeding against that unnamed source.
• Landmark case—Branzburg v. Hayes (1972):
  • Paul Branzburg, a reporter, observed people manufacturing and using hashish and wrote two stories about drug use.
  • Two individuals featured in the article were granted anonymity because they feared prosecution.
  • When the article came to law enforcement's attention, Branzburg was subpoenaed before a grand jury and ordered to name his sources.
  • Branzburg refused, citing First Amendment protections.
  • The Supreme Court ruled (5-4) that the First Amendment's protection of press freedom does not give journalists special privileges in court, and that Branzburg was correctly held for contempt of court.

🚨 Real-world consequences

• Journalists in the U.S. can be legally forced to reveal their sources.
• Journalists who decide not to comply can be imprisoned for obstruction of justice or contempt of court.
• This is not hypothetical: Multiple journalists in the U.S. have spent time in jail because they believed they had a duty to protect their sources and live up to their promises when granting anonymity.
• Practical advice: Journalists must be very careful and judicious when promising anonymity, and they must be prepared to face the potential consequences of such promises.

🛡️ Shield laws (limited protection)

• Some laws, including so-called "shield laws," provide special protections to journalists.
• However, such laws only apply at the state level, and only in some states, and with several restrictions.

📹 Privacy and recordings

📸 Recording in public spaces

• The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that journalists are free to photograph, film, or record audio in public spaces, as long as they are not getting in the way of the proceedings.
• This includes recording public officials and law enforcement officials as they carry out their duties in public—regardless of whether they consent to being recorded.
• Example: It is perfectly legal to record police officers as they marshal a protest on a city street, so long as the journalist is not obstructing the officers and adhering to their safety directives.

🏫 What counts as a "public space" (tricky)

• A public state university may have some spaces that can be considered public forums (e.g., a campus mall or pond accessible by the general public via public pathways). People can be freely recorded in such spaces.
• In contrast, university classroom buildings may be restricted to student use only, and students are likely to have an expectation of privacy within those spaces. Recordings in those spaces are only possible with the permission of the students, and in some cases, the university itself.
• Example—invited speaker: Although a speaker may be speaking at a public institution, university officials have the legal authority to restrict any recordings of an event that takes place in university space. Conversely, they may choose to make the event completely public, in which case recordings of the speakers and attendees may be unrestricted.

🔍 Expectation of privacy

At the heart of the Court's interpretations is the recorded individual's expectation of privacy.

• In settings where a "reasonable person" would not expect to be recorded, they may be able to make an intrusion on seclusion claim.
• Example: If a photojournalist positions themselves on a public sidewalk and uses a telephoto lens or a drone to record a person engaging in a private act at home, then the journalist is likely to have intruded on that person's seclusion.
• Similarly, journalists may run afoul of the law by publishing private information about someone (e.g., details about a health condition), especially if that information is not deemed to be in the public interest.

🎙️ Recording interviews (consent laws)

• Recording laws are especially relevant to journalists when interviewing sources.
• Two-party consent states: In some jurisdictions, journalists may record private exchanges (e.g., a phone interview) only if all people being recorded consent to the recording.
  • Massachusetts is one such state, where two-party consent is required for any recording of private conversations.
  • It is a crime to secretly record people in Massachusetts when there is an expectation of privacy, as with a phone interview.
• One-party consent states: Many jurisdictions only require one party to consent to a recording.
• Best practice: It is nevertheless good ethical practice for journalists to request permission from their interviewees before recording the interview.

🌐 Cross-state interviews

• When interviewing people across state lines (e.g., a long-distance phone call or video chat), it is safest to assume that consent from all parties is required because circumstance-specific legal questions may arise about which state's consent law is most applicable.

🔑 Key distinctions and common confusions

🆚 Public vs. private property

Property type	Journalist's rights	Example
Public property (open to general public)	Right to gather news and record	Public parks, outside public buildings, city streets
Private property	No right to enter without consent; can be arrested for trespassing	Homes, private businesses
Quasi-public spaces (tricky)	Depends on expectation of privacy and institutional rules	University classrooms, auditoriums at public institutions

• Don't confuse: A space owned by a public institution (e.g., a state university) is not automatically a "public space" for recording purposes; it depends on whether the general public has access and whether people have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

🆚 Obtaining vs. publishing information

• Obtaining information illegally: If a journalist violates a law to obtain information (e.g., illegally recording a conversation), they can be prosecuted for that act.
• Publishing information obtained by someone else: If a journalist receives information that was obtained illegally by a third party, they may generally publish it if it involves a "matter of public concern" (Bartnicki v. Vopper).
• Don't confuse: The right to publish does not mean the right to obtain; journalists can still face legal risks, especially when national security is involved.

🆚 Anonymity protections vs. source protection

• Anonymity under the First Amendment: The Supreme Court has generally protected anonymity (e.g., anonymous speech).
• Source protection in court: Journalists do not have a First Amendment right to refuse to reveal sources when compelled by a court (Branzburg v. Hayes).
• Don't confuse: General anonymity protections do not extend to journalists protecting sources in legal proceedings; journalists can be imprisoned for refusing to comply.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

U.S. journalists enjoy strong First Amendment protections against government censorship before publication, but these protections do not eliminate legal risks after publication, and journalists must understand the boundaries of fair use and incitement law to minimize legal exposure.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Prior restraint is rare: Government censorship before publication is only allowed in extreme cases (military secrets, obscenity, direct incitement to violence), but journalists can still face legal consequences after publishing.
• Copyright vs. fair use: Facts cannot be copyrighted, but their expression can be; journalists cannot simply copy others' work even with attribution, but may use portions under fair use doctrine via a four-part test.
• Incitement standard is high: Advocacy for illegal conduct is protected unless it is likely to incite imminent lawless action—abstract advocacy is protected, specific calls to immediate action are not.
• Common confusion: First Amendment only guards against government censorship, not private platform moderation, editorial decisions, or self-censorship by journalists.
• Post-publication liability remains: Protection from prior restraint does not protect against other legal risks like libel suits that require demonstrating harm after publication.

🚫 Prior Restraint and Government Censorship

🚫 What prior restraint means

Prior restraint: an official government restriction of speech before it is published.

• This is what most people think of as "censorship"—stopping publication in advance.
• The Supreme Court has a very strong aversion to this practice.
• The bar for government to prevent publication is extremely high.

⚖️ Near v. Minnesota (1931)

• What happened: A newspaper editor published articles attacking city officials; a state court banned further publication under a public nuisance law.
• Supreme Court ruling (5-4): The ban was "the essence of censorship" and constituted impermissible prior restraint.
• Key principle: Government cannot bar publication in advance except in extreme cases:
  • Revealing crucial military information that would endanger troops
  • Obscenity
  • Content that may directly incite acts of violence
• Important caveat: The decision did not stop individuals from suing the newspaper after publication—prior restraint protection ≠ immunity from all legal consequences.

📰 Pentagon Papers case (1971)

• What happened: The New York Times obtained and began publishing classified government documents about the Vietnam War; the Nixon administration obtained a restraining order to stop publication.
• Supreme Court ruling (6-3): Dissolved the restraining order, stating prior restraint carries "a heavy presumption against its constitutional validity."
• Standard established: Government must prove publication would result in inevitable, direct, and immediate peril to the United States—a very high bar.
• What it means: Not blanket permission to publish confidential documents, but reinforces how difficult it is for government to stop publication in advance.

🔍 What prior restraint does NOT cover

Don't confuse government censorship with other restrictions:

Type of restriction	Protected by First Amendment?	Why/Why not
Government censorship before publication	Yes (except extreme cases)	First Amendment directly applies
Private outlet owner/editor refusing to publish	No	First Amendment only restricts government
Third-party platform (e.g., Facebook) banning content	No	Private companies can moderate their platforms
Self-censorship by journalists	No	Voluntary choice, often from fear of losing access to sources

©️ Copyright and Fair Use

©️ What can and cannot be copyrighted

• Facts cannot be copyrighted: The fact that an event occurred on a specific date is not copyrightable.
• Expression of facts can be copyrighted: The specific way those facts are written or presented can be protected.
• Example from the excerpt: "Dr. Zamith gave a lecture on a particular date" (fact, not copyrightable) vs. "Dr. Zamith spoke eloquently in a riveting lecture about media law that was met with great acclaim" (expression, can be copyrighted).

📋 Why attribution is not enough

• Journalistic outlets cannot simply copy and paste a competitor's news story, even if they:
  • State who produced it
  • Link to the original piece
• Attribution alone does not satisfy copyright law.
• Permission from the copyright holder is necessary unless fair use applies.

⚖️ Fair use doctrine (Copyright Act of 1976)

Journalists may use portions of copyrighted work without consent if it passes a four-part test:

Test component	What courts consider
1. Purpose and character of use	Is it for educational purposes? Transformative?
2. Nature of copyrighted work	What type of work is being used?
3. Amount and substantiality	How much of the original work is used relative to the whole?
4. Effect on market value	Does the use harm the potential market or value of the original?

• No point system: Courts interpret each case according to this general guidance.
• Practical application: Allows journalists to include segments from books, citizen-recorded videos, or portions of competitors' exclusive interviews in their reporting.

🛡️ Copyright as both protection and tool

• Protection: Journalists can seek legal remedy when their work is republished without authorization.
• Tool: Fair use allows journalists to report on newsworthy copyrighted material (e.g., explosive book excerpts, viral videos).

🔥 Incitement and Inflammatory Speech

🔥 The general rule for advocacy

• Protected: Speech or publication advocating for illegal conduct (even violent acts).
• Not protected: Advocacy that is likely to incite imminent lawless action.
• The distinction turns on timing and likelihood, not just content.

📊 Abstract vs. specific advocacy

Type of advocacy	Example from excerpt	Protected?
Abstract advocacy	Writing that a politician "should be shot"	Yes—protected
Specific call to action	Writing that people should gather at a specific time and place to shoot the politician	Less likely—may not be protected

⚖️ Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969)

• What happened: A KKK leader invited a reporter to film a rally where speeches referenced "revengeance" against specific groups and advocated for their forced expulsion; he was charged under Ohio's criminal syndicalism statute.
• Supreme Court ruling (per curiam): The speech was protected because "mere advocacy" of violence does not meet the standard of "incitement to imminent lawless action."

🧪 The Brandenburg test (two-prong)

Government may only restrict speech if BOTH prongs are met:

1. Intent prong: The speech is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action"
2. Likelihood prong: The speech is "likely to incite or produce such action"

• Both conditions must be satisfied; failing either means the speech is protected.
• This sets a high bar for restricting speech.

🗣️ Implications for journalists

• Opinion columnists and sources: Can speak and advocate freely unless they meet both Brandenburg prongs.
• Quoting problematic sources: Legally permissible in most cases, but whether to quote them is an ethical question, not a legal one.
• Clear risk standard: Speech can only be restricted if it puts others at clear, imminent risk.

🔑 Key Distinctions and Practical Implications

🔑 Before vs. after publication

• Before publication: Government almost never can stop publication (prior restraint bar is very high).
• After publication: Journalists can still face legal risks—libel suits, for example, require demonstrating harm that only occurs after publication.
• Don't confuse: Freedom to publish ≠ freedom from all legal consequences.

🔑 Government vs. private restrictions

The First Amendment only restricts government action:

• Government censorship: Unconstitutional except in extreme cases.
• Private editorial decisions: Fully legal—editors can refuse to publish stories.
• Platform moderation: Private companies (Facebook, etc.) can ban content.
• Self-censorship: Journalists' voluntary choices, often driven by fear of losing source access.

🔑 Copyright protection vs. fair use

• Default rule: Permission required to use copyrighted expression.
• Exception: Fair use allows portions to be used without permission if the four-part test is satisfied.
• Not automatic: Courts must interpret whether fair use applies in each specific case.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

U.S. libel law grants journalists significant protection to publish even inaccurate information made in good faith, with the level of protection depending on whether the subject is a public or private figure.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• What libel is: publication of a false statement of fact that seriously harms someone's reputation (slander is the oral equivalent).
• Burden of proof: the plaintiff must prove multiple elements—publication, identification, harm, fault, and lack of privilege—while the defendant need only show truth or privilege.
• Public vs. private figures: public officials and public figures must prove "actual malice" (intent to harm or reckless disregard for truth), a much higher bar than the "negligence" standard for private figures.
• Common confusion: truth is an absolute defense—even if a statement harms someone's reputation, it is not libelous if true.
• Strategic lawsuits: even unsuccessful libel suits can be wielded as weapons to silence journalists through expensive legal processes.

⚖️ Elements of a libel claim

📢 Publication requirement

Publication: distributing a statement to someone besides the defendant and plaintiff.

• Does not require broad or public distribution.
• Example: posting in a small, private Signal group may satisfy this requirement.
• The key is that at least one other person besides the two parties sees the statement.

🎯 Identification of the plaintiff

• The statement does not need to explicitly name the person.
• Standard: a "reasonable person" who knows the plaintiff would likely recognize the statement as being about them.
• Enough identifying information is sufficient, even without a direct name.

💔 Harm to reputation

Harm: a false statement of fact that exposes a person to hatred, ridicule, or contempt; lowers them in the esteem of their peers; causes them to be shunned; or injures them in their business or trade.

