The Passive Journalist: How sources dominate the local news

This study explores which sources are “making” local news and whether these sources are simply indicating the type of news that appears, or are shaping newspaper coverage. It provides an empirical record of the extent to which sources are able to dominate news coverage from which future trends in local journalism can be measured. The type and number of sources used in 2979 sampled news stories in four West Yorkshire papers, representing the three main proprietors of local newspapers in the United Kingdom, were recorded for one month and revealed the relatively narrow range of routine sources; 76 per cent of articles cited only a single source. The analysis indicates that journalists are relying less on their readers for news, and that stories of little consequence are being elevated to significant positions, or are filling news pages at the expense of more important stories. Additionally, the reliance on a single source means that alternative views and perspectives relevant to the readership are being overlooked. Journalists are becoming more passive, mere processors of one-sided information or bland copy dictated by sources. These trends indicate poor journalistic standards and may be exacerbating declining local newspaper sales

The changing role of the local news media in enabling citizens to engage in local democracies

Using Leeds City Council in the United Kingdom as a case study, we analyse comparatively the changing role of local journalism in the public communications and engagement strategies of local government. Drawing on over 20 semi-structured interviews with elected politicians, Council strategists, mainstream journalists, and citizen journalists, the article explores perceptions of the mainstream news media's role versus new modes of communication in engaging and communicating with citizens. We evaluate the Council's perceptions of its online and offline practices of engagement with different publics, and focus in particular on their interactions with journalists, the news media, and citizen journalists. The article considers how moves towards digital modes of engagement are changing perceptions of the professional role orientations of journalists in mediating between the Council and the general public

Digital Journalism Studies The Key Concepts

Digital Journalism Studies: The Key Concepts provides an authoritative, research-based "first stop-must read" guide to the study of digital journalism. This cutting-edge text offers a particular focus on developments in digital media technologies and their implications for all aspects of the working practices of journalists and the academic field of journalism studies, as well as the structures, funding and products of the journalism industrie

Live blogs, sources, and objectivity: The contradictions of real-time online reporting

Live blogs, also known as live pages or streams, allow journalists to report on events, including breaking news stories, as they happen. Their prevalence and popularity make them an important format, through which many of the developments in contemporary journalism can be observed and analysed. Using the Egyptian revolution of 2011 as a case study, we carried out a large-scale content analysis across six national UK news publishers, to analyse the differences and similarities between live blogs (n=75), traditional online news articles (n=842), and print articles (n=148). The findings reveal significant differences, for example the extent to which live blogs quote their sources directly and, also, rely on previously-published media reports as a source. The findings demonstrate how, with the expansion of real-time online reporting, journalism may be becoming more transparent yet also more reflexive; prompting, perhaps, reassessments and even redefinitions of media plurality and journalistic objectivity

Introducing the Complexities of Developments in Digital Journalism Studies

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book shows that when journalism comes to resolving the conflicts that emerge between people, including journalists, the unbounded spaces of the internet pose particular challenges. It also shows from a political economy perspective how, higher up among fields of power in society, ownership, regulatory frameworks, policy, and politics further pose risks to a more optimistic future for digital journalism being realized. The book discusses how within legal protections for the public - for those who would rather be ‘forgotten’, for various reasons - institutions have been able to regulate privacy from digital search, even as the long-term implications of such protections for journalism’s informative roles remain unclear. It looks at how this has taken shape across 20 years of multiplatform reading - comparing newspaper and online readership figures alongside one another - to put newspapers’ struggles into perspective.</p

The re-birth of the "beat": A hyperlocal online newsgathering model

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Journalism Practice, 6(5-6), 754 - 765, 2012, copyright Taylor & Francis, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/17512786.2012.667279.Scholars have long lamented the death of the 'beat' in news journalism. Today's journalists generate more copy than they used to, a deluge of PR releases often keeping them in the office, and away from their communities. Consolidation in industry has dislodged some journalists from their local sources. Yet hyperlocal online activity is thriving if journalists have the time and inclination to engage with it. This paper proposes an exploratory, normative schema intended to help local journalists systematically map and monitor their own hyperlocal online communities and contacts, with the aim of re-establishing local news beats online as networks. This model is, in part, technologically-independent. It encompasses proactive and reactive news-gathering and forward planning approaches. A schema is proposed, developed upon suggested news-gathering frameworks from the literature. These experiences were distilled into an iterative, replicable schema for local journalism. This model was then used to map out two real-world 'beats' for local news-gathering. Journalists working within these local beats were invited to trial the models created. It is hoped that this research will empower journalists by improving their information auditing, and could help re-define journalists' relationship with their online audiences

