Literature Review: Journalism
The journalism produced by the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service (NNS) intentionally honors traditional norms but also incorporates new forms of technology. A number of scholars have explored journalism and its basic principles? Schudson (2003) provides an excellent place to start: Journalism is the business or practice of producing and disseminating information about contemporary affairs of general public interest or importance. It is the business of a set of institutions that publicizes periodically (usually daily) information and commentary on contemporary affairs, normally presented as true and sincere, to a dispersed and anonymous audience so as to publicly include the audience in a discourse taken to be publicly important (p. 11).
NNS clearly aims to provide a public service to those living and working in the neighborhoods it targets, a notion central to the idea of journalism and the people – journalists, whether reporters or editors – who practice it. McCleneghan (2005) wrote that “journalists are still the people entrusted with the honor of informing the public” (p. 6). Goode (2009) argued that though “journalism is in no small measure a craft of re-telling stories rather than simply disclosing them,” it really is about “uncovering and bringing to light events, issues and ideas that would otherwise remain hidden from public view” (p. 1290). Pavlik (2004) wrote that “a journalist maintains a fine balance between telling the public what it needs to know, even when the truth may cause hurt or pain, and being responsible and ethical in reporting and respecting privacy” (p. 27). Deuze (2005) identifies journalism as having four traits (beyond its stated commitment to public service): objectivity, autonomy, immediacy and ethics, all of which NNS embraces. He also declared that “one of the most fundamental truths in journalism” is that its practitioners determine what we see, hear and read about the world (p. 451).
An important part of the journalism literature focuses upon the decisions journalists make about what to cover and how. Indeed, the notion of deciding what’s news about any given event, issue or idea has long been filtered by newsroom gatekeepers, that is, reporters and editors who choose which stories to cover and how to cover them (Goode, 2009, p. 1290; Lipinski, Neddenriep, 2004; Nip, 2006). Reader (2007) wrote that what is news is largely informed by journalists’ own values and rituals, something that many working for NNS are learning and experiencing in significant ways. Hourly, daily and or weekly deadlines mean they need constant, reliable and easily digestible information – and it most often and all too willingly comes from omnipresent and not always unbiased “sources”: elected officials and authorized representatives of government agencies, courts and law enforcement, colleges and universities, public relations departments and companies, even foreign countries (Schudson, 2003, pp. 134-136; Lipinski, Neddenriep, 2004, p. 11; Lipschultz, Hilt, 1999; Pauly, 2009). Most other people “have little chance of becoming news sources” (Nip, 2006, p. 216).
Given this literature on how journalists decide what to cover, it is valuable to consider how NNS trains its reporters to do its work. Pauly (2009) writes that reporters describe themselves as “eyewitnesses to history” or “observers on the sidelines” (p. 8), and believe that talking to people allows them to “discover the truth and get to the real story” (p. 20). Unfortunately, however, too little of journalism is “enterprise,” in which reporters actually get information “that did not come to them on a platter” (Schudson, 2003, p. 137). Scott (2005) wrote that “journalism has much more in common today with the elites it supposedly regulates than with the public on whose behalf it supposedly speaks” (p. 91). He allowed, however, that “good journalism still manages to appear thanks to conscientious reporters and editors” (p. 122).
Breaking news: Journalism often accentuates the negative. That can be a challenge for a news organization such as NNS that is devoted to building community. “There is a tendency for news to be bad news” (Schudson, 2003, p. 49) and “one of the things we can say about journalism ... is that its thirst for conflict is unquenchable” (Pauly, 2009, p. 7). Beyond that, “news tends to be detached,” focusing on “strategy and tactics, political technique rather than policy outcome, the mechanical rather than the ideological” (Schudson, 2003, p. 51). When both sides of an issue cry foul, journalists feel “they must be doing something right” (Pauly, 2009, p. 13). (NNS insists that it aims for objective, professional reporting about outcomes and opportunities more so than conflict or intrigue. Whether having more staff and resources would lead it to tell more uncomfortable truths concerning its communities is an interesting question.)
