4 The purpose and meaning of news

Events, dear boy, events

Harold Macmillan

quoted in Hayward, A. (1997). Politics. Macmillan. p. 387.

News values, news judgement, can only be exercised if and when news is collected. Potential news is everywhere. It is lying waiting to be reported. To collect this information, reporters need to know what is going on, and where.

Tunstall (1971) says that news flow (by which he means news collection) is similar to the flow of other sorts of communication, such as telephones or transportation. This is true, for example, of North America and Western Europe, where there is both particularly heavy news collection and telephone traffic. Of course today this is where the heaviest Internet and computer traffic also originates. Facts provide a major source of hard news: scores, dates, numbers killed, votes counted, sums of money spent or robbed, results. Another source of factual news comes from ‘the newsmakers’, the people in the news. They provide the quotes. So the fact provides story one; the quote about the fact provides story two.

Anthony Smith (1979) says it is no coincidence that journalists speak of ‘news values’; the value of something is decided in a market place among buyers and sellers, some of whom are richer than others. He says:

The ‘values’ of the journalist are established under constant pressures within the society he serves; there is a tension between his existence as a free or creative craftsman and the nexus within which he works. He has a certain autonomy; the constraints, however, are the subject of permanent and unavoidable contest.

Over the years, but particularly since the 1950s, there have been a number of concepts of the press, journalism and the meaning of news. These various ideas have been developed to try to understand journalism and to locate it within various ideologies, both western and non-western. Existing models tend to mix prescriptive with descriptive concepts (another way of describing this is normative/reflective). The underlying idea of most theories of the press and of news reflects the political system of the society in which it is located. Theories also tend to be developed by academics rather than practitioner professionals in the area, so they are therefore critiques of the press and journalism rather than theories that can be translated into practical applications for journalists to improve their work practices. They are therefore studies of journalism and the media, rather than studies in journalism or the media.

The basic theory began in the United States with the publication of the work of Siebert, Peterson and Schramm, with their 1956 book, Four Theories of the Press. Their theory stated that the press always takes on the form and coloration of the social political structures within which it operates. The view that the different media systems are based on political differences was also part of Hatchen’s five concepts of the press (Hatchen, 1981). Merrill (1995) added that the press not only reflects the ideology of the system in which it functions, but supports it and cannot exceed the system’s limits. As a result, the main category for systematization has been the different societies’ political perspective on government—press relations, and this has often resulted in confusion between ‘the actual working principles of a given media system; the theoretical ideals of the system; and the dominant ideology of the society (capitalist, socialist, revolutionary, developmental or whatever)’. However, the relationship with political systems is not enough to discover a modern theory of practical journalism and the press. The categorization of media systems in the digital age must also take account of economic criteria. In fact, the underlying dimension of descriptive press concepts is economic. In contrast, the underlying dimension of prescriptive journalism concepts concerning news and the way they operate is philosophical. Ralph Lowenstein (1971) was one of the first to add an economic criterion to the various classifications of journalism and the press. To the standard of government—press relations he added the category of press sponsorship. Lowenstein’s model distinguished between various levels of economic development and different types of media ownership. His argument for a constant transition of media philosophies depended on changes of ownership, media consumerism and technologies and also recognized the various stages of transition in the press in society. This transitional element was expanded by John Merrill. His ‘development triangle’ model emphasized the progression of normative concepts in a press system, flowing from one to the other. This model had the press moving from authoritarian to libertarian. Merrill further developed this theory in his ‘political-press-circle’ model, which presented a continuing evolution and transition of the press and the world societies. Robert Picard (1985) revised these various press concepts and believed that a major premise of Anglo-American libertarianism has been that press subservience to government ended with the transition from state market control to commercial market control. The end result was an increased freedom. But, he continues, ‘economic developments in the press during the twentieth century have made it clear that the press can become subservient to market forces which also restrict freedom’.

Picard’s revision included a democratic concept referring to western libertarian systems with a state ownership of broadcast media. Picard proposed three types of media systems: libertarian-tending, which may be either libertarian or socially responsible or democratic socialist; duo-directional, which may be developmental or revolutionary; and authoritarian-tending, which may be authoritarian or communist.