• Must be more than merely insulting or offensive.
• Must be a statement of fact, not pure opinion.
• Example: alleging someone is gay and showing they were treated differently as a result could satisfy this requirement.
• Don't confuse: "Dr. Zamith is a jerk" (pure opinion, not libelous) vs. "Dr. Zamith is a jerk because he clubs baby seals" (contains a factual claim, potentially libelous).

⚠️ Fault and privilege

• Fault: the defendant either did something they should not have done or failed to do something they should have.
• The level of fault required varies by the plaintiff's status (see next section).
• Privilege: certain communications may be protected; the plaintiff must show no applicable privilege applies.

🛡️ The truth defense

✅ Truth as absolute protection

The most common defense against libel is truth.

• If a statement is truthful, it does not matter if the plaintiff is harmed.
• Example: claiming someone "clubs baby seals for fun" is not libelous if they actually do so, even if the publication causes harm to their reputation.

📊 Burden of proof

• Generally, the burden is on the plaintiff to show a statement is false.
• The defendant does not have to prove truth in most cases; the plaintiff must prove falsity.
• Exception: in limited circumstances, the burden may fall to the defendant.

💭 Opinion vs. fact

• Statements of pure opinion cannot be proven true or false and cannot form the basis of a libel claim.
• Example: "Dr. Zamith is a jerk" is pure opinion (not libelous).
• Example: "Dr. Zamith is a jerk because he clubs baby seals" contains a factual assertion (potentially libelous).

👥 Public vs. private figures

🏛️ Public officials and figures (higher bar)

New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964) established the "actual malice" standard:

When it comes to public officials in the context of carrying out their public duties, the plaintiff must show that the journalistic error was due to an intent to harm the official or as a result of recklessness.

• Actual malice: knowledge that statements are false OR reckless disregard of their truth or falsity.
• Reckless disregard: a journalist plainly disregarded information that should have been evident to them.
• This is a very high bar because proving a journalist's intent to harm is immensely difficult.
• Later cases extended this standard to public figures: anyone with significant fame or notoriety in general or in a particular controversy (celebrities, elite athletes, citizens in highly public debates).

🧑 Private figures (lower bar)

Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. (1974) established a separate standard:

• Private figures include teachers, local business owners, and others without significant public prominence.
• Rationale: public figures have more resources and ways to defend themselves than private figures.
• Standard: private figures need only show negligence—that the journalist failed to engage in basic journalistic practices like trying to verify basic information prior to publication.
• States can formulate their own standards for private figures, resulting in lower bars across the U.S.

📋 Comparison table

Plaintiff type	Standard	What must be proven	Difficulty
Public officials/figures	Actual malice	Intent to harm OR reckless disregard for truth	Very high bar
Private figures	Negligence	Failure to follow basic verification practices	Lower bar (but still high)

⚔️ Libel as a strategic weapon

💰 The cost of defense

• Even if a journalist is well-positioned to defend themselves, the legal process can be very expensive.
• Freelancers and journalists without organizational legal support are especially vulnerable.
• The threat of a libel suit can be as powerful as an actual suit.

🔇 Chilling effect

• Powerful figures have wielded libel lawsuits as weapons against critical journalism.
• Even unsuccessful lawsuits make other journalists think twice about writing critical stories in the future.
• Some states have enacted laws penalizing frivolous lawsuits in recent years, but they continue to serve as tools for silencing journalists.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Professional codes of ethics in journalism establish a higher standard than law by guiding journalists to balance truth-seeking, harm minimization, independence, and accountability in their work.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Ethics vs. laws: Laws set minimum legal boundaries ("what you can do"), while ethics set ideal standards ("what you should do"); ethics are self-regulated, laws are institutionally enforced.
• Why ethics matter in U.S. journalism: No licensing system exists for U.S. journalists, so self-regulation through professional ethics is essential for public trust and credibility.
• Two philosophical extremes: Deontological approaches focus on principles/motives behind actions; teleological approaches focus on outcomes/results—most ethical frameworks fall somewhere in between.
• SPJ Code's four pillars: Seek truth and report it, minimize harm, act independently, be accountable and transparent—these principles sometimes conflict and require journalists to balance priorities.
• Common confusion: Perceived vs. real conflicts of interest—even if a journalist believes they can compartmentalize, public perception of bias undermines trust, so potential conflicts must be avoided or disclosed.

⚖️ Laws vs. Ethics: The fundamental distinction

⚖️ What each governs

Aspect	Laws	Ethics
Focus	What is legal or illegal	What is right or wrong
Source	Determined by institutions (e.g., state government)	Self-legislated (by groups or individuals)
Enforcement	Institutional (e.g., police)	Self-enforced (social pressure, exclusion)
Scope	Statutory boundaries applying equally to all in a jurisdiction	Ambiguous, varies among group members
Standard	Minimal standard	Benchmark or ideal to strive toward

• Key insight: Something can be legal yet unethical (e.g., death penalty) or illegal yet ethical (e.g., stealing bread to feed a hungry child).
• Example: A journalist might legally publish private information, but ethically should weigh whether doing so serves the public interest or merely satisfies curiosity.

🗽 Why ethics are especially important in U.S. journalism

• No licensing system: Unlike doctors or lawyers, anyone can claim to be a journalist in the U.S.
• Some countries require government licenses for journalists or their organizations, but the U.S. does not.
• Self-regulation fills the gap: Professional ethics promote good journalism in both products and behaviors.
• Public trust depends on it: The perception that journalism is good and intends to do good is crucial for journalism's role as a pillar of democratic society.

🧭 Philosophical approaches to ethical decision-making

🎯 Deontological approaches

Deontological approaches focus on the principles that drive the action.

• Core idea: An action is moral if driven by good motives and best practices, even if the consequence is bad.
• Example framework: Immanuel Kant's Categorical Imperative—ethical duty is the same in every circumstance, with little regard for consequences.
• Example: A reporter refuses to go undercover and lie about their profession because lying is unethical, even if it means missing an important story about water contamination.
• Don't confuse: This is not about ignoring consequences entirely; it's about prioritizing the rightness of the action itself over the outcome.

🎯 Teleological approaches

Teleological approaches focus on the result of the action.

• Core idea: If the outcome or goal is "good," the action is moral, with little weight on how one reached that goal.
• Example framework: Utilitarianism—the most ethical act brings the greatest good to the greatest number of people.
• Example: A reporter agrees to go undercover and lie because most members of a city would benefit from the water contamination story, outweighing the harm of lying.
• Don't confuse: This is not "the ends justify any means"—it's about weighing outcomes, but most ethical frameworks fall in the middle ground between deontology and teleology.

🌐 The spectrum and middle ground

• Deontology and teleology represent two extremes.
• Other approaches include situational ethics, multiple duties, and virtue ethics.
• Most real-world ethical decisions involve balancing principles and outcomes.

📜 The SPJ Code of Ethics: Four pillars

📊 Overview of the four principles

• Context: 93% of U.S. journalists (2013 survey) agree that journalists should adhere to professional codes of ethics regardless of situation and context.
• SPJ Code: The most influential code in U.S. journalism; other codes (e.g., National Press Photographers Association, The New York Times) often borrow from it.
• Four main principles: Seek truth and report it, minimize harm, act independently, be accountable and transparent.
• Key challenge: These principles sometimes clash, requiring journalists to balance which are most important under their personal ethical philosophies.

🔍 Seek truth and report it

🔍 Accuracy and fairness

• Ethical journalism should be accurate, fair, honest, and courageous in gathering, reporting, and interpreting information.
• Verification first: All information must be verified before release.
• Use original sources: People, publications, historical documents, or other records that document events first-hand should be used whenever possible.
• Avoid distortion: Do not misrepresent or oversimplify when promoting, previewing, or summarizing a story; deliberate distortion is patently unethical.

🏷️ Transparency about sources and content

• Label opinion clearly: Opinion and commentary must be labeled so audiences don't confuse them with news.
• Identify sources: Give the public as much information as appropriate to assess the source's position, reliability, and potential motivations.
• Anonymity as last resort: Be judicious with offers of anonymity; explain transparently why a source was granted anonymity.
• Example: A journalist grants anonymity to a whistleblower but explains in the story that the source feared retaliation.

🎤 Diverse voices and right of response

• Seek unheard voices: Journalists have a moral responsibility to seek sources whose voices the public seldom hears.
• Avoid stereotyping: Do not rely on stereotypes when selecting or portraying sources.
• Allow response: Diligently seek subjects of news coverage to allow them to respond to criticism or allegations of wrongdoing.

🕵️ Undercover methods and fabrication

• Undercover as last resort: Avoid undercover or surreptitious methods unless traditional, open methods will not yield information of substantial public interest.
• The SPJ Code recognizes instances where masking identity and purpose is justified, but such tactics should be used sparingly.
• Strictly forbidden: Plagiarism and fabrication are never acceptable.

🛡️ Minimize harm

🛡️ Balancing public need and respect

Ethical journalism treats sources, subjects, colleagues, and members of the public as human beings deserving of respect.

• Core balance: Weigh the public's need for information against potential harm or discomfort.
• Not a license for intrusion: The pursuit of news does not justify undue intrusiveness or needless invasion of privacy.
• Show compassion: Be especially sensitive when dealing with juveniles, victims of sex crimes, and sources who are inexperienced or unable to give consent.
• Example: A journalist omits an undocumented immigrant's full name and workplace from a story because it might put them in danger.

🌍 Cultural sensitivity and avoiding lurid curiosity

• Recognize cultural differences: Respect cultural norms and contexts.
• Avoid pandering: Do not pander to lurid curiosity, even if others do.
• Privacy vs. public need: Some details are simply not needed for a story to make the necessary impact.
• Don't confuse: Minimizing harm does not mean suppressing important information; it means omitting unnecessary details that cause harm without serving the public interest.

👤 Public vs. private figures

• Private people have greater rights: They have more control over information about themselves than public figures and others who seek power, influence, or attention.
• Consider long-term implications: Recognize the extended reach and permanence of publication in the digital age.
• Example: A private citizen caught in a minor scandal may face lasting reputational harm from online archives, whereas a public official's actions are legitimately subject to greater scrutiny.

🔓 Act independently

🔓 Avoiding conflicts of interest

The highest and primary obligation of ethical journalism is to serve the public.

• Avoid conflicts, real or perceived: Even if a journalist believes they can compartmentalize (e.g., dating a City Council member while covering the Council), the public will likely distrust the arrangement.
• Excuse yourself: Journalists should remove themselves from stories involving topics or subjects that introduce a potential conflict of interest.
• Disclose unavoidable conflicts: If a conflict is unavoidable (e.g., the reporter happened to be present when news broke involving their partner), it must be disclosed to the audience.
• Don't confuse: The issue is not just actual bias but perceived bias—public trust depends on the appearance of independence.

🎁 Rejecting gifts and payments

• No gifts or favors: Reject gifts, favors, money, or special treatment from sources or subjects of reporting.
• Example: A journalist should not keep a phone given for a product review.
• No payment for information: It is unethical to pay sources for access or directly for information; although some journalists pay for exclusive interviews, it is uncommon and highly problematic in the U.S.

🗳️ Avoiding outside activities that compromise impartiality

• Avoid political activities: Public advocacy or visible support for causes can jeopardize a reporter's impartiality or credibility.
• Contentious but widely held: This point has become more debated in recent years, but most U.S. journalists currently believe such activities should be avoided.

📢 Be accountable and transparent

📢 Explaining decisions and correcting mistakes

Ethical journalism means taking responsibility for one's work and explaining journalistic decisions to the public.

• Explain ethical choices: Describe the decision-making process to audiences.
• Example: Publish a companion piece explaining why undercover reporting was necessary for a feature story.
• Acknowledge and correct mistakes promptly: Corrections should appear in prominent areas so people exposed to misinformation can see the correct information.
• Transparency builds trust: These actions make the journalistic process more transparent to news audiences.

🚨 Exposing unethical conduct

• Call out bad behavior: Expose unethical conduct in journalism, including within one's own organization.
• Don't protect peers: Protecting colleagues who engage in unethical behavior is selfish and does not lead to better journalism.
• Why it matters: Holding the profession accountable strengthens public trust and the quality of journalism overall.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Journalism is not a single homogeneous practice but an umbrella term encompassing many distinct forms that can be categorized by media vehicle, beat, and reporting method—each dimension shaping how a story is gathered, written, and presented.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Three-dimensional framework: journalism can be categorized by media vehicle (how it's delivered), beat (what it covers), and method (how it's reported).
• Media vehicle shapes storytelling: technical affordances and limitations of text, audio, or visual formats determine length, style, and depth (e.g., TV segments are shorter than online articles).
• Beat vs. general assignment: beat reporters specialize in niche topics and develop deep expertise and sourcing networks, while general assignment reporters cover diverse topics but may lack depth.
• Common confusion—hard vs. soft news: the industry often labels politics/crime as "hard" and entertainment/sports as "soft," implying superiority of the former, but this oversimplifies journalism's value and ignores rigor within any genre.
• Reporting methods vary widely: from breaking news (emphasizing timeliness and incompleteness) to investigative reporting (months-long, rigorous pursuit of difficult-to-access information).

📺 Media Vehicle: How Journalism Is Delivered

📺 What media vehicle means

Media vehicle: the format or platform used to convey journalism (text-oriented, audio-oriented, or visual-oriented).