All of this negativity may not be accidental. Researchers have often found that journalists know very little about their audiences, and in crafting the news place more emphasis on the interests of fellow journalists than of those they claim to serve (Reader, 2007, p. 652). When it comes to covering communities targeted by NNS, the problems of interpreting community may be even more challenging in diverse communities that are less understood by white reporters. Certainly, not enough has changed since Rivenburgh (2000) noted that “journalists are ‘disproportionally white, male, middle-class and middle-aged” (p. 306). We turn again to Schudson, who writes: An African-American reporter is more likely than a white reporter, other things being equal, to find issues in the African-American community newsworthy. ... But the person who writes the story matters. When minorities and women and people who have known poverty or misfortune firsthand are both authors of news and its readers, the social world represented in the news expands and changes (2003, p. 47).
The reasons newsroom diversity is so hard to achieve are plentiful. The American Society of News Editors (ASNE), the organization that institutionalized professional journalism standards, began dealing with its predominate whiteness and maleness in the 1950s, and later focused greatly on promoting newsroom diversity in the 1970s (Mellinger, 2013). Since then, competitive and corporate interests have homogenized the news rather than diversify it (Lipschultz, Hilt, 1999, p. 238), and the latest ASNE annual diversity census (2013) revealed “a lack of growth in the proportion of minorities in the newsroom” amid a “continued trend” of a loss of overall jobs.
Nonetheless, Deuze (2005) contended that both multiculturalism and multimedia could challenge long-held views in the profession. These days, the multimedia journalist must be able to create, edit and update story packages (p. 451), and doing so in an increasingly multicultural environment is even more essential than in the days of traditional print and broadcast mass media (p. 455). Finally, Deuze wrote: “The literature addressing multiculturalism calls for more community-based reporting, signals the need for journalists to become much more aware of entrenched inequalities in society, and expects media professionals to become active agents in reversing these” (pp. 456-457).
These are issues that NNS has had to address in hiring staff, particularly as it does so from among those who live in the communities it serves. In doing so, it confirms Geneva Overholser, former editor of The Des Moines Register, who wrote that “no amount of planning, no level of market research, can make up for 10 years of living in a town – not to mention growing up there ...” (1999, p. 64). My own experience, having worked at several regional newspapers, confirms Pauly and Eckert (2002) in that many journalists hail from elsewhere and – while they may in some ways adopt the communities in which they work and live – think of such employment as “one rung on a national career ladder” (p. 319). NNS, though, began its operation two years ago by betting on the notion that distinct local roots would lead to better local coverage.
NNS clearly aims to provide a public service to those living and working in the neighborhoods it targets, a notion central to the idea of journalism and the people – journalists, whether reporters or editors – who practice it. McCleneghan (2005) wrote that “journalists are still the people entrusted with the honor of informing the public” (p. 6). Goode (2009) argued that though “journalism is in no small measure a craft of re-telling stories rather than simply disclosing them,” it really is about “uncovering and bringing to light events, issues and ideas that would otherwise remain hidden from public view” (p. 1290). Pavlik (2004) wrote that “a journalist maintains a fine balance between telling the public what it needs to know, even when the truth may cause hurt or pain, and being responsible and ethical in reporting and respecting privacy” (p. 27). Deuze (2005) identifies journalism as having four traits (beyond its stated commitment to public service): objectivity, autonomy, immediacy and ethics, all of which NNS embraces. He also declared that “one of the most fundamental truths in journalism” is that its practitioners determine what we see, hear and read about the world (p. 451).
An important part of the journalism literature focuses upon the decisions journalists make about what to cover and how. Indeed, the notion of deciding what’s news about any given event, issue or idea has long been filtered by newsroom gatekeepers, that is, reporters and editors who choose which stories to cover and how to cover them (Goode, 2009, p. 1290; Lipinski, Neddenriep, 2004; Nip, 2006). Reader (2007) wrote that what is news is largely informed by journalists’ own values and rituals, something that many working for NNS are learning and experiencing in significant ways. Hourly, daily and or weekly deadlines mean they need constant, reliable and easily digestible information – and it most often and all too willingly comes from omnipresent and not always unbiased “sources”: elected officials and authorized representatives of government agencies, courts and law enforcement, colleges and universities, public relations departments and companies, even foreign countries (Schudson, 2003, pp. 134-136; Lipinski, Neddenriep, 2004, p. 11; Lipschultz, Hilt, 1999; Pauly, 2009). Most other people “have little chance of becoming news sources” (Nip, 2006, p. 216).