J. Herbert Altschull (1984) used the economies of the media as criteria for describing the world press systems. Economics was the basis for his world press model, and he expanded the idea of the economic dependence of the press in a capitalist society to a concept of universal economic restrictions on the press. He believed that press freedom is always restricted by the dependence of the media on capital. As Altschull believed, economics is a more inclusive and comprehensive criterion than that of social and political control, while still including the nature of government-press relations. He says that media in the communist societies were controlled through economic means as well as in the western media. In the former communist countries the press was politically restricted because it was economically dependent on the government, even when it was not the immediate publisher. Not only does the government in such countries allocate resources for the media, but it also takes their profits.

As early as 1969, Raymond Williams took a different classification view. In his model the classifications were authoritarian, paternal, commercial and democratic. All of these, he found, operated within the British press system. It is obvious in considering news and the process of the media that every model operates within various degrees of freedom and control. This is certainly the case in many non-western press models.

As well as these definitions and attempts at a coherent press theory to match various societies in which journalism operates throughout the world, there are also innumerable definitions of news, news values and news judgement. It is perhaps relevant to begin our travelling through the maze of journalism with the following BBC definition:

News is new and honestly and accurately reported information which is about current events of any kind anywhere in the world set against a background of other honestly and accurately reported information previously gathered as news; selected fairly but without artificial balancing and without political motive or editorial colouring by trained journalists; included in a bulletin because it is interesting, significant or relevant to the bulletin’s audience in the eyes of the journalists; and presented fearlessly and objectively but with respect for the law and the BBC’s own rules concerning taste and editorial standards. (The Task of Broadcasting News, 1975, p. 9)

The purpose of news then in a democracy is to satisfy the rights of people to know what is going on around them. And nothing more quickly destroys the credibility of a journalist than the deliberate manipulation of news to serve other ends than information. Journalists are often accused of depressing the nation by deliberately playing up the bad news. People and politicians say: Why can’t news give us good information rather than disasters all the time?

The answer is simple. Encouraging the nation will only work if everyone does it, which they won’t, and if people were more gullible than they are. One of the most depressing aspects of all the suggestions and manipulation theories is the low view that they take of the viewer’s and reader’s intelligence. Another is that it is not realized that the theories would have a more harmful effect on democracy than the ills they are intended to cure.

NEWS VALUES

Typical news coverage tends to overlook ordinary people. Gans (1980) points out that when the news media do treat the nation or society as a unit, they tend to treat it as a person. For example, the nation is said to be in mourning if a great statesman or Head of State dies. Gans also believes that the news value of conflict often leads to the media giving the impression of a society in conflict. Sometimes, of course, society is in conflict; sometimes it is merely an impression caused by taking a small snapshot of a particular event.

Traditional news values tend to focus on those with power in society as sources of news. Those who are at lower levels of social hierarchies often have to resort to disruption to be noticed by the news media. In deciding news, the sources are frequently chosen on the basis of availability. Eager sources eventually become regular ones, appearing in the news over and over again. Many journalists believe that news values are immediately recognized and intuitively sensed by the ‘real’ reporter. They don’t believe that it is possible to train someone to have proper news values; to spot the ‘news angle’. There is some truth in that. If there is no instinct there at all, it is unlikely the person will make a success of the journalist profession. What is news to one journalist or editor is not news to another. Thus news is subjective, yet true and fair for all that. The meaning of news not only involves the subjectivity of the reporters, editors and copy-tasters; it also involves in integral fashion such criteria as target readership, reader interests, likes and dislikes and cultural tradition. It also depends on what the editor considers important, since what is worth reporting to one editor may be of no interest to another. One simple definition of the practical aspect of news is: what the editor and reporters think is worth reporting to interest and inform the target audience.

News depends on other factors, such as geography and the unexpected. The closer an event is to the audience geographically, the more interesting and newsworthy it is. Proximity to the reader, or viewer, together with dramatic happenings, go together to form the newsworthy happening. The unexpected is also newsworthy; although the marriage of two people who have been engaged for 15 years is hardly unexpected, the newsworthy event could be that they waited so long. It is newsworthy because it has actually happened.

So news is first and foremost a happening event. Old happenings are history; something happening now is news. News can be either a surprise (unexpected) or expected. Unexpected news satisfies the audience love of the shock of surprise. Expected news satisfies curiosity about a happening of which they already either know or have some suspicion. Frequency can also destroy the element of surprise and therefore news value. However, what is frequent and well-known to a reporter or news editor may never have been heard of by the audience.

News is a fact that is new and happening. It is interesting to a large number of the target audience, and it has relevance or importance to a large readership.