• The vehicle matters because it offers certain technical affordances—possibilities and limitations.
• Each vehicle has associated norms and expectations for storytelling structure and depth.

📷 Photojournalism

• Relies primarily on still photographs to convey the essence of a development or issue.
• A photojournalist may need to capture a complex issue through a single, representative photograph.
  • Example: a melting glacier with a skeletal polar bear in the foreground—conveying "a thousand words with just one shot."
• Photo captions are written but rarely exceed a couple of sentences.
• Photo essay: multiple photographs pieced together to capture different dimensions of an issue in a narrative manner.
• Shoots can involve candid, heat-of-the-moment reporting (e.g., documenting a battle) or documenting daily life (e.g., homeless veterans).

📺 Television vs. online articles

Dimension	Television newscast	Online news article
Length	~3-minute segment, ~200 words of voice-over	BBC: ~750 words; New York Times: ~1,000 words
Depth	Narrower aspect or more superficial account	More room for multiple aspects and depth
Writing style	Writing for the ear	Writing for the eyes

• Example: a story about local opioid addiction rates must be condensed for TV, requiring the journalist to hone in on a narrower aspect or offer a more superficial account.

📰 Beat: What Journalism Covers

📰 Beat reporting vs. general assignment reporting

Beat reporting: journalists specialize in niche categories of coverage (a topic, person, or institution—most commonly niche topics).

• Beat reporters immerse themselves in their beats and gain specialized insights and knowledge of key stakeholders, actors, trends, and influences over time.
• They become experts in those beats, and that expertise appears in the stories they identify and cover.
• By repeatedly covering the same topics or people, beat reporters develop deep and specialized sourcing networks, often resulting in elevated access and exclusive information.

General assignment reporters:

• Expertise lies in their ability to quickly learn new topics and make sense of them for non-specialized audiences.
• May be tasked with covering an entertainment story one day and a court story the next.
• Trade-offs: more likely to get facts wrong (especially with unfamiliar topics), may struggle to offer deep coverage, and sourcing networks may be sparse or superficial.
• Many outlets complement beat reporters with at least one general assignment reporter to ensure a frequent and predictable stream of news stories.

📰 Common beats and their differences

• Common beats include: business, courts and crime, education, film, food, health, international affairs, music, politics, science, sports, style, and technology.
• Some outlets (especially niche publications) have even more specialized beats, like Big Tech, Medicare, or Green Energy.
• Beats are not just genres: they may require distinct approaches to newsgathering and involve different audience expectations for storytelling structures.

Example—film beat:

• Mixture of reported and objective pieces (e.g., news about the latest film an actor has signed on to).
• Short lifestyle features (e.g., a non-combative interview about an actor's morning workout routine).
• Subjective opinion pieces (e.g., a review of the actor's latest movie).

Example—courts beat:

• More likely to have inverted pyramid-style stories detailing incidents and events derived from reviews of court documents.
• Reports about arguments in an ongoing case.
• Audiences are unlikely to expect short interviews with judges about their morning routine.

📰 How beats shape newsrooms

• Many journalistic outlets organize their staffs and editorial content based on distinctions between specialized beats.
• Reporters occupy a particular physical space in the newsroom and publish primarily on a dedicated portion of the news product (e.g., a "Science" section) based on their beat.
• Some journalists may be tasked with covering multiple beats—especially during times of newsroom cutbacks.

🔍 Method: How Journalism Is Reported

⚡ Breaking news reporting

Breaking news reporting: covering a development with a particular emphasis on timeliness.

• Depicts current events, recent developments, and information that is generally just coming to light.
• Example: a shooting outside a bar.
• Stories are often updated regularly as news develops and as journalists uncover new information about the sometimes ongoing event.
• Does not aim to deeply report multiple aspects of a development and package it as a single, stand-alone news product.
• Instead, it concedes its incompleteness and focuses on unearthing and describing the most recent developments.

📄 Straight news reporting

• Aims to synthesize recent developments and contextualize them into a stand-alone news product.
• Similar to breaking news reporting in that it emphasizes the timely presentation of information in a clear, quick, and straight-to-the-point manner—often using a story structure like the inverted pyramid.
• Compared to breaking news reporting: more emphasis on sense-making and contextualizing information, with the expectation that a story will be more complete and not require constant updating (even if the event is still developing).

🎨 Feature reporting

• Allows journalists to take a more creative approach to the information they present.
• Newsgathering methods may be similar to those of traditional reporting, but the newswriting approach is quite different.

Key characteristics:

1. Typically written with a more open-ended and less-strict story structure.
2. Apply creative storytelling techniques: playful or poetic language, narrative structures, detailed anecdotes, and multi-part vignettes.
3. Often long-form and evergreen.

Evergreen stories: not tied to a specific time peg or timely event; designed to maintain their relevance to audiences for a longer period of time.

🚀 Enterprise reporting

Enterprise reporting: relies heavily on original reporting driven by a journalist.

• Called "enterprise" reporting because it requires an enterprising journalist who is able to develop their own story ideas, sources, and means of gaining access to information.
• The opposite of enterprise reporting: reporting that relies primarily on press releases, press conferences, or news that is given in some way to a journalist rather than uncovered by that journalist.
• Often involves creative and advanced reporting methods: public records requests, data collection and analysis, and access to historical documents.
• The result is often, though not always, a longer-form and in-depth news product.

🔎 Investigative reporting

Investigative reporting: a particularly rigorous form of reporting and one of the most powerful types of journalism for advancing the public's knowledge.

Key characteristics:

• Investigative reporters dedicate themselves to the sleuth-like pursuit, through a wide variety of investigative techniques, of information about a niche topic that is often difficult to access.
• Subjects are frequently topics of deep conflict and vast public importance: political or corporate corruption, violence, crime, financial malfeasance, or other cases of wrongdoing and injustice.
• Dedicate weeks, months, and even years to the dogged pursuit of a specific person, entity, or topic in order to bring their subject to public light.

Watchdog journalism:

Watchdog journalism: the role journalism plays in holding powerful actors accountable.

• Investigative reporting is strongly associated with watchdog journalism.
• Investigative journalists are the metaphorical watchdogs who seek to make the actions of the powerful transparent to their audiences.
• Don't confuse: watchdog journalism is a broader form that also includes traditional, day-to-day reporting on the mundane matters of governance, such as attending School Board meetings.
• Investigative stories often take the shape of long-form stories (or a series of shorter stories) because of the amount of reporting and information they comprise.

📣 Advocacy reporting

Advocacy reporting: a form of reporting that distinguishes itself by formulating a clear opinion, or substantiating an existing one, with timely, factual information.

• This approach outwardly rejects the norm of neutrality, and instead aims to promote a cause or intervention.
• Example: advocacy reporting may focus on illustrating the plight of young undocumented immigrants by including anecdotes about the challenges they face, statistics about the prevalence of the issue, and offering the journalist's evaluation of a key policy presently being considered by lawmakers.
• Typically labeled as a "news analysis" or presented as an author's column in an Opinion section.
• However, it may also be the approach to reporting that defines the identity of a journalistic outlet (and is therefore not segregated from the other reporting done by that outlet).
• Don't confuse: not all opinion pieces warrant the label of advocacy reporting—many are better categorized as "opinion writing" if they do not follow at least some of the staple practices of journalism, like verifying information.

⚖️ Hard vs. Soft News: A Problematic Distinction

⚖️ Definitions

Hard news journalism: breaking news and reports about serious or hard-hitting topics that are both timely and of civic interest; usually based on factual information and rigorous research.

• Political journalism, business journalism, and watchdog journalism are all typically recognized forms of hard news.

Soft news journalism: reports about predominantly lifestyle and entertainment affairs, or other topics of human interest.

• While such journalism may involve rigorous research, it is also more open to interpretive and literary accounts.
• Sports journalism, entertainment journalism, and celebrity coverage are all typically recognized forms of soft news.

⚖️ Why this categorization is problematic

• This categorization schema is quite popular—it is not uncommon to hear those terms in the newsroom.
• However, it is arguably over-simplistic and does a disservice to certain genres.
• Hard news is often used to connote a superior form of journalism, and is often talked about within the industry as being more important (and pure) than soft news.

Example showing the problem:

• Consider a rigorously reported investigative piece unearthing corruption in a multi-billion dollar sports league, resulting in criminal prosecution of league executives.
• It would be a disservice to label that as soft news—with its implied inferiority—simply because it is "a sports story."
• Conversely, a puff piece on a politician designed to help a journalist gain access hardly warrants the label of hard journalism.

⚖️ A better approach

• It is more fruitful to view journalism through a more nuanced typology that takes into account dimensions like the media vehicle, beat, and reporting method associated with that piece of journalism.
• This focuses less on a shortsighted heuristic for determining a story's import based on its genre.
• Instead, it allows us to think more about the norms and expectations associated with a journalistic form.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Opinion-based journalism coexists with objective reporting in U.S. journalism by providing a forum for subjective perspectives, persuasion, and social commentary while maintaining separation from fact-based news coverage.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Historical shift: Early U.S. newspapers were openly partisan, but journalism moved toward objectivity in the early 20th century to attract broader audiences; opinion journalism persisted alongside this shift.
• Main opinion forms: Editorials (outlet's collective position), op-eds (opposing or alternative views from external writers), columns (personal perspectives on varied topics), and news analyses (contextual synthesis by reporters).
• Physical separation norm: Traditional outlets separate "News" and "Opinion" sections to signal subjective vs. objective content, though some newer outlets mix them.
• Common confusion: News analyses vs. opinion pieces—analyses involve interpretation and context but are written by reporters and not intended to convey explicit opinions, unlike editorials/op-eds/columns.
• Core purpose: Opinion journalism serves the journalistic role of providing a public forum for debate and allowing experts and community members to weigh in on issues.

📜 Historical evolution of opinion in U.S. journalism

📜 Early partisan roots

• Early U.S. newspapers featured opinionated political coverage reflecting owners' ideals or party subsidies.
• Coverage was partisan and subjective in ways that would seem foreign today.

🔄 The objectivity turn

• In the early 20th century, newspapers moved toward neutral presentation to attract larger audiences.
• Why neutrality worked: By sticking to middle ground and giving voice to multiple perspectives, journalists could appeal to audiences on different sides of an issue, increasing subscriptions and circulation.
• Result: Objectivity and neutrality became idealized norms; the image of an independent journalist providing "just the facts" emerged.
• Today, the most common complaint about U.S. journalism is that it is "too biased."

🤝 Coexistence of objectivity and opinion

• The goal of objective reporting did not eliminate opinion from U.S. journalism.
• The two cohabitate, sometimes uncomfortably, across organizations and the industry.
• Editors and publishers still saw an important role for subjective opinion pieces as vehicles for opinion journalists, experts, and community members to weigh in on public issues and offer social commentary.
• Opinion-based journalism remains central to the journalistic role of providing a public forum for vigorous debate.

🗂️ Types of opinion-based journalism

✍️ Editorials

An editorial is an opinion piece written to persuade audiences to adopt a specific perspective or take a specific action in response to an issue.

• Purpose: Persuade audiences (e.g., encourage voting for a candidate or simply to vote).
• Structure: Present a series of key points to advance an overarching argument.
• Factual basis: Though intentionally subjective, editorials often include reported and verified facts (polling data, statistics) to support the argument; facts may come from the writer's reporting or the outlet's objective news coverage.
• Collective decision: The editorial board (comprised of section editors and managers) votes on which side of an issue to favor before assigning the piece to a board member for writing.
• Anonymous byline: Editorials are usually published without a byline to maintain the perception that they represent the collective perspective of the editorial board and the outlet itself, not an individual.
• Placement: Appear on the Editorial Page or Opinion section, separated from fact-based content.

🔀 Op-eds

"Op-ed" is short for "opposite of the editorial page."

• Purpose: Like editorials, op-eds are subjective opinion pieces meant to persuade audiences.
• Key difference: Op-eds generally represent the opposite side of an issue than what the editorial already took, or present alternative views when no editorial has been published.
• Example: An op-ed may argue that a climate change bill supported by the outlet in an editorial is too costly and burdensome to businesses.
• Authorship: Written by freelance or guest writers not employed by the outlet (elected officials, political candidates, academics, public intellectuals).
• Byline: Clearly identify the author and their affiliation to distinguish them from the outlet's staff.

📝 Columns

• Broader scope: Columns are opinion-based pieces broader in nature than editorials or op-eds.
• Not limited to advocacy: While written from the author's point of view (often with first-person language), columns are not restricted to advocating for a particular action or view.
• Range of topics: Can tackle any subject through a personal experience or perspective lens.
• Example: A columnist could share their experience as a soldier abroad, advocate for gender-inclusive bathrooms, tell a story about adopting a dog, or reflect on any first-person experience.
• Recurring vs. varied: Outlets may employ recurring columnists dedicated to specific beats (film criticism, sports, fashion, domestic advice) or columnists who opine on different topics each week.

🎨 Other opinion forms

• Editorial cartoons: Professional cartoonists create cartoons that lampoon powerful individuals and capture public sentiment in a humorous but striking manner; historically influential in U.S. journalism.
• User-generated content: Letters to the editor, tweets, and posts from audience members.

🔍 News analyses: interpretation vs. opinion

🔍 What news analyses do

News analyses are pieces of journalism that aim to place news events or developments within a broader context.