Given this literature on how journalists decide what to cover, it is valuable to consider how NNS trains its reporters to do its work. Pauly (2009) writes that reporters describe themselves as “eyewitnesses to history” or “observers on the sidelines” (p. 8), and believe that talking to people allows them to “discover the truth and get to the real story” (p. 20). Unfortunately, however, too little of journalism is “enterprise,” in which reporters actually get information “that did not come to them on a platter” (Schudson, 2003, p. 137). Scott (2005) wrote that “journalism has much more in common today with the elites it supposedly regulates than with the public on whose behalf it supposedly speaks” (p. 91). He allowed, however, that “good journalism still manages to appear thanks to conscientious reporters and editors” (p. 122).
Breaking news: Journalism often accentuates the negative. That can be a challenge for a news organization such as NNS that is devoted to building community. “There is a tendency for news to be bad news” (Schudson, 2003, p. 49) and “one of the things we can say about journalism ... is that its thirst for conflict is unquenchable” (Pauly, 2009, p. 7). Beyond that, “news tends to be detached,” focusing on “strategy and tactics, political technique rather than policy outcome, the mechanical rather than the ideological” (Schudson, 2003, p. 51). When both sides of an issue cry foul, journalists feel “they must be doing something right” (Pauly, 2009, p. 13). (NNS insists that it aims for objective, professional reporting about outcomes and opportunities more so than conflict or intrigue. Whether having more staff and resources would lead it to tell more uncomfortable truths concerning its communities is an interesting question.)
All of this negativity may not be accidental. Researchers have often found that journalists know very little about their audiences, and in crafting the news place more emphasis on the interests of fellow journalists than of those they claim to serve (Reader, 2007, p. 652). When it comes to covering communities targeted by NNS, the problems of interpreting community may be even more challenging in diverse communities that are less understood by white reporters. Certainly, not enough has changed since Rivenburgh (2000) noted that “journalists are ‘disproportionally white, male, middle-class and middle-aged” (p. 306). We turn again to Schudson, who writes: An African-American reporter is more likely than a white reporter, other things being equal, to find issues in the African-American community newsworthy. ... But the person who writes the story matters. When minorities and women and people who have known poverty or misfortune firsthand are both authors of news and its readers, the social world represented in the news expands and changes (2003, p. 47).
The reasons newsroom diversity is so hard to achieve are plentiful. The American Society of News Editors (ASNE), the organization that institutionalized professional journalism standards, began dealing with its predominate whiteness and maleness in the 1950s, and later focused greatly on promoting newsroom diversity in the 1970s (Mellinger, 2013). Since then, competitive and corporate interests have homogenized the news rather than diversify it (Lipschultz, Hilt, 1999, p. 238), and the latest ASNE annual diversity census (2013) revealed “a lack of growth in the proportion of minorities in the newsroom” amid a “continued trend” of a loss of overall jobs.
Nonetheless, Deuze (2005) contended that both multiculturalism and multimedia could challenge long-held views in the profession. These days, the multimedia journalist must be able to create, edit and update story packages (p. 451), and doing so in an increasingly multicultural environment is even more essential than in the days of traditional print and broadcast mass media (p. 455). Finally, Deuze wrote: “The literature addressing multiculturalism calls for more community-based reporting, signals the need for journalists to become much more aware of entrenched inequalities in society, and expects media professionals to become active agents in reversing these” (pp. 456-457).
These are issues that NNS has had to address in hiring staff, particularly as it does so from among those who live in the communities it serves. In doing so, it confirms Geneva Overholser, former editor of The Des Moines Register, who wrote that “no amount of planning, no level of market research, can make up for 10 years of living in a town – not to mention growing up there ...” (1999, p. 64). My own experience, having worked at several regional newspapers, confirms Pauly and Eckert (2002) in that many journalists hail from elsewhere and – while they may in some ways adopt the communities in which they work and live – think of such employment as “one rung on a national career ladder” (p. 319). NNS, though, began its operation two years ago by betting on the notion that distinct local roots would lead to better local coverage.