News selection, though, is a group activity. No one person actually exercises inordinate control over the news, because all the way back along the news chain the checks and balances of those involved work very successfully. One of the most successful ways in which these checks and balances operate in relation to news selection and collection is by argument between reporters and news decision-makers within the newsroom. If a news editor leaves out something or restyles or rearranges something in a way the reporter does not like, then the reporter is usually forceful in the condemnation of the editorial action. The links in the news communication chain are complicated and rely on interactions between different members of the news staff. For example, one of the great checks of fairness in reporting is the daily creative argument that goes on constantly between editors and reporters. Out of this constant stream of argument comes a finished product that is in no sense the wishes of an individual. Each news event is very much a collective operation of the news or programme team, and that is perhaps the best safeguard of all against one-sidedness and dishonest reporting of events.

OBJECTIVITY AND IMPARTIALITY

The problem of impartiality has a language dimension. As language users, all journalists are constrained in ways most other speakers are not. The conventions of news writing, specifically the code of objectivity, prohibits journalists from expressing opinions or personal interpretations as part of their normal reporting. Unlike most speakers, objective journalists are expected to stick to the facts and report only material that is factual. However, the language is not simply objective. It can be understood on many levels, and the verbal description is closely linked with interpretation of the words used and their meaning. Journalists, in reporting on the world, therefore also inevitably interpret it (Bell, 1991).

Broadcast journalism is the equivalent of producing hourly newspapers as they are ready. Newspapers have time to check, to read proofs and to ponder before the finished, carefully designed product finally hits the streets. Broadcasters, on the other hand, because their news is live and so often broadcast as it happens, don’t have these benefits. As their news is broadcast, it is instantly received by the listener or viewer. Broadcasters never know exactly how their programmes will turn out until they’ve been broadcast, and by then it’s too late. Mistakes or injudicious words and phrases, which so often lead to charges of bias, are often by-products of news freedom and instantaneous reporting.

News is reported by people (who think subjectively) and is listened to by people (who listen subjectively). News is, therefore, subjectively selected and subjectively listened to. The training of the reporter or editor ensures that there is fairness, even-handedness and honesty in news collection and selection. Language and subjective selection means there can be no such idea as objectivity in news reporting, even though it is often held up as a goal. Objectivity is used by news organizations as a strategy for appealing to listeners and viewers. Objectivity is about maintaining a neutral perspective, detached from politician partisanship and ideology. Some scholars describe the notion of journalistic objectivity as ‘strategic ritual’.

Objectivity emphasizes what is good and fair, and has as a goal news reporting that is fair and impartial. Such an idea of news reporting that is fair and impartial (rather than objective) is crucial in a society that views journalistic independence as a cornerstone of democracy. This perhaps helps explain the difference in attitudes to independence in reporting and notions of objectivity between Western and Eastern democracies. For example, the ideas of independent impartial reporting practised in North America, Europe, Britain and Australia are very different from ideas prevalent and underpinning journalism in other developed countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and, of course, China.

What is necessary for journalists is not objectivity or even a lack of bias, but rather a perception on the part of the viewer or listener of lack of bias. In other words, impartiality. This even-handed approach to reporting can cause problems, particularly in market-driven media organizations, where advertising pays the bills. Non-public service broadcasting organizations and newspapers are economic institutions. Profit is maximized by maximizing audiences. Neutrality and an unbiased centrist approach targets the average listener and viewer. Mainstream commercial media have to maximize their audience by appealing to the largest number of viewers, listeners or readers. The danger is that news organizations can appeal to the largest number by taking the middle-of-the-road position in news coverage. For whatever reason, the end result is that objectivity and the deliberate detachment of a reporter’s personal and political beliefs from the stories covered and reported has become a traditional part of Western democratic journalism. Although absolute objectivity is impossible, the quest for factual accuracy, balance and fairness remains the goal of every professional reporter, whether in broadcasting or print. This is a core professional value. Philosophically, impartiality is an empirical method of collecting and presenting evidence (facts) without bias, truthfully and accurately. Tuchman (1978) argues that objectivity is a defensive mechanism for journalists to be efficient in their work and, ultimately, successful. She believes that every story presents dangers to journalists and news institutions as a whole. Stories must be written in an efficient manner by taking an impartial position, presenting correct information, and citing credible sources. This in turn helps meet deadlines.