• Primary objective: Situate an event or development (e.g., proposal of major legislation) within a broader history or trend, rather than focusing on the latest details.
• Combat information overload: Synthesize existing coverage and describe how it fits into a bigger puzzle.
• Content: Include relevant background, historical details, and both supporting and contradicting factual information.

🧩 How news analyses differ from opinion pieces

Dimension	News analyses	Opinion pieces (editorials/op-eds/columns)
Author	Journalists (especially beat reporters)	Opinion writers, editorial board, or external contributors
Intent	Not intended to convey explicit opinions	Explicitly convey subjective opinions and persuade
Degree of interpretation	Higher degree of interpretation than 'straight' news (synthesizing and contextualizing)	Openly subjective and argumentative
Labeling	Often clearly labeled as analyses	Labeled as editorials, op-eds, or columns
Placement	May appear alongside typical news stories (not always in opinion sections)	Usually in Editorial Page or Opinion section

• Don't confuse: News analyses involve interpretation and context, but they are not opinion journalism; they are written by reporters and aim to provide factual synthesis, not advocacy.

🏛️ Separation norms and outlet practices

🏛️ Physical separation

• Traditional outlets: Clearly labeled "News" and "Editorial" or "Opinion" sections to signal that opinion content is subjective and should not be confused with reported, fact-based content.
• Purpose: Make clear to readers the nature of the content they are consuming.

🌐 Variation across outlets

• Some newer, digitally native outlets: Pool opinion and objective reporting together into a single stream.
• Not purely old vs. new: Some newer outlets maintain a clear separation to appear more professional by adhering to traditional norms.
• Rejection of objectivity: Some U.S. outlets reject objectivity and neutrality norms altogether, believing that the best journalism is subjective.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

The ability to find and pitch compelling story ideas is an advanced journalistic skill that develops over time through curiosity, relationship-building, and understanding audience needs.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• What makes story ideas important: finding good story ideas distinguishes journalists from their peers and is expected as careers progress beyond editor-assigned stories.
• Where ideas come from: absolutely everywhere—through curiosity, listening, consuming journalism, and developing expertise in specific topics.
• How journalists develop instincts: by sharing experiences with their audiences and communities, journalists learn what people value and need.
• Common confusion: story ideas aren't mysterious—they arise from noticing gaps, asking questions, and following up on everyday observations.
• Why trust matters: if a journalist is interested in an idea, there's a good chance the audience will be too.

🎯 Why story ideas matter

🎯 A critical but underrated skill

One of the most important—and consistently underrated—skills a journalist must have is the ability to find and pitch compelling story ideas.

• This is an advanced journalistic skill that takes time and instincts to develop.
• Journalists who have good story ideas quickly distinguish themselves from newsroom peers who do not.
• Career progression: editors may assign stories early in a reporter's career, but reporters are eventually expected to find and develop their own story ideas.

🧠 The journalist's "sixth sense"

• Part of what defines many journalists' professional identity is the "sixth sense" they develop about knowing how to find (and then report) a good news story.
• This instinct takes time to develop.
• It comes from understanding what audiences value, what interests them, and what their information needs are.
• The more journalists understand their audience, the better their story ideas will be.

🌍 Shared reality as an advantage

• Journalists benefit from being human beings with their own lives and interests.
• They often exist within the same cultures and places as their sources and audiences.
• By sharing some of the same experiences and reality as the people who consume their work, journalists develop instincts over time about the communities they cover and serve.

🔍 Where story ideas come from

🔍 The answer: everywhere

• For good and bad, story ideas come from absolutely everywhere.
• Journalists develop story ideas through a huge variety of means and sources.
• Most methods result from following one's curiosity and establishing relationships with key people and topics.
• Journalists use their professional instincts and their shared understanding of journalistic news values to decide when a story idea is a good one.

🎯 Recognizing good ideas

• A good story idea will serve the needs and wants of the communities journalists cover.
• Once you have identified a story idea, think about the news values your idea might fulfill and how the idea might inform and interest audiences.
• Use that information to form the basis for pitching it to your editor.

💡 Four strategies for finding story ideas

❓ Encourage your curiosity

• Ask questions. Ask more questions. And then when you're done, ask a few more questions.
• Don't be afraid to unleash your curiosity, even in social situations outside professional life.
• How it works in practice:
  • If you see an interesting flyer on a wall outside your favorite coffee shop, check it out.
  • If you notice a hole in a story your friend just told you, ask about it.
  • If you don't understand how a process works, find out.
• Why it matters: Some of the best story ideas arise organically from reporters noticing holes, gaps, or problems in the world around them and then following up on those gaps.
• Key insight: If you have questions, there's a good chance other people out there do, too.

👂 Keep your ears open

• Always listen to the people around you: in real life, on social media, and through your own news consumption.
• By keeping your ears open, engaging with the people and world around you and learning new things, you will become exposed to new ideas and information.
• Where ideas can come from:
  • A stranger's post in a Facebook group you belong to
  • An overheard conversation at the grocery store
  • An anecdote a friend shares at a party
• Skill development: Over time, you will hone your instincts and become more quick and comfortable recognizing story ideas in even the most unexpected places.
• Bonus benefit: You'll become a more well-rounded person.

🎯 Develop a niche

• Dedicate yourself, in part, to a specific topic or community.
• Examples of niches:
  • If you like music, do you have a favorite genre?
  • If you follow local politics, is there a specific movement or topic you find to be under-served?
  • If you like sports, is there a specific team or fandom that you follow?
• How to go deep:
  • Follow a hashtag related to that topic
  • Join a Facebook group about that topic
  • Go to a lecture or reading about that topic
  • Read books about that topic
  • Go to a performance about that topic
• Why it works: Going deep on a particular person, topic, or beat helps you familiarize yourself with (and develop relationships with) the key stakeholders pertaining to that beat.
• Long-term benefit: By becoming an expert on that beat, you can ensure that you are able to stay on top of the latest trends and questions, and that you are sufficiently informed to write something insightful about it.

📰 Consume journalism

This cannot be overstated: consume journalism!

• Especially important if you cover a beat: See what other journalists are covering, and how they are covering it.
• Multiple benefits:
  • Helps you become more knowledgeable of current events
  • Helps you become a more versatile news producer
  • Helps you learn about different journalistic story structures and stylistic norms
  • Directly generates story ideas

How consuming journalism generates ideas:

Approach	How it works	Example
Local angle	You come across an interesting story that focuses on the national level	The local angle is wide open for you to report on
Fill gaps	You have questions after consuming a news piece	Focus your reporting on answering those questions or addressing gaps in the story
Follow-up stories	An existing news story offers the needed spark	A follow-up that extends or builds upon existing coverage of a topic or issue

• Key reminder: If you have questions, chances are other people will have similar questions.

🎯 Trust your instincts

🎯 The journalist-audience connection

• Trust your instincts.
• Chances are that if you are interested by an idea, your audience (whom you'll come to know over time as a journalist) will be interested as well.
• Don't confuse: This isn't about imposing your interests on others—it's about recognizing that shared curiosity and shared reality mean your questions likely reflect audience questions.

🎯 Next steps after identifying an idea

Once you have identified a story idea:

1. Think about the news values your idea might fulfill
2. Consider how the idea might inform and interest audiences
3. Use that information to form the basis for pitching it to your editor

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

The term "fake news" is problematic because it conflates accidental errors with deliberate deception, and scholars recommend distinguishing between misinformation (unintentional inaccuracy) and disinformation (deliberate falsehood) to better understand and address information problems without discrediting journalism itself.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Why "fake news" is problematic: the term is imprecise, covers everything from accidents to strategic manipulation, and was intentionally crafted to discredit journalism.
• Misinformation vs disinformation: misinformation is unintentionally inaccurate; disinformation is deliberately false or misleading—the key distinction is intent.
• Common confusion: not all inaccurate information is malicious; sloppy journalism during breaking news differs fundamentally from coordinated campaigns to deceive.
• Real-world consequences: popularization of "fake news" has increased violence against journalists, enabled restrictive laws, and deepened polarization.
• Coordinated confusion campaigns: state and non-state actors use systematic disinformation to undermine trust, widen divisions, and disrupt democratic processes.

🚫 Why "fake news" is a problematic term

🚫 Imprecision and cultural baggage

• The term covers a spectrum from simple mistakes to planned manipulation, making it too broad to be useful.
• It carries specific cultural meaning: it was intentionally crafted to discredit journalistic outlets.
• Scholars and linguists caution against using it; more precise terms like "misinformation" and "disinformation" are preferred.

🎯 The importance of intent

• The key improvement of misinformation/disinformation terminology: it considers the intent (underlying motivations) of the communicator.
• While intent can be difficult to determine, the distinction helps separate sloppy work from bad-faith efforts.
• These terms carry less cultural baggage than "fake news."

📰 Misinformation: unintentional inaccuracy

📰 Definition and characteristics

Misinformation: information whose inaccuracy is unintentional.

• Journalists and people in general often make mistakes when reporting new information.
• The journalist did not intend to deceive but simply made an error.
• At worst, they were negligent in not double-checking information before publishing.

🔍 Common causes

Why misinformation happens:

• Lack of understanding of a topic
• Misinterpretation of a source's claim
• Failure to independently verify information
• Inability to disentangle conflicting information

📅 Historical example: 1948 election

Example: The Chicago Daily Tribune incorrectly reported that Governor Thomas Dewey had beaten President Harry Truman in 1948.

• The early edition deadline forced printing before many states reported results.
• The Tribune relied on conventional wisdom (polls indicated Dewey would win) and one analyst's assessment.
• When they realized the race was closer, they changed the late edition headline.
• Over 150,000 copies had already been printed with the erroneous headline.
• Truman eventually won by a narrow margin, causing embarrassment for the Tribune.

🚨 When misinformation is most common

• Crisis periods and fast-moving developments: journalistic outlets face pressure to keep people informed quickly, especially when safety is at risk.
• Competition for attention: outlets are incentivized to "scoop" competitors by being first to report, increasing error likelihood.
• Breaking news stages: the need for speed conflicts with the need for accuracy.

Don't confuse: These errors can cause real-world harm to story subjects and audiences—they should not be excused as inconsequential—but they are not malicious errors designed to sow confusion.

🔧 Ethical response

• Under most journalistic codes of ethics, errors should be quickly and clearly corrected.
• Example: When the New York Post misidentified Boston Marathon bombing perpetrators in 2013 (based on false Reddit crowdsourcing), it was sloppy journalism, not malicious.

🎭 Disinformation: deliberate deception

🎭 Definition and characteristics

Disinformation: information that is deliberately false or misleading.

• Communicators (often operating outside journalism) are not simply making errors in the heat of the moment.
• They seek to sow confusion or promote a narrative they know to be untrue (or only partly true).
• The confusion or deception is intentional.

🌊 Example: Hurricane Sandy false rumors

• During Hurricane Sandy in 2012, false rumors spread that the New York Stock Exchange trading floor had been flooded.
• The false information was deliberately seeded by individuals doing it "for the lulz" (for amusement).
• They leveraged the naivete of some journalists, who retweeted the claims.
• Other journalists trusted those sources, creating a cascade of misinformation.

🏭 Example: Louisiana chemical plant hoax

In September 2014, a coordinated disinformation campaign spread false reports about an explosion and toxic fume hazard at a Louisiana chemical plant:

• Fake Twitter accounts systematically spread false reports.
• Spoofed (fake) versions of local news websites published stories.
• Fabricated YouTube videos were created.
• Text messages were sent to local residents.
• No explosion had actually occurred.
• Researchers traced the effort to the Internet Research Agency, a Russia-backed organization.
• Intelligence services identified this organization as behind efforts to destabilize U.S. politics by flooding social media with disinformation.

🎨 Enrichment: selective manipulation

Disinformation is not limited to complete fabrications:

Enrichment: information is selectively (and intentionally) added or omitted to alter the meaning of a message.

Includes:

• Intentionally decontextualizing information (different from failing to offer context due to space constraints)
• Intentionally casting information in a misleading or unfair light
• More common in pseudo-journalistic outlets (especially highly partisan ones) because it's easier to deny intent

🎯 How "fake news" discredits journalism

🎯 Blurring the lines

• The term lumps together both intentional and unintentional errors.
• Designed to blur lines to more easily ascribe malicious intent to journalists.
• Especially targets those who publish information critical of the accuser.

📜 Historical context

• Denouncing media through derogatory language is a long-standing strategy observed within and beyond the U.S.
• Allegations that the press are liars have been used as a political device by numerous leaders (especially in autocratic regimes) to silence oppositional voices.
• Even at the inception of the press, political and religious leaders alleged that "the public" should not publish unfiltered information.
• Newspapers were often charged as being full of lies, bias, and distortion.

⚖️ Legal consequences

• The term has facilitated passing of so-called "fake news" laws.
• These laws give autocratic and pseudo-democratic states more power in regulating news media.

🌐 Social consequences

Consequence	Description
Polarization	Increased polarization and audience fragmentation into echo chambers
Violence	More acts of violence against journalists by regular citizens
Tracking needed	Organizations like Reporters Without Borders now track domestic attacks against U.S. journalists

🗣️ Misapplication of the term

The term is now applied in contexts that don't involve journalism at all:

• Example: A political candidate charging their opponent with promoting "fake news" when they simply assert their health care policy is better.
• Example: Friends disagreeing about sports teams ("That's fake news!").
• Scholars argue the term has been deliberately seeded in many contexts to equate any inconvenient information with journalism, making it easier to discredit journalism.