The longitudinal associations between ambient air pollution exposure and dementia in the UK: results from the cognitive function and ageing study II and Wales

Background: Air pollution has been recognised as a potential risk factor for dementia. Yet recent epidemiological research shows mixed evidence. The aim of this study is to investigate the longitudinal associations between ambient air pollution exposure and dementia in older people across five urban and rural areas in the UK. Methods: This study was based on two population-based cohort studies of 11329 people aged ≥ 65 in the Cognitive Function and Ageing Study II (2008–2011) and Wales (2011–2013). An algorithmic diagnosis method was used to identify dementia cases. Annual concentrations of four air pollutants (NO2, O3, PM10, PM2.5) were modelled for the year 2012 and linked via the participants’ postcodes. Multistate modelling was used to examine the effects of exposure to air pollutants on incident dementia incorporating death and adjusting for sociodemographic factors and area deprivation. A random-effect meta-analysis was carried out to summarise results from the current and nine existing cohort studies. Results: Higher exposure levels of NO2 (HR: 1.04; 95% CI: 0.94, 1.14), O3 (HR: 0.90; 95% CI: 0.70, 1.15), PM10 (HR: 1.17; 95% CI: 0.86, 1.58), PM2.5 (HR: 1.41; 95% CI: 0.71, 2.79) were not strongly associated with dementia in the two UK-based cohorts. Inconsistent directions and strengths of the associations were observed across the two cohorts, five areas, and nine existing studies. Conclusions: In contrast to the literature, this study did not find clear associations between air pollution and dementia. Future research needs to investigate how methodological and contextual factors can affect evidence in this field and clarity the influence of air pollution exposure on cognitive health over the lifecourse

Television news and the symbolic criminalisation of young people

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Journalism Studies, 9(1), 75 - 90, 2008, copyright Taylor & Francis, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/14616700701768105.This essay combines quantitative and qualitative analysis of six UK television news programmes. It seeks to analyse the representation of young people within broadcast news provision at a time when media representations, political discourse and policy making generally appear to be invoking young people as something of a folk devil or a locus for moral panics. The quantitative analysis examines the frequency with which young people appear as main actors across a range of different subjects and analyses the role of young people as news sources. It finds a strong correlation between young people and violent crime. A qualitative analysis of four “special reports” or backgrounders on channel Five's Five News explores the representation of young people in more detail, paying attention to contradictions and tensions in the reports, the role of statistics in crime reporting, the role of victims of crime and the tensions between conflicting news frames.Arts and Humanities Research Counci

Proximity as a Journalistic Keyword in the Digital Era : A study on the “closeness” of amateur news images

Proximity is an ambiguous journalistic notion for which there is no single definition. In this article, we re-evaluate the relevance and use of the concept in the digital news environment. Based on interviews with journalists in Finland and audience focus groups in Finland and the United Kingdom, we ask how new forms of visual amateur production incorporated into professional news journalism have transformed the concept. The concept of proximity has evolved from being a criterion of news selection into a central imperative of news production aiming to engage audiences. Through the prism of amateur news imagery, proximity appears as a spatio-temporal, emotional and strategic keyword.Peer reviewe

The Lobby in transition: what the 2009 MPs’ expenses scandal revealed about the changing relationship between politicians and the Westminster Lobby?

The 2009 MPs' expenses scandal was one of the most significant political stories of modern times. It raised questions, not just about the ethics and behaviour of MPs but also about the relationship between politicians at Westminster and the political correspondents who follow them on a daily basis, known as ‘the lobby’. For the significance of this scandal, in media terms, was that the story was not broken by members of the lobby but came from outside the traditional Westminster news gathering process. This paper examines why this was the case and it compares the lobby today with that which was described and analysed by Jeremy Tunstall and Colin Seymour-Ure in their respective studies more than 40 years ago. The article concludes that the lobby missed the story partly because of the nature of the lobby itself and partly as a result of a number of specific changes which have taken place in the media and the political systems over the past 40 years