Impartiality, even-handedness and fairness are possible, attainable and necessary. The stress is on impartiality. In the past, the concept of impartiality tended to mean balance within programmes. Broadcasters thought that to be impartial meant to be internally balanced within a controversial programme; however, there is nothing worse than an analysis programme in which all opposing opinions cancel each other out. Sometimes one has to use that method but, in general, it makes for greater liveliness and impact if the balance can be achieved over a period, perhaps within a series of related programmes.

The concept of impartiality is simple; it is all about fairness to all sides. However, even the doctrine of fairness in journalism does not imply some kind of godlike neutrality or detachment from those basic moral and constitutional judgements and beliefs on which our society is founded. No journalism organization dealing as it does with attempts to get to the truth of an event can be impartial between, for example, truth and untruth.

Reporters are always searching for the truth of the event. So news is based necessarily on moral codes such as truth, justice, freedom, compassion, racial tolerance and the law. To that extent, news is never impartial. Impartiality, fairness and balance sometimes have to be set aside because of the demonstrated law of the land or professional ethics. Impartiality can be objective; news selection can only be subjective.

Newspapers have a long tradition of partiality in reporting a particular party or owner’s line; broadcasting by tradition is very different. There are many who feel that (leaving aside the worst excesses of popular jingoism) the newspapers try to reflect accurately the mood of the people. Broadcasting is not able to do that; its role is to be the steadying influence, the medium that can really be trusted to tell as much of the truth as it can. People expect something altogether more perfect from their broadcasters. Newspapers are allowed considerable latitude, and are often considered as pure entertainment. Radio and television are allowed no quarter by either the politicians or the viewers. It is this which makes the work of the broadcast journalist so difficult.

There is no free media if, when the going gets tough, the principles of freedom are jeopardized. The purpose of news, at least in a democracy, is to satisfy the right of people to know what is going on around them. Nothing more quickly destroys the credibility of a news organization than a deliberate manipulation of news to serve other ends than information. It may seem harmless to instruct news editors to help cheer people up; it can be very dangerous indeed, for the only place where news bulletins offer a regular and exclusive diet of such news is in totalitarian countries where there is no news freedom. The difficulty with being a reporter at times of crisis is that people, particularly politicians, try to see journalism as a press agent for the government, and anyone who tries to step outside that view of journalism is immediately treated as a traitor.

Right from the initial stage in a news decision-making process the event is subject to individual interpretation, and that in itself means it is subject to a personal value judgement. News judgement is largely subjective, and the results are all too often in the mind of the beholder. Facts to one person are often lies to another. This is why it is so difficult to discuss and synthesize such concepts as news balance and impartiality; what is important is the preservation of accuracy. However, news values cannot be as subjective as all that, since there is often a great similarity between rival news bulletins. Professional judgement exercised by professionals seeks the same end: truth, fairness and honesty in reporting. The traditional editors of the past didn’t want thought; they wanted their readers and viewers to be thrilled by the latest dramatic news. Sensationalism is still the word used to condemn any undue emphasis on the drama of events at the expense of understanding. Journalists are also sometimes accused of being interested only in conflict on the principle that this is more dramatic than a hundred disputes peacefully settled; that grief provides better pictures; that political life and the political story is boring unless everyone is attacking everyone else. They are also condemned for looking for the picture and the soundbite rather than the issues.

It is easy to recognize the definitive information in the statement that ‘sixty people have been killed in an earthquake’, with accompanying pictures. For the reporter, it is not easy to establish on the ground what the figure may be. The more complicated and imprecise the situation to be reported, the greater are the difficulties of the journalist in finding out the facts and reporting them with sufficient accuracy, qualifications and explanation to make the report understandable and properly limited in its scope. Thus, a political report about the movement of opinion on a given subject within a parliamentary party will be inevitably speculative, but may still be worth making because it is reasonably accurate and will enable the reader or the viewer to make a sensible judgement about the event. Journalists have to make up their minds about what has been investigated thoroughly enough to be reported, and with what degree of qualification. Having reported the facts, there is then the problem of explanation, and speculation. Information can include explanation, but should exclude the interpretation or selection of material so as to point the listener or reader towards a particular opinion about the facts reported. However, all selection implies some interpretation.