🌀 Systematic confusion campaigns

🌀 Gaslighting strategy

Gaslighting: a rhetorical and psychological strategy that relies on intentional orchestration of deceptions and biased narrations to confuse individuals and distort audiences' trust in their own perceptions and memories.

• The term traces to a 1938 theatrical play.
• Useful for conceptualizing attempts by political actors to use misdirection, denial, and disinformation to sow confusion and undermine trust in institutions.
• Example: Former U.S. President Donald Trump's repeated claims that major news outlets lied about his political and personal life, even as he made demonstrably false claims at an unprecedented rate.

🌍 Historical and international examples

🇷🇺 Soviet dezinformatsiya

Dezinformatsiya: coordinated state efforts to disseminate false or misleading information to journalistic media in targeted countries or regions.

• Part of Soviet Union's "active measures" (activnye meropriyatiya).
• Used to strategically undermine and disrupt governance by opposing nation-states while strengthening allies' positions.
• Included spreading disinformation through multiple channels (e.g., fake grassroots campaigns, also known as astroturfing).
• Goals: widen existing domestic rifts, stoke tensions, complicate international relations.

🇨🇳 Chinese xuanchuan

Xuanchuan: coordinated posts on social media to flood conversational spaces with a mix of positive messages, negative messages, and attempts to change the subject as part of a misdirection strategy.

• Goal: not simply to promote false information but to overwhelm the system with information.
• Makes it harder for individuals to come across certain kinds of information.
• Example: China's "50 Cent Army" (or "50 Cent Party")—groups of online commentators thought to number in the millions, regularly employed by Chinese authorities.
• Used to promote echo chambers, hijack hashtags, and steer public discourse away from sensitive topics.

⚠️ Caution about terminology

• Terms like 'dezinformatsiya' and 'xuanchuan' can promote negative stereotypes and limit conversation.
• They elicit cultural associations that may be problematic.
• Non-state actors also use similar tactics (e.g., K-Pop fans hijacking white supremacist hashtags).
• Use these terms with care.

💻 Modern amplification

• Easier and cheaper access to powerful computers and high-speed internet has made it easier for individuals and small teams to automate production and amplification of disinformation in digital environments.
• Both state and non-state actors can now conduct coordinated campaigns.

🛡️ Responses and challenges

🛡️ Fact-checking organizations

• Several fact-checking organizations have emerged in recent years.
• Goals: authenticate statements by institutional sources (e.g., elected leaders), debunk social media hoaxes, assess legitimacy of information sources.

🤔 Limited effectiveness

• Several scholars have found that fact-checking interventions have made little headway in:
  • Combating large-scale disinformation campaigns
  • Restoring trust in journalistic institutions
• Journalistic outlets are still seeking effective solutions to countering disinformation.
• They struggle to adapt to a fast-paced environment that makes it easier for them to produce misinformation themselves.

🔄 The ongoing challenge

Don't confuse: The problem is not just about correcting individual errors—it's about systemic campaigns designed to undermine trust in democratic processes and institutions, which require different solutions than traditional fact-checking.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

News sourcing is fundamentally an exchange of power between journalists and sources, shaped by hierarchies of authority, human biases toward similarity, and practical constraints like availability—all of which systematically favor official, accessible, and high-status sources.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• What a news source is: any person, organization, document, or object that provides information to journalists (spokespeople, witnesses, reports, datasets, etc.).
• Why sourcing matters: journalists cannot observe everything firsthand, lack expertise in many areas, and sources themselves often shape how stories are framed—sometimes more powerfully than the journalist's own words.
• Power dynamics: sourcing is a negotiation where both sides have stakes; journalists gain information and access, while sources gain visibility, legitimacy, and a platform for their agendas.
• Hierarchy of credibility: sources closer to power (government officials, police, military) are more likely to be interviewed and have their accounts accepted, creating a bias toward institutional voices.
• Common confusion: availability vs. authority—journalists often interview sources who respond quickly and predictably (due to deadline pressure), not necessarily those who are most knowledgeable or representative, reinforcing over-representation of well-resourced official sources.

🔍 What news sources are and why they matter

📰 Definition and scope

News source: any person, organization, document, or object that provides information to journalists.

• Examples from the excerpt:
  • People: spokesperson for an international aid group, academic, regular citizen who witnessed an event
  • Documents: press releases, court filings, reports by interest groups, datasets from government agencies
• Not limited to human informants; includes any information provider.

🎯 Three reasons journalists need sources

1. Cannot observe everything firsthand: A journalist writing about a police shooting they did not witness must seek eyewitnesses and triangulate accounts to approximate the truth.
2. Lack specialized expertise: To inform audiences about climate science, a journalist must speak with a climate scientist.
3. Sources are sometimes the story's center: The head of a government agency accused of corruption should be given a chance to respond to allegations.

📢 Why sources need journalists

• Amplification: Without international media, a climatologist's research may not reach policymakers globally.
• Legitimacy: Being profiled by a respected outlet (e.g., The New York Times) can make a rebel leader appear important or legitimate.
• Agenda promotion: An agency head may exaggerate international tensions in a news story to secure more funding.

💬 The power of quoted sources

• Some scholars argue that what a source says can be more important than what the journalist writes.
• Audiences may view the source as more knowledgeable and authoritative than the journalist.
• Conversely, audiences may also view the source as more self-interested, especially if trust in that type of source is already low.
• Even unquoted sources influence how journalists think about and frame developments.

⚖️ Power, authority, and the hierarchy of credibility

🤝 Sourcing as an exchange of power

The practice of sourcing can be thought of as an exchange of power.

• The journalist-source relationship can be both adversarial and mutually beneficial.
• Example (mutually beneficial): A journalist benefits from frequent access to a high-ranking official; the official benefits from having a sympathetic ear during distress.
• Example (adversarial): A journalist receives public acclaim for exposing a previous source's dishonesty.

🏆 Reputation and access

• Journalists are more likely to receive access and cooperation if they or their organization are perceived as prestigious, or if they reach an audience the source wants.
  • Example: A highly partisan YouTube commentator may get an exclusive interview with a high-profile politician trying to reach younger base members.
• Inequity: High-profile, mainstream outlets or niche media with desirable audiences have advantages; not all journalists can draw on the same sources.

🏛️ Sources closer to power are favored

• Sources located prominently within power structures are more likely to be selected by journalists.
• Journalism cultures treat those with power as particularly worthy of attention (due to their influence) and as indicators of legitimacy.
• Hierarchy of credibility: Individuals in positions of authority are more likely to have their versions of truth readily accepted by both journalists and audiences.
  • Example: Journalists have historically been more deferential to a police officer's account of a shooting than the victim's.
• Don't confuse: This is not absolute trust—growing polarization means powerful individuals may be accepted by one group and rejected by another. Nevertheless, institutional sources (police, military, government officials) still receive more deference.

🌍 Cross-country variation in trust

• Journalistic trust in institutions varies considerably by country.
  • High trust: Estonia, United Arab Emirates (police)
  • Low trust: Argentina, Tanzania (police)
• U.S. journalists: Tend to have relatively low trust in institutions they cover; most approach claims with healthy skepticism, even from powerful institutions like the U.S. government or military.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Human biases: homophily and congruence

🪞 Homophily in sourcing

Homophily: the tendency of individuals to associate and bond with people who are similar to them.

• In journalist-source relations: Journalists are more likely to interview people who share their characteristics.
  • Male journalists → male sources
  • Female journalists → female sources
  • Journalists of color → sources of color
• Less clear evidence on how this affects sources' willingness to speak to journalists who don't share their characteristics, but psychology and sociology suggest sources may be less willing to open up to perceived strangers.

⚠️ Implications for representation

• Historic over-representation of white, male journalists raises concerns:
  • Domestically (in the U.S.)
  • Internationally (as foreign correspondents)
• This bias can limit whose voices are heard and whose perspectives are included in news stories.

⏰ Availability and deadline pressure

⏱️ Why availability matters

• Reporters operate on deadlines: fixed (traditional media) or continuous/ASAP (online media).
• Deadline pressure draws journalists to sources who are predictable and responsive.
• Journalists turn to sources who respond often and quickly.

📇 Recurring sources and address books

• Journalists maintain address books with recurring sources, increasing the likelihood of the same sources being interviewed repeatedly.
• Public information officers, press agents, and PR professionals are especially favored:
  • Their job is to respond to media requests.
  • Their training allows them to promote perspectives favorable to their employer.

📉 Resource constraints amplify the problem

• Growing resource constraints and inequities in journalism mean journalists are pressed to do more work with fewer resources and the same (or quicker) time restrictions.
• This benefits official and privileged sources who have resources to respond often, quickly, and with well-managed messages.
• Empirical finding: Studies of domestic and international news coverage routinely find an over-representation of government sources and spokespeople.

🔄 Don't confuse availability with authority

• A source who responds quickly is not necessarily the most knowledgeable or representative.
• Deadline pressure and resource constraints systematically favor well-resourced, official sources over grassroots, independent, or less-accessible voices.

📊 Summary table: factors shaping sourcing practices

Factor	How it shapes sourcing	Result
Power hierarchy	Sources closer to power are seen as more worthy and credible	Over-representation of government, police, military sources
Reputation	Prestigious journalists/outlets get better access	Inequity: mainstream and niche outlets favored
Homophily	Journalists interview sources who share their characteristics	Historic over-representation of white, male voices
Availability	Deadline pressure favors responsive, predictable sources	Over-reliance on PR professionals and official spokespeople
Resource constraints	Fewer resources mean less time to seek diverse sources	Amplifies all the above biases

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Journalists must strategically select a diverse mix of sources—each contributing unique expertise relevant to different story elements—while avoiding false balance and conflicts of interest to produce well-rounded, informative reporting.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• What makes a good source mix: multiple sources with different forms of expertise and perspectives that address the story's central questions from different vantage points.
• Expertise is contextual: skill or knowledge in a particular area; most people are experts in something, but expertise is contingent on the subject matter at hand—someone may be expert in one area but not others.
• How to identify the right sources: start with the story's objective, determine what kinds of sources are needed (officials, scientists, stakeholders, people with lived experience), then research to find the right individuals.
• Common confusion—balance vs. false balance: journalists should seek contrasting opinions and diverse voices, but must avoid portraying opposing viewpoints as equally legitimate when one is discredited or unsupported by evidence (e.g., climate change denial).
• Conflicts of interest must be avoided: journalists should not interview people with whom they have personal relationships or intersecting interests; sources must offer independent insight without pressure.

🎯 Planning the source strategy

🎯 Starting with the story objective

• Before identifying sources, the journalist must have a general sense of the story's objective and central questions.
• Example: for a story on a mayor's carbon emissions initiative, the journalist might need:
  1. The mayor (leading the initiative)
  2. A scientist (to assess likely impact)
  3. Stakeholders (local businesses affected by regulations, advocacy groups pushing for reductions)
• The journalist asks: How can this source's experience or knowledge improve the story? What will one source bring that another cannot? What perspectives are missing?

🔍 Finding the right individuals

• Once the right kinds of sources are identified, research is needed to find specific people.
• Methods include:
  • Actively searching the internet
  • Calling experts and asking for recommendations
  • Tapping into social media

🚫 Avoiding conflicts of interest

• Journalists must avoid real or perceived conflicts of interest.
• Do not interview:
  • Someone with a personal relationship (friend, lawyer)
  • Someone with intersecting interests (a company in which the journalist owns substantial stock)
• Sources should offer independent insight and feel no pressure due to their relationship with the journalist.

🧠 Understanding expertise

🧠 What expertise means

Expertise: skill or knowledge in a particular area.

• Expertise is not a special form of knowledge only exceptional individuals possess; most people are experts of some kind.
• Example from the excerpt: the author is an expert on journalism-and-technology intersection (from academic study), on watching Arsenal football over a decade (from regular viewing), and on neighborhood night sounds (from sleeping there regularly).
• However, the same person is not an expert on fashion trends or effective soccer dribbling techniques.

🎯 Expertise is contextual, not universal

• Expertise is neither universal nor something only held by people with specific backgrounds or education.
• Expertise is contingent on the subject matter at hand and may be possessed by a range of different potential sources.
• This way of thinking helps journalists recognize that many kinds of people can be legitimate sources, depending on what the story needs.

🔑 The key question for journalists

• Throughout the sourcing process, ask: Why is this person qualified to answer this question?
• Possible reasons:
  • They have extensively studied the phenomenon
  • They hold a decision-making authority position
  • They have lived experience with the issue

🧩 Building a diverse source mix

🧩 Multiple sources, multiple forms of expertise

• News stories tend to have multiple sources and draw upon multiple forms of expertise as well as expertise in different areas.
• Think about the main purpose of the story and the mix of sources necessary to flesh out that purpose.

📰 Case study: "The Quiet Rooms" investigation

• In 2019, the Chicago Tribune and ProPublica Illinois investigated the practice of secluding unruly students in isolation rooms in Illinois public schools.
• The story was rooted in a database analysis, but to answer why (does this happen?), how (does this get overlooked?), and what (is the impact?), the story drew on multiple sources:
  • Scientific experts who study educational practices (to assess effectiveness of social seclusion)
  • Advocates with expertise on prevalence and challenges
  • School district officials with expertise in day-to-day operations and disciplinary issues
  • Schoolchildren who experienced seclusion with expertise in what it feels like to be isolated
• The story spoke with more than 120 sources, painting a comprehensive picture because each contributed something different.

