ECREA16-Abstract

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Thursday, November 10

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JOS11

Ethics andNorms in Contemporary Journalism

PP 210

Changing Norms Concerning Verification – More Relative Perspective in Online Journalism?

G. Nygren

, A. Widholm

Sødertørn University, Dep of social sciences, Huddinge, Sweden

Verification has for long time been a basic norm in journalism. In US journalism, verification of facts has been crucial part in the norms of objectivity – not to

be in the middle but to be as close to truth as possible (Schudson 2003). In Elements of journalism, Kovac and Rosenstiehl state ”the essence of journalism

is a discipline of verification”. Nothing should be added to the story, you should trust the original reporting and not deceive the audience (2001). There has

always been a conflict between speed in reporting and the need for verification. But with deadline 7/24, this conflict has became much sharper. In online

journalism, research has shown the old norms norms to be questioned, they change in favor of a new paradigm in verification – to publish first and check

later (Nygren 2008, Philips 2012). As an alternative, an increased transparency in news work where news develops in front of the audience has become

a new norm in online journalism. Live reporting and“breaking news”has become the new currency to attract audience. News has changed from a product

to a process where also audience is invited to participate, according to some researchers (Karlsson 2010). In a survey 2012 to a representative sample of 500

Swedish journalists, five statements on verification was given. The analysis of the answers gives contradicting results: still nearly all journalists support

the norm of verification before being faster than the competitor. But about one third of the journalists show a more relative perspective on verification –

they say wrong facts are often published because of lack of time, they believe audience has lower demands on correctness in online news and that fact

checking can be made during the process in online news. There are also big differences between media – the group with a more relative perspective on

verification is larger in newspapers and smaller in public service radio and TV. Those journalists critical to lower quality in journalism, more often say that

incorrect facts are published. In this paper results from the survey are presented and analyzed and discussed as signs of a change in attitudes towards

verification. There will also be interviews with 6–8 web editors on leading Swedish online media commenting questions on verification and transparency

in online news. In the discussion the more post-modern and relative perspective on verification is analyzed as part of a larger trend where fact based news

reporting is given less attention in net based journalism, and opinions given more attention. References: Karlsson, M (2010) Nätnyheter. Från sluten produkt

till öppen process (Online news. From a closed product to an open process) Stockholm: SIMO Kovac, B and Rosenstiel, T (2001) The Elements of Journalism.

NewYork: Crown Publishers Nygren, G (2008)Yrke på glid (Profession on the squid) Stockholm: SIMO Philips, A (2012) Fastyer and Shallower. In Lee-Wrigth,

Philips andWitschge (ed) Chaning journalism. London: Routledge Schudson, M (2003) The Sociology of News. New York: WW Norton and Co.

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Redefining Quality Journalism in the 21

Century: A Changing Professional Ethos

F. Harbers

University of Groningen, Media Studies and Journalism, Groningen, Netherlands

Today, legacy news media are not just faced with decreasing revenues, their authority is challenged as well. What counts as quality journalism has become

less obvious in a journalistic environment in which the distinction between journalists, source and citizen has blurred and objectivity as a professional

standard is losing self-evidence. New and influential journalistic startups like Mediapart in France, De Correspondent in the Netherlands, and Krautreporter

in Germany argue that traditional journalism has squandered its fundamental role of keeping the public informed and speaking truth to power. They

reproach legacy news media for a lack of in-depth reporting, ultimately choosing profit over quality and present themselves as making a clean break

with this by reinventing journalism online in a way that restores its lost authority. To understand the diverse ways in which the conception of quality is

currently changing, this paper examines from a comparative perspective how the above-mentioned startups articulate their journalistic ethos, defined as

the self-image embodying their quality standards (cf. Korthals-Altes, 2014). Instead of assuming the coherent alignment of what journalists say they do

and what they actually do (Ryfe, 2006), this paper problematizes the way the strategic claims about journalism relate to everyday practices and forms. It

unpacks the discourse of quality journalism by 1) comparing the viewpoints on journalism they voice in public to the textual characteristics of the articles

they produce, by 2) analyzing the way they construct their ethos within the context of the competition with other outlets in the journalistic field (Bourdieu,

2005), and by 3) acknowledging the cultural diversity in the efforts to reinvent journalism’s quality standards. To do so, this paper provides a two-tiered

analysis of the discourse of quality the startups articulate. Firstly, it researches the way these startups voice their professional ethos in relation to the way

they typify the journalism practice of their competitors in mission statements, public debates and interviews. Subsequently, the ethos of the three orga‑

nizations is also examined through an in-depth textual analysis of their journalistic output i.e. the articles they produce. This textual analysis will examine

the rhetorical strategies and narrative characteristics that articulate the ethos of the reporter. For every platform I will examine 50 articles they produce in

the period of one month in 2016. This textured approach to journalism’s changing quality standards will not only elucidate the diverse ways the respective

startups conceptualize journalism, but it also sheds light on the tensions between the way these outlets positions themselves publicly and their everyday

practice, helping us to better understand the way journalism’s discourse of quality is evolving in the 21

century. - Bourdieu, Pierre. 2005.“The Political Field,

the Social Science Field, and the Journalistic Field.” In: Bourdieu and the Journalistic Field, edited by Rodney Benson and Erik Neveu, 29–47. Cambridge:

Polity Press - Ryfe, David Michael. 2006.“The Nature of News Rules.”Political Communication 23 (2): 203–214.   - Korthals-Altes, Liesbeth. 2014. Ethos and

Narrative Interpretation. The Negotiation of Values in Fiction. Lincoln: Nebraska University Press.