TYPES OF NEWS

News can be divided into two basic types: hard and soft. Hard news is news that happens itself, and cries out to be reported. Soft news is not so hard and factual, but is rather news of a more manufactured kind: news that is not so active or exciting, but is nonetheless significant for all that. Soft news can also often be described as current affairs news, less factual, more analytical or speculative. Of course this can also itself on occasion make hard news, but it tends to be interviews on topical questions, newsy pieces and general magazine items or feature news. It is often the discussion that follows the hard factual news. For example, after a rail crash (the hard factual news) there will inevitably be follow-on stories in various programmes throughout the day in radio and television on issues connected with the rail crash, such as the need for a new signalling system or signalmen training, or the inexperience of rescue crews etc. The same applies to additional material as sidebars or features in the following newspaper editions, either the same or following days. It is as important as hard news, because it so often gives understanding to the bald facts of the hard news presentation.

The first editor of Hearst’s San Francisco Examiner had his own definition of news: News is anything that makes a reader say “gee whiz”. This definition is an interesting one, because it emphasizes the difference between the impact of a news event on the reporter and the event itself. It also shows the distinction between news gatherers, news makers and news processors. Reporters are news gatherers; those they interview are news makers; editors are processors. There must be this journalistic interaction for a news event to become news. News is only news when it is reported. Walter Gieber describes it this way:

News does not have an independent existence; news is a product of people who are members of a news-gathering (or news-originating) bureaucracy but until we understand better the social forces which bear on the reporting of news, we will never understand what news is (Gieber and Johnson, 1961).

HUMAN INTEREST

However news is defined, and the definition isn’t that important, there is one certain thing: people are interested in people. News must have human interest. People want to hear about other people because this is really hearing about themselves. Human interest is eternal to all news gathering. Human interest should be present in some degree in all news: news should at least be angled towards people, rather than hard cold facts. All news, all facts, should be aimed at people, by translating the facts of a news event whenever possible into human terms. Golding and Elliot (1979) see human interest not so much as an ingredient of all news, but rather as a news event in its own right. This of course can be true to an extent, since there is a type of news story usually referred to as human interest. They define this kind of story as ‘those quirky stories about children, animals, or simply the odd and bizarre’.

Reporters always have to be economical with their stories and their thinking. There is usually more than one angle. A factory closes, so there will be job losses. The factory’s been in the town for a hundred years, and closure means redundancies. Other stories about this could include a look at what the redundancies mean individually and personally to whole families losing their jobs after years of work in the factory. There could be comments from redundant workers; from older residents who remember the factory’s history and who possibly worked there when they were young; from local politicians on what it’s going to mean for the town’s school leavers about unemployment. The story angles multiply with a bit of creative journalistic thinking.

There is also a clear subdivision within the classification of what makes human interest in a news story. There is the lighter, quirkier, more humorous story, repeatedly used as a final item in a broadcast news bulletin, or on one of the lighter news pages. The Glasgow Media Group call this type of story the ‘joke human interest story’. The entertainment value of such stories is higher than their news value. These are important to try to lighten the look of the page or the sound of the bulletin.

NEWS SELECTION

Upbringing, interest, education and general knowledge: they all have a part to play in what journalists will see as newsworthy; in other words, how they value news events. There are some obvious news judgements: political importance, good or bad social effects, novelty, incongruity, humour, pathos, public interest. The ability to judge which of these factors are attached to a factual event, and to what degree, is what journalists mean by news sense or news values.

David Manning White (1950) first suggested that journalists act as gatekeepers of messages, and Warren Breed (1960) studied the socialization of journalists. News, and the content of news bulletins, is a study in its own right, often done by professional media sociologists and seldom by journalists themselves. Gans (1980) and Gitlin (1985) suggested the following categories of news content:

1 The ‘mirror’ approach which predicts that the mass media are mere channels for conveying the exact picture of reality to the listeners, viewers and readers. Anthony Smith referred to news as ‘the mirror of society’. News content reflects reality, mirrors reality and is a balancing act between those who give information to the media and those who select it.

2 The ‘routines’ approach, which holds that the way in which journalists do their jobs affects the nature of the news covered.

3 News collection that is ‘journalist-centred’. In other words, factors intrinsic to journalists affect the way news is gathered and reported. This approach states that the role of journalists in society leads them to project a false view of reality, with consensus as the norm and deviation as a minority phenomenon.