🌈 Seeking diversity of voices

• Good journalists challenge themselves to actively seek out a diversity of voices, perspectives, and identities.
• Seek individuals with different backgrounds, life experiences, and areas of expertise.
• Journalists rarely settle for a single source in any one area; they typically talk to many.
• Often, sources are interviewed but not included in the final story because a different source articulates a point better.

⚖️ Balancing perspectives without false balance

⚖️ The value of contrasting opinions

• Journalists often strive to offer contrasting opinions in their stories to introduce competing ideas.
• This strategy helps:
  • Reduce the impacts of the journalist's own biases on the story
  • Produce a more well-rounded story

🚨 The trap of false balance

False balance: the portrayal of opposing viewpoints as equally legitimate, even when one is more grounded in evidence or better corroborated by other trustworthy sources.

• Journalists should take care to avoid false balance.
• Example: journalists should not seek out a climate change denier simply to offer an alternative—and discredited—perspective.
• Journalists sometimes end up promoting misinformation in the search for balance, which effectively goes against their purpose as journalists.

✅ Don't confuse balance with equal legitimacy

• Seeking diverse voices ≠ treating all viewpoints as equally valid.
• The goal is to incorporate perspectives grounded in evidence and corroborated by trustworthy sources, not to give equal weight to discredited claims.

📊 Summary table: Types of expertise in a source mix

Type of expertise	What it contributes	Example from excerpt
Academic/scientific study	Assessment of effectiveness, evidence-based analysis	Scientist studying carbon emissions; educational practice researchers
Official/decision-making authority	Policy rationale, institutional perspective	Mayor leading initiative; school district officials
Advocacy/issue prevalence	Context on challenges, systemic patterns	Advocacy groups pushing for emissions reductions; advocates on seclusion prevalence
Lived experience	Personal impact, emotional reality	Schoolchildren who experienced isolation
Database/documentary evidence	Quantitative patterns, scope of issue	Database of seclusion incident reports

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Journalists must approach sources thoughtfully with clear objectives, professional communication, and persistent follow-up to secure interviews that respect the source's time while serving the story's needs.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• The core request: When requesting an interview, journalists are asking for a source's time away from work, family, and responsibilities, so the approach must be thoughtful and purposeful.
• Essential information to include: Introduce yourself, your outlet, your story topic, interview angle, time estimate, and preferred medium; always be polite, professional, and concise.
• Email as last resort: In-person interviews are best for body language and relationship-building; video/phone are acceptable substitutes; email interviews should almost never be used because they allow canned responses and make follow-up difficult.
• Common confusion—interview request vs. interview: A request is not the interview itself; never provide sources with advance question lists or story drafts, as this allows them to rehearse answers or avoid questions.
• Persistence without over-reliance: Follow up politely through multiple channels and explain why the source is key, but always have backup sources and reach out to them if first-choice sources delay.

📞 Making the initial contact

📞 How to reach out

Journalists can request interviews in person, over the phone, or via email. Regardless of method, always include:

• Your identity: name, title, and the outlet you're reporting for
• Publication context: whether it's for a publication or class project, and where it will be published (assume all stories may eventually be published)
• Story overview: the topic and angle of your story
• Interview specifics:
  • Your best estimate of time needed (based on information sought and number of questions)
  • Proposed medium (in person, phone, video chat)
  • Suggested dates and times, with flexibility to accommodate the source's schedule
• Contact methods: multiple ways for the source to respond (phone number, email address)

Example: A journalist contacts a climate researcher by email, introduces herself as reporting for a local publication, explains she's writing about regional climate impacts, estimates a 30-minute interview, offers in-person or video options, and suggests three possible time slots.

✉️ Email-specific best practices

A clear and concise subject line is crucial, such as "Media Request: Interview for a story about climate change."

• Keep emails short while including all crucial details—long emails seem intimidating and are more likely to be ignored
• Use respectful, professional tone
• Call sources by their name or title depending on profession
• Avoid slang and overly personal language
• Remember: you are asking for a favor

🚫 What never to provide

If a source requests these, always say no:

• A list of interview questions in advance
• A draft of the story you plan to write

Why this matters: Allowing prior review is poor practice because:

• Sources may tweak or edit aspects of your draft
• Sources can practice responses, create memorized answers, or prepare ways to avoid answering
• It complicates the reporting process

Don't confuse: An interview request is just a request for the interview, not the interview itself. If a source asks for advance materials and you say no, it's best to move on to someone else.

🎯 Interview medium hierarchy

🎯 Why in-person is best

In-person interviews are usually the best method because they allow you to:

• Get to know the source better
• Pick up on body language and other non-verbal cues
• Foster a stronger relationship with the source

📹 Acceptable substitutes

When in-person is not possible (e.g., you and the source live thousands of miles apart):

• Video chat interviews
• Phone interviews

📧 Email as last resort

Use email as a last resort for conducting the interview.

Email interviews are almost never a good method because:

• Communicating via email makes follow-up questions difficult
• It allows interview sources to practice or prepare canned responses

🔁 The value of persistence

🔁 When and how to follow up

Just because a source didn't immediately respond doesn't mean you should give up. Strong journalism requires persistence.

How to follow up politely and creatively:

• Contact the source through different mediums (voicemail, email, text message, in person) instead of sending the same request repeatedly
• Use all available contact methods (work email, personal email)
• Explain why it's important to speak with them specifically
• Explain why you selected them as a key interview source
• If one explanation doesn't motivate them, try a different angle

Why persistence matters: You chose this source because they can provide important information or perspective to your story, and you're doing this to serve your audience.

🔄 The backup strategy

Don't rely too heavily on a single source. Always have backup sources in mind.

Example: If your first-choice expert doesn't respond, have a second expert whose research is still relevant (even if not as closely tied to the story).

Critical timing rule: Start reaching out to backup sources even as you continue to reach out to first-choice sources. Waiting too long for your ideal response can cause you to miss your deadline.

🤝 Building respectful relationships

🤝 Do your homework first

Before reaching out to a potential source:

• Research that person, their experience, and their expertise
• Get to know everything you can about them
• Understand what makes that person relevant to your story
• Apply that knowledge to your interview request

Why research matters: Sources can tell when you have done your homework, and they invariably respond in a more positive and helpful way when you know a bit about them.

🤝 Long-term thinking

The way you arrange and conduct an interview has an impact on the results.

If you are rude, unprofessional, or clearly didn't do research, sources may:

• Become uncomfortable with you
• Limit the amount of information they share
• Abruptly end an interview
• Refuse to speak to you again

Better approach: Think of each interview source as a potentially recurring source of information you might return to throughout your journalistic career. Treat them in a way that fosters a long-term professional relationship.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Strong interview questions are simple, clear, well-informed, and open-ended, enabling journalists to elicit useful information while building trust with sources through preparation, flexibility, and active listening.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Preparation is essential: research your source thoroughly before the interview to craft informed, specific questions and use interview time strategically.
• Question structure matters: use open-ended questions that invite elaboration rather than close-ended questions that yield short, uninformative responses.
• Flexibility during interviews: listen carefully to generate follow-up questions beginning with "why" or "how," and reorder questions as needed based on the source's responses.
• Common confusion: compound (double-barreled) questions vs. focused questions—pack one topic per question, not multiple questions in one.
• Clarification is professional, not embarrassing: always ask sources to explain or simplify information you don't fully understand, as accuracy matters more than appearing knowledgeable.

🔍 Pre-interview preparation

📚 Why research matters

Before interviewing anyone, journalists must research the source's background, experience, and expertise. This serves multiple purposes:

• Verify the right source: confirm this person can actually address your story needs
• Develop stronger questions: informed questions are specific and relevant, not vague or generic
• Use time strategically: avoid asking questions easily answered through basic research or questions the source has answered many times before
• Build credibility: sources notice when you've done homework and respond with more time and better answers

🔎 How to research a source

Start with simple searches and progress strategically based on story needs:

• Faculty biographies, personal websites, course descriptions
• Published research (read abstracts/summaries if studies are relevant)
• Public social media accounts
• Recent interviews they've given
• If the source is central to your story, talk to other people who know them first

Example: When interviewing a journalism professor, read their university bio, skim their publications, and review their public social media before making contact.

✍️ Crafting clear, focused questions

🎯 Characteristics of strong questions

The strongest interview questions have a clear focus on one specific topic, and they are phrased with simple, easy-to-understand wording.

Test your questions by asking: "Is this easy to understand? Could I answer it?" If you must re-read a question to understand it, your source will struggle too.

Requirements for clarity:

• Short and direct wording
• One specific topic per question
• Based on what this particular source can answer from their expertise/experience/position
• Avoid asking sources to speak for entire groups rather than themselves

❌ What to avoid: compound questions

Compound, or double-barreled, questions are confusing and long questions that usually pack two or more questions into one.

Example of a compound question: "Do you support building a new elementary school and increasing teachers' salaries?"

Why this fails: sources usually only remember to answer one branch of the question.

Solution: break into multiple simplified questions:

• "Do you support building a new elementary school?"
• "Do you support increasing teachers' salaries?"

🚫 Inappropriate question types

Asking sources to generalize about groups: Don't ask a single person to speak for an entire population they're not qualified to represent.

Example of what NOT to ask: "Are all journalism professors socially awkward?" (This is both rude and asks for a generalized statement about a large group.)

🗣️ Open-ended vs. close-ended questions

🌟 Open-ended questions (preferred)

Open-ended questions are those that invite a source to elaborate on their response.

These questions encourage sources to construct full sentences that establish and explain their perspective, generating more complete and thoughtful responses.

Example: "Why do you support the Minnesota Vikings?" (requires explanation and reasoning)

🚪 Close-ended questions (use sparingly)

Close-ended questions compel short, undetailed responses like "yes" or "no."

Example: "Do you support the Minnesota Vikings?" (can be answered with just "yes"—not informative or a good quote)

When they're acceptable: to set up an open-ended follow-up question, but usually insufficient on their own.

⚠️ Leading questions (generally avoid)

Leading questions can cue sources to answer in the specific way that they believe the interviewer wants them to.

These influence sources to mirror your thinking instead of contributing their own perspective.

Example: "Do you agree that the Minnesota Vikings are the best team in the NFL?" (This might make sources with different views uncomfortable about how they'll be depicted.)

Rare appropriate use: to signal understanding after a source describes something difficult—"That must have felt awful. What was running through your mind when you received such terrible news?"

📋 Organizing and conducting the interview

🔢 Question ordering strategy

After brainstorming questions, organize them strategically:

1. Start simple: use introductory questions to ease the source in and make them comfortable
2. Group by topic: keep all questions about one aspect together; complete each topic before transitioning
3. Structure for time management: guarantee you get all needed information within your estimated timeframe
4. Place difficult questions carefully: not so early they derail the interview, but not so late you risk running out of time

🔄 Staying flexible during interviews

Although you prepared organized questions, unanticipated follow-up questions will arise—this is natural and often provides the best information and quotes.

How to handle follow-ups:

• Listen carefully while the source talks to catch potential follow-up questions
• Write down follow-up questions as they occur to you
• Usually introduce them immediately, but sometimes wait until later
• Record the interview AND take notes so you don't miss exact quote phrasing

Good follow-up questions: usually request additional context or explanation and begin with "why" or "how."

🔁 When sources don't fully answer

If a response doesn't fully answer your question, don't hesitate to ask the same question in a new way.

Reasons for non-responses:

• Misunderstanding of the question
• The initial phrasing gave them room to avoid a full response

Be persistent: keep asking until you get a satisfactory answer.

🎵 Reordering on the spot

If a source's response creates a better opportunity for a later question, reorder your questions to maintain good flow.

Example: If you planned to ask about the Green Bay Packers as your fifth question but they mention the Packers in their second answer, move that question up immediately.

Important: If they've fully addressed a planned question already, don't ask it again—that signals you weren't listening.

💡 Clarification and conclusion

❓ Always ask for clarity

If you find yourself confused or unsure about a key fact or piece of information during the course of your interview, always, always clarify that information with your source.

Why journalists need clarification: You're learning about many different subjects, but sources are the foremost experts—not you. Not fully understanding something is normal, especially with new or deep topics.

How to clarify: summarize a key point and ask if you got it correct.

Example: "So, you are saying that if I need to clarify information during an interview, I should take some time to do that with the source. Is that correct?"

Don't confuse professionalism with pretending to know everything: Sources appreciate honesty and feel more confident you'll accurately portray their perspective. Better to look uncertain to one person than to misinform potentially large audiences.

🎬 The concluding question

After all brainstormed, follow-up, and clarifying questions, end with a final open-ended question allowing the source to share anything else they think you should know.

Examples:

• "Is there anything you'd like to add?"
• "Is there anything else I didn't ask you about that is important for me to know?"

Why this matters: Often sources say "no" but feel empowered (ending on a good note). However, some of the best scoops and story ideas have come from giving sources this opportunity.

🙏 Thank your source

By the end of your interview, the source will have shared something precious with you: their time.

