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This paper was presented during a panel at the 10thInternationalPragmatics Conference in Gothenburg, Sweden (Jul !00"#

Working paper. Do not cite. Comments are welcome.

FRAMING THE NEWS: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC VIEW OF FINANCIAL NEWSWRITING

Tom Van Hout & Felicitas Macgilchrist

ABSTRACTThis paper tracks the newsmaking process from the initial entry of a story into thenewsroom (in the form of a press release) through the meso-level process of editorialdecision-making (in the form of story meetings) and the micro-level process of re-writing tothe ''final'' output articulated for the consumers of financial news. Whereas previousstudies of ournalism have tended to focus on either news te!ts or news processes (cf."eli#er $%%&) this paper analyses oth the te!tual and process aspects of news-writing.

These discursive practices are investigated y adopting a research methodology whichcomines frame analysis (amson * +odigliani ,) participant oservation (Cottle,) and writing process analysis (/errin $%%0). 1naly#ing the frames in the source te!twe e!amine to what e!tent ournalists draw on the frames to pitch their story to the copydesk chief while keystroke logging data and retrospective interviews allow us toreconstruct and interpret the writing process in detail. 2n a final analytical move thepulished news story frames are compared to the original te!t. The case study we presenthere is drawn from ethnographic research on newsroom practices at a 3lemish 4ualitynewspaper and suggests how an understanding of ournalistic practices aids the analysisof news production.

1uthor contact details5

Tom 6an 7outhent 8niversitytom.vanhout9ugent.e

3elicitas +acgilchrist:uropean-8niversity 6iadrina 3rankfurt;

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1. Introduction

This paper focuses on the discursive practices of a usiness reporter as he discovers negotiateswrites and reflects on a news story. We thus =follow the story> (?oyer * 7anner# $%%05 ,@) fromthe story entry in the newsroom through the review process during a story meeting and the writingprocess itself. 2ntroducing an innovative method comining frame analysis newsroomethnography and computer-assisted writing process analysis our data shed light on thediscursive transformations that lie at the heart of the news production process.

Aews production is seen here as a form of reproductive writing (Bakos $%%@) involvingthe transformation of multiple news discourses (press agency copy press releases interviewnotes other news media) into a single narrative framed as an authoritative account of a newsevent. This view highlights the interte!tuality of news sources and news te!ts. 2nterte!tuality isused here first and foremost to refer to the ways in which information is linked to sources. Case inpoint is the genre of press releases. These te!ts are typically =prefaricated in an appropriatenews style> (?ell ,,5 ) to facilitate reproduction in and y the media. These preformulationE

features are discussed at length in Bacos (,) and include the use of newspaper-likeheadlines narrative structure and a numer of metapragmatic features most prominently thirdperson self-reference (=B./. +organ announced today> instead of =we>) and pseudo-4uotations(=3ortis ?ank C:< Bohn Fheffield noted that the merger signifies a maor step forwardEG>). 2naddition to having a te!tual dimension interte!tuality can also e seen as =a strategicallydeployed HsocialI practice through which producers HGI construct meanings frame activities andpursue