4 News collection that is ‘externally-affected’. In other words, journalists are affected in their collection of news by external factors such as economic forces, culture, and the audience. This ‘market’ approach locates influences on media content in the journalists’ desire to give audiences either what they need or what they want. This is the ‘mass manipulative’ approach, which predicts that media content is influenced by the powerful members of society.

Then there is J. Herbert Altschull’s basic assertion (1984) that the overriding determiner of media content is the ideology of those who finance it. Altschull outlines four basic relationships between the ideology of media financiers and news content. Different countries’ mass media systems will show these types of relationships to varying degrees at different levels of the system. In the official pattern, the content of the newspaper, magazine, or broadcasting outlet is determined by rules, regulations and decrees. Some news media may be themselves state enterprises, some may be directed through government regulations, and some may be controlled under a network of licensing arrangements. No nation is free of official controls; the variations come in the degree of autonomy that is permitted. In the commercial pattern, the content reflects the views of advertisers and their commercial allies, who are usually found among the owners and publishers. Even under planned economies, some commercial influences can be detected, although these are exerted only indirectly. In the interest pattern, the content of the medium echoes the concerns of the financing enterprise; a political party perhaps, or a religious organization. In the informal pattern, media content mirrors the goals of relatives, friends or acquaintances, who supply money directly or who exercise their influence to ensure that the tunes of the piper are heard.

Whatever the theory, news must fulfil certain criteria. Newsworthiness is often used by journalists to denote the important criteria that they use to judge whether a story should be covered, and whether it is news. These indicators include: conflict or controversy; prominence; novelty; oddity; the unusual; sensationalism; importance; impact or consequences; interest; timeliness; and proximity. Johan Galtung and Mari Holmboe Ruge (1965) produced their own hypothesis of news selection judgements in their study. They isolated a series of prerequisites that must be met before an event is selected as ‘news’:

1 Immediacy. The meaning of an event must be immediately obvious. A murder, for example, is an obvious piece of immediate news. On the other hand, economic, social or cultural trends take very much longer to unfold and to be meaningful. They need to be angled to something, such as the release of a report or statistics (the latest unemployment figures for example).

2 Size. The bigger the event, the more dramatic the event, the more likely it is to be reported. However, the closer to the audience the event is, the smaller it can be. Two people killed in a train accident in India is not important to a British audience, and would probably not be reported. Two people killed in a London train accident would be a big story in the UK.

3 Clarity. The more unambiguous the meaning of an event, the more obviously newsworthy and reportable the event will be.

4 Relationship to audience. Events that happen in the same cultural background as that of the readership will be considered extremely meaningful. Events in far-off cultures will be considered newsworthy in direct relation to how they react on the reporter’s or target audience culture. Countries and cities that have some cultural tie with the target audience will also be considered newsworthy. For example, Leicester in the UK, with a high Asian population is very interested in news from East Asia.

5 Unexpectedness. The more unexpected, unpredictable or rare an event is, the more newsworthy it will be seen to be. This will tend to be bad news, which means that reporters have a duty also to look for unexpected news that is perceived to be good.

6 Running story. If an event is covered once, for whatever reason (it might be a quiet news day with little happening, so a relatively minor event gets reported), it will continue to be covered until it is either forced out of the bulletin by a more important story or by more pressing minor news. The danger with running stories is that if a major story gets covered, it continues to be covered often long after its real intrinsic news value has ended. Habit tends to set in.

NEWS AND SOCIETY

News is also about society. Hartley (1982) says that, although news is supposed to be about new, unexpected things, it is quite easy to outline its main preoccupations. He groups them within six major topics:

1 Politics: can be defined as government (local and national) and the decision-making processes

2 The economy: the financial life of a country, its performance, figures and management; trade figures, imports, exports, employment, wages, inflation, prices, etc.

3 Foreign affairs: the relationship between governments; reports on war, military coups, earthquakes etc.

4 Domestic

5 Occasional: ‘one-off’, topical talking points

6 Sport: football in winter, cricket in summer; other local and foreign sport.

FURTHER READING

Crissell, A. (1994). Understanding Radio. Routledge.

Crook, T. (1998). International Radio Journalism. Routledge.

Gaines, W. (1994). Investigative Reporting for Print and Broadcast. Nelson-Hall.

Gage, L. (1999). A Guide to Commercial Radio Journalism. Focal Press.

Gans, H. (1980). Deciding what’s News. Vintage.

Hartley, J. (1982). Understanding News. Methuen.

McQuail, D. (1992). Media Performance. Sage.