Thanking them:

• Wraps up the exchange politely
• Shows appreciation for their time, information, and perspective
• Is a good moment to ask for additional contact information for follow-up

Building relationships: Consider sending central sources a copy of your published story—this makes them feel good about speaking with you and increases likelihood they'll respond in the future. Treat every source as potentially recurring.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Successful journalistic interviews depend not only on asking good questions but also on thorough preparation, clear attribution agreements, and skillful use of techniques like silence and non-verbal engagement to elicit complete and accurate information.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Preparation is essential: check equipment, select a quiet setting, and make sources comfortable before starting.
• Attribution must be negotiated upfront: the default is on-the-record, but sources may request on-background, deep-background, or off-the-record arrangements—each with different rules for quoting and identification.
• Common confusion: "off-the-record" is fuzzy and can mean different things; clarify whether information can be used anonymously or cannot be published at all.
• Control and engagement: the journalist must stay in control of the interview's direction while paying full attention to the source, using non-verbal cues and strategic silence.
• Double-check everything: verify recording quality, confirm all questions were asked, and collect full attribution details (name spelling, title, contact) before leaving.

🎬 Preparing for the interview

🏞️ Select a good interview setting

• Choose a comfortable, quiet, and private location where the source can speak openly.
• Avoid background noise (coffee machines, traffic) and high-traffic areas (playgrounds, malls).
• Ensure the setting is accessible to both parties and supports your equipment needs (e.g., power outlets if required).
• Tip: Ask the source to suggest a location where they feel comfortable; they may prefer somewhere other than their office for privacy.
• Don't hesitate to politely request small changes (turning off music, moving a pet) to reduce distractions and improve recording quality.

🔌 Check your equipment

As a journalist, you are in charge of making sure your interview goes smoothly.

• Before you leave or begin, verify you have:
  • Notepad, pen, recording device, interview questions.
  • Fully charged devices and charging cables.
  • Correct recorder/app settings and back-up batteries.
  • (For video) correct camera defaults.
• Don't start until you are ready—many journalists have lost important details due to forgotten settings or equipment.
• Example: Some junior journalists keep a pre-interview checklist to avoid embarrassing mistakes or information loss.

🤝 Make your sources comfortable

• Sources often get nervous, especially when being recorded.
• Take a minute or two at the start to:
  • Re-introduce yourself and the interview topic.
  • Walk them through the trajectory of your questions (briefly mention the topics you'll cover).
  • Explain how your recording equipment works.
  • Start with simpler questions that are easy to answer.
• Tip: Use a creative practice question (e.g., "What did you eat for breakfast?") or share a brief personal anecdote to humanize yourself and set the source at ease.

📜 Attribution and recording

📜 Establish the attribution parameters

Attribution: the descriptor the journalist uses to identify the source of a quote or piece of information featured in a story.

There are four main levels of attribution:

Level	What you can do	Example
On-the-record	Quote freely and attribute by name and title	Direct quote with full name
On background (not for attribution)	Quote directly but not by name; use general description	"according to a senior military officer with direct knowledge" or "a person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity"
On deep background	Cannot quote directly or identify in any way	"The Times has learned that…" (seldom used, reserved for sensitive affairs)
Off-the-record	Fuzzy term; often means on-background (anonymous quote), but can also mean information cannot be used or referenced at all	Information may guide your reporting (e.g., chase other leads) but cannot be published directly

• Default mode: Once an interview begins, the source is speaking on-the-record unless you and they have agreed in advance to a different level.
• Good practice: Be clear about the attribution level you intend to use.
• Sources may ask to change the level mid-interview; it's often okay to allow on-background or off-the-record, but try to return to on-the-record for particularly interesting statements by explaining why audiences need to know who shared the information.
• Don't confuse: "Off-the-record" can mean anonymous attribution or information that cannot be published at all—clarify with the source.

🎙️ Ask for permission to record

• Recording is a best practice because it allows accurate transcription, checking details later (e.g., tone, context), and provides corroborating evidence.
• In many states (e.g., Massachusetts), you are legally required to gain consent before recording.
• Before you begin, ask for permission to record (audio or video, depending on your medium).
• Explain that the purpose is to quote them accurately—sources typically agree.
• Tip: Take notes even if recording, because:
  • Recordings sometimes fail.
  • You often don't have time to listen to the entire recording before publishing.
  • Notes highlight key points and help when conducting multiple interviews in a short time.
• When the source says something you'll likely quote, note the rough timestamp so you can quickly return to it.

🎯 During the interview

👀 Pay attention to your source

• Stay focused on the interview subject throughout; don't get too distracted by your notes.
• Make direct eye contact and use clear non-verbal cues to show you're paying attention:
  • Nod or thumbs-up when they make a key point.
  • Smile at a humorous story.
  • Frown when they describe a difficult time.
• Avoid verbal cues like "mmm-hmmm" or "gotcha"—they can interrupt the source's train of thought or create interference in the audio recording.
• Remember: You are there to get the source's expertise and perspective, not to share your own.
  • Avoid interrupting unless absolutely necessary.
  • Don't interject your own opinions or editorialize—doing so wastes time and may influence the source to agree with you or provide responses they think you want.

🎛️ Stay in control

As the journalist, you should be in control of the focus, content, and direction of an interview.

• Don't let the source take control (accidentally or on purpose) by:
  • Changing the subject or going off topic.
  • Asking you questions.
  • Dedicating too much time to one topic.
• Politely redirect as needed to the next key topic or return to a skipped topic.
• You may occasionally need to interrupt to regain control; helpful phrases include:
  • "I'd like to return to X."
  • "I want to make sure we fully discuss Y."
  • "Your response has me thinking about Z."
• Why this matters: Sources often have their own agendas and may try to maximize their interests—don't let them succeed.

🤐 Use silence

One of the most valuable tools a journalistic interviewer has is silence.

• When conversation lapses, people feel nervous and are compelled to start talking again to break the silence.
• Use this to your advantage: If a source doesn't answer your question or answers too briefly, stay silent for a bit to encourage them to continue or elaborate.
• Tip: If silence makes you uncomfortable, count to eight in your head when the feeling sets in.

✅ Wrapping up the interview

✅ Check, check, and double-check

• At the end, double-check your questions and notes to ensure you asked everything you needed—it's okay to politely ask for a moment to do this.
• Before you leave, check the recording itself:
  • Did it capture the entire interview?
  • Is the audio quality good?
• Why this matters: You may not be able to interview that source again before your deadline, so taking a few extra minutes can save you a headache.

📇 Collect attribution information

• Never leave without asking for:
  • Spelling and pronunciation of the source's name.
  • Full professional title (or other descriptive credentials relevant to the story).
  • Contact information to reach them again.
• Bonus: Ask the source to recommend additional sources (another knowledgeable person or a relevant document) for this story or topic.

💌 Follow up after the interview

• Consider sending the source a copy of your published story—this might make them feel better about speaking with you and more likely to respond in the future.
• Treat every source as potentially recurring: there's a decent chance another story will require you to speak to that source again.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Verification—the discipline of establishing truth through investigation and corroboration—is central to journalism because it ensures accuracy, protects credibility, and helps journalists sort through competing claims and source agendas.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• What verification is: the act of establishing or testing the truth of a fact, statement, or theory through special investigation or comparison of data.
• Why it matters: ensures accuracy, protects a journalist's credibility (social currency), and guards against source agendas, misremembering, and document errors.
• Core method: triangulation—finding multiple sources that say or show the same thing to increase confidence in the truth.
• Common confusion: don't assume any single source is correct; even well-meaning sources can misremember, and documents can contain mistakes.
• Practical approach: interrogate all 'facts,' use search engines and specialized tools, bookmark reliable sources, and apply an accuracy checklist before publishing.

🔍 Why verification is essential

🔍 The discipline at the heart of journalism

Verification: the act of establishing or testing the truth or correctness of a fact, theory, statement, etc., by means of special investigation or comparison of data.

• The excerpt quotes former journalists Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel: "the essence of journalism is a discipline of verification."
• It is not optional—it is central to 'good' journalism.
• Verification is the act of seeking out corroborating evidence that gives greater confidence that something is in fact true.

🎯 Ensuring accuracy and truth

• Verification ensures journalists "get what happened down correctly."
• Truth demands accuracy; verification sorts through different perceived realities by identifying inaccuracies and approximating truth through corroboration.
• Example: if multiple people describe an incident the same way, you can have greater confidence the description captures the truth.

🛡️ Protecting credibility (social currency)

• Journalists trade on their credibility: credible journalists are taken seriously and sources are more likely to divulge information to them.
• A big part of establishing credibility is demonstrating the ability to consistently and rigorously vet information.
• Don't confuse: verification is not just about getting the story right—it's also about maintaining the journalist's reputation and trustworthiness over time.

⚠️ Guarding against source problems

• The excerpt emphasizes skepticism: "If your mother says she loves you, check it out."
• Sources often have agendas and a purpose for speaking to a journalist (e.g., to get favorable coverage).
• Even well-meaning sources might misremember information or recall seeing something that never happened.
• Even documents might have mistakes that a journalist will not want to repeat.

🔎 Core verification strategies

🔎 Interrogate your 'facts'

• Commit to interrogating all 'facts' as you would a suspect—whether from your own research or from a source.
• Start by jotting down all assertions and factual information you might include in your story.
• Then ask:
  • How do we know this fact?
  • Why is this assertion true?
  • What are the assumptions underlying this statement?
• At the heart: Why should the reader, viewer, or listener believe this?

🔺 Triangulation

Triangulate information: find multiple sources that say or show the same thing (or at least highly similar things).

• This might involve asking multiple people questions about the same thing and seeing if the information they give you is consistent.
• Example: if three people describe an incident in the same way, you can have greater confidence that the description captures the truth of what happened.
• In general, presume that any single source is wrong and make it your job to check if they might actually be right.

📄 Get as close to primary sources as possible

• Your interrogation should focus on getting as close as possible to the primary (original) sources of information.
• Example: if a police spokesperson says crime dropped by five percent, ask them for a copy of the data.
• Example: if a source tells you the bar across the street is owned by an anti-alcohol advocate, pull the property record for the bar and research the owner.
• Don't rely on secondhand claims—go to the original source whenever possible.

🛠️ Tools and resources for verification

🔍 Search engines and advanced search

• The single most useful general tool for verifying information is a search engine.
• Modern journalists must master which search terms to use and how to use 'advanced search' functionality.
• Example: to determine if someone still works at an organization, use advanced search to limit results to that organization's domain (e.g., "umass.edu").
• Example: wrap a name in quotation marks ("Rodrigo Zamith") to denote that the terms should appear alongside each other and in that order; add a keyword like "journalism" to narrow results.

👤 Verifying identities

• AnyWho and Spokeo: allow you to look up a person's name, age, and address based on public records; offer additional information through paid features.

📷 Verifying images

Tool	What it does
TinEye and Google Image Search	Upload an image and see the many web pages where that image has appeared; helpful for debunking claims that a picture represents a recent event if it appeared online prior to the event.
FotoForensics and JPEGSnoop	Use computer algorithms to detect whether an image has been altered by tools like Photoshop.

🗺️ Verifying locations and events

• Use satellite imagery or Google Maps to double-check details from a photo.
• Example: if tweets say a police officer was shot at a White Castle in Boston, search if White Castle has any locations in Boston (they don't).
• Google Maps' street view can be used to double-check details about a setting.
• Check if weather conditions in a photo are corroborated by weather records about the location where the event allegedly took place.

🧐 Fact-checking websites

• Snopes and similar fact-checking websites are immensely useful when a rumor starts to pick up speed.
• Such websites often quickly identify and debunk misinformation, disinformation, and simple hoaxes spreading on the web.
• Quite often, a new rumor (and supposedly corroborating evidence) is just a rehash of a previously debunked piece of misinformation or disinformation.

📚 Building a verification system

📚 Bookmark reliable information sources

• Local, state, and federal governments are major producers of factual information, as are academic institutions, non-profit interest groups, and supranational governmental bodies (e.g., the United Nations).
• Familiarizing yourself with their websites and the kinds of information those institutions produce can be a useful time-saver.

Type of information	Example source
Unemployment statistics (U.S.)	Bureau of Labor Statistics' website (monthly unemployment reports)
Crime rates (U.S.)	FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program; local police agency websites
Infectious disease death rates (international)	World Health Organization's website

• The key is to come up with an effective system for bookmarking useful sources of information and organizing them in a way that allows you to quickly find the right bookmarks.
• Example: many journalists use tags in conjunction with their bookmarks—if they're looking to double-check any 'health' information, they can quickly find the right subset of websites.
• Master your preferred browser's bookmarking functionality or use advanced bookmark managers (e.g., Raindrop and Memex).

✅ Keep an accuracy checklist

• Once you have finished writing your article, use an accuracy checklist.
• Example checklist items:
  • The spelling for all names, companies, titles, and place names featured in the story.
  • All statistics featured in the story, taking special care to ensure you are using the right scale (e.g., "million" vs. "billion").
  • All references to times, distances, and dates.
  • All quotations in the story, ensuring they match any recordings you may have of those statements.
  • All arguments or narratives that depend on a fact, ensuring they are logically consistent with that fact.

📝 How to apply the checklist rigorously

• Print a copy of the story (e.g., article or voice-over script).
• Go through every sentence and circle every fact or assertion in it.
• If you can attribute all those circled items to an authoritative source or to multiple sources, then you can feel good about filing your story.
• Don't confuse: the checklist is not just for catching typos—it's for verifying that every factual claim is backed by evidence.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

The lead and nut graf work together to capture audience attention and deliver essential story information, with the lead drawing readers in and the nut graf contextualizing the story's importance and angle.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• What a lead does: the opening paragraph(s) must both inform audiences of key story elements and attract their interest enough to continue reading.
• The 5 W's and H framework: summary leads answer Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How to deliver essential information quickly.
• Role of the nut graf: when the lead cannot answer all questions, the nut graf (usually the second paragraph) contextualizes facts and clarifies the story's angle and importance.
• Common confusion: not all leads are summary leads—anecdotal, analysis, and blind leads serve different purposes and pair better with different topics and tones.
• Strategic selection: choose your lead type based on your story's strongest element (anecdote, statistic, or summary), not a one-size-fits-all formula.

📰 The summary lead and nut graf

📰 What a lead is and does

Lead (or lede): the first paragraph of a journalistic story, or first two paragraphs in the case of an extended lead.

• Carries two equally important responsibilities:
  • Draw in audience attention and interest
  • Inform audiences of key story elements
• Gives news consumers a brief glimpse before they commit to the full story
• Should either make audiences want to continue reading or feel sufficiently informed even if they stop after the first paragraph

❓ The 5 W's and H

A typical news lead includes the most essential information by addressing:

• Who? – the people or entities involved
• What? – the event or action
• When? – the timing
• Where? – the location
• Why? – the reason or cause
• How? – the method or process

Example: Candidate X (who) won an election (what) in Amherst (where) last night (when) because 67 percent of voters cast their ballots for them (why).

Summary lead: a highly descriptive lead that answers the 5 W's and H; a hallmark of "hard news" stories written in "straight news" style.

• Often found in breaking news coverage or newswire service stories
• Typically short (two to three sentences)
• Gets to the point quickly to avoid losing audience attention

🥜 The nut graf explained

Nut graf (also spelled "nut graph" or "nutgraph"): usually the second paragraph of an article, or the paragraph immediately following an extended lead; contextualizes the most important facts and provides audiences with a clear understanding of the article's angle.

Why it's needed:

• Leads are short, so sometimes impossible to answer all 5 W's and H in one paragraph
• Provides second-most important information the lead couldn't address

What it does:

• Tells audiences why the story is important and timely
• Explains where the story is coming from, where it's going, and what's at stake
• Clarifies the story's angle (the lens through which the journalist approaches the central issue)

Example of angle: A story about a new town zoning ordinance could focus on the potential impact on the town's character, or on individuals who stand to gain or lose from the change.

Connection to inverted pyramid:

• The lead + nut graf combination follows the inverted pyramid style
• Stories begin with most essential information at the top
• Continue with successively less important facts and context

🎭 Alternative lead types

🎭 Beyond the summary lead

The no-nonsense, information-packed approach reflects just one kind of introduction. Other types appear especially in:

• Non-traditional news outlets
• Longer, in-depth (long-form) stories
• Certain journalism genres (e.g., Arts & Culture)

📖 Anecdotal lead

Anecdotal lead: a lead in which a journalist begins a story with an anecdote, or illustrative story, to depict a scene or event that guides audiences into the broader context.

• Uses a specific story or scene to draw readers in
• Example: Describing the moment Candidate X learned they won the election—on the phone with their partner in a room full of exuberant supporters about to be showered in balloons
• Similar variant: starting with a powerful quote or startling statement

🔍 Analysis lead

Analysis lead: a journalist synthesizes and analyzes important information in a more contextual introduction to a story.

• Helps put current events into perspective for audiences
• Example: Beginning with Candidate X's legislative priorities and how their election could change the city and impact citizens in coming years

🎭 Blind lead

Blind lead: the journalist sets a scene or tells a story without immediately making clear the Who or What, in order to build tension, establish a tone, or pique audience interest.

• Withholds key identifying information initially
• Example: Beginning with details about supporters' euphoria and surprise before introducing Candidate X
• Don't confuse with: a summary lead, which immediately identifies all key elements

🎯 Selecting the right lead

🎯 Matching lead to story

Factor	Consideration
Topic	Different lead types pair better with different subjects
Tone	Serious, humorous, melancholic tones call for different approaches
Strongest element	Lead should showcase what's most compelling about your story

💡 Core principle

No matter what type of lead you choose, you must:

• Inform audiences
• Interest them in your larger story

As journalist Chip Scanlan stated: "An effective lead makes a promise to the reader or viewer: I have something important, something interesting, to tell you. A good lead beckons and invites. It informs, attracts, and entices."

🔑 Decision framework

Take stock of your story's strongest element:

• A strong anecdote that gives a face to your story and establishes audience connection
• An eye-popping statistic that shocks the audience
• A succinct summary of what happened (for shorter news briefs or breaking news)

⚠️ What to avoid

Things that could distract or turn audiences away:

• Clichéd language
• Rambling sentences
• Irrelevant or unimportant information
• Direct questions

Best leads are:

• Succinct
• Introduce audiences to new information, a captivating incident, or a striking statistic
• Linger in audiences' minds long after consumption

📚 Real-world examples

📚 Worker's compensation story (ProPublica/NPR, 2015)

Story: "How Much Is Your Arm Worth? Depends On Where You Work"

The data: People in different U.S. states could receive drastically different worker's compensation benefits for the same injuries.

Lead choice: Extended anecdotal lead

• Described two similar men: similar age, lived 75 miles apart, married with two kids, both lost portion of left arm in machinery accident at work
• Fourth paragraph reveals the discrepancy: one received $45,000, the other could receive over $740,000
• Fifth paragraph delivers the nut graf: these experiences illustrate vast gaps in workers' comp benefits across states

Why it worked: The strength of the anecdotes and the shocking discrepancy in outcomes outweighed any other potential opener.

📚 Child refugees story (The Guardian, 2016)

Story: "Quarter of child refugees arriving in EU traveled without parents"

The data: Almost 100,000 child refugees who arrived in Europe the previous year came without parents.

Lead choice: Summary lead with striking statistic

• "A quarter of all child refugees who arrived in Europe last year — almost 100,000 under-18s — traveled without parents or guardians and are now 'geographically orphaned,' presenting a huge challenge to authorities in their adopted countries."

Why it worked: The staggering figure was likely to shock the audience and was the strongest element available (possibly the journalist couldn't speak to a child refugee before deadline).

Contrast: While this story could have used a compelling anecdote, the statistic was the strongest element the journalist had to work with.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Story structure—the framework that determines how information and narrative are ordered and presented—should be chosen based on the story's purpose, length, themes, and the quality of anecdotes available, rather than defaulting to a single formulaic approach.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• What story structure is: the structural framework underlying the order and manner in which information and/or narrative is presented to audiences.
• Preparation before writing: take stock of all pieces (notes, quotes, facts, anecdotes), categorize them by theme, match quotes to facts, and prioritize by newsworthiness.
• Five common structures: inverted pyramid (most important first), martini glass (summary lead + chronological), kebab (anecdote → analysis → closing anecdote), accordion (zoom in/out with central character), and pyramid (builds up to climax).
• Common confusion: inverted pyramid vs martini glass—both start with key information, but martini glass then shifts to chronological order, while inverted pyramid continues in descending importance.
• Selection criteria: match structure to story purpose (inform quickly vs entertain), space constraints, number of themes, and strength of anecdotes/characters.

📋 Preparing to write

📋 Taking stock of your pieces

Before writing, the excerpt recommends a systematic review process:

• Revisit interview notes to refresh memory and fill gaps; conduct supplemental interviews if critical information is missing.
• Categorize information by the 5 W's and H (Who, What, When, Where, Why, How), then identify potential thematic subsections.
  • Example: a story about police shootings might have themes like "Police Training," "Community Anger," "Police Feeling Unsupported," and "Legislative Responses Being Considered."
• Match quotes with facts: ideally every major fact should have a corroborating or exemplifying quote (though this is seldom achieved in practice).
• Prioritize: determine which facts are most newsworthy and which quotes are most interesting; color-coding can help organize and later cut material.
• Write an elevator statement: a quick summary of the story as if telling a friend during a short elevator ride; this can become the lead or nut graf.

🎯 Why preparation matters

• Organizing pieces thoughtfully makes the actual writing process much easier.
• A clear sense of what you have helps you select an appropriate structure.
• The excerpt notes that quotes are "sometimes the most powerful parts of a story" and most news stories include a quote after every few grafs (paragraphs).

🏗️ The five common structures

🔻 Inverted pyramid

The inverted pyramid is characterized by having the most important, substantial, and interesting information at the beginning of the story. Then, with each successive paragraph, the information becomes less important or relevant.

• How it works: start with a summary lead covering the 5 W's and H, then each paragraph descends in importance; final paragraphs typically include background or general context.
• Example: a story about a church objecting to a marijuana dispensary might lead with who, what, when, where, why; next paragraphs detail the objection and the dispensary's position; tail end covers when the license was issued and regional context.
• Best for: breaking news stories and short- to regular-length "straight news" stories.
• Advantage: condenses information efficiently; audiences get key points even if they stop reading after the first few paragraphs.
• Drawback: can become repetitive and dull, failing to stand out among competitors.

🍸 Martini glass

• How it works: begins like the inverted pyramid with the most important information at the top (often a summary lead), but after the lead and nut graf, transitions to a chronological format with the most recent information followed by continually less recent information.
• Ending: general/contextual information or a good "kicker" (a quote or anecdote that wraps up the story effectively).
• Best for: sequential news events, such as crime or disaster stories where the journalist needs to explain what happened from beginning to end.
• Drawback: the temporal approach can be limiting if the issue is multifaceted.
• Don't confuse: both inverted pyramid and martini glass start with key information, but martini glass then shifts to chronological order, while inverted pyramid continues descending in importance.

🍢 Kebab (or circle)

• How it works:
  1. Begins with an anecdote about someone affected by a trend, issue, or event.
  2. Quickly transitions to the nut graf (5 W's and H or summary of the broader phenomenon).
  3. Adds detailed analyses of different aspects of the trend, issue, or event (the "meat" pieces of the kebab).
  4. Ends with a closing anecdote, often about the same person featured in the lead, bringing the story "full circle."
• Best for: feature stories when the journalist has access to an illustrative anecdote that aptly encapsulates the big takeaway.
• Why it works: the anecdote humanizes the issue and the circular structure provides aesthetic closure.

🪗 Accordion

• How it works:
  1. Begins with a strong anecdote or quote representing the main topic, then transitions to a nut graf.
  2. Follows a "zooming in" and "zooming out" pattern using a compelling central figure (or small cast) throughout the story.
  3. Zooming in phases: use different anecdotes from the central figure to illustrate and personalize an aspect of the story.
  4. Zooming out phases: contextualize the experience by focusing on the "big picture" (how representative the anecdote is), often incorporating side characters like subject experts.
  5. Ends with a closing anecdote from the central character.
• Best for:
  • When the journalist has a compelling central character whose lived experience encapsulates the issue.
  • When a cadre of characters collectively encapsulate the issue (insert a different character during each zooming-in phase).
  • Data-driven stories: makes it easy to oscillate between data analysis and anecdote, keeping the reader informed and engaged.
• Difference from kebab: accordion returns repeatedly to the central character(s) throughout, while kebab moves quickly from one aspect to the next and only bookends with anecdotes.

🔺 Pyramid

The pyramid structure builds up to the most interesting information.

• How it works: more akin to storytelling in a novel; information of increasing importance is revealed as the narrative develops to build tension and conflict; only near the end is the reader exposed to the full depth and breadth of the story (serving as resolution or its immediate antecedent).
• Best for: long-form feature writing or journalistic non-fiction books.
• Less common: the excerpt notes this is a "less common storytelling structure in journalism."
• Opposite of inverted pyramid: inverted pyramid front-loads importance; pyramid builds to a climax.

🎯 Selecting the right structure

🎯 Decision criteria

The excerpt emphasizes that no one story structure is inherently better than another; selection depends on:

Criterion	Consideration	Example
Purpose	To quickly inform or to entertain?	Inverted pyramid for quick information; accordion for engagement
Space	Shorter or longer story?	Shorter stories suit simple structures; longer stories can use creative structures
Themes	Single focus or multifaceted?	Many themes may require a kebab-like structure
Evidence quality	Strength and appeal of anecdotes/characters?	Several captivating anecdotes benefit from creative structures like accordion
Outlet style	Target audience expectations?	Align with outlet's writing style and audience expectations

📰 Structure-to-story-type matching

• Inverted pyramid: better suited for shorter or breaking news stories.
• Accordion: better suited to longer stories with compelling characters.
• Feature stories, investigative stories, long-form pieces: more likely to use alternative structures (martini glass, kebab, accordion, pyramid) that allow journalists to intersperse anecdotes, facts, and quantitative information in more interesting ways.

🔄 Flexibility in modern journalism

The excerpt notes that journalism is becoming less formulaic:

• Journalistic outlets face an "ever more competitive information environment" and are "fighting for audiences' attention."
• "Strict, traditional forms of journalistic writing are becoming more flexible, and in some instances have given way to more inventive and engaging forms."
• Journalists are "sometimes allowed to exercise a considerable amount of creativity in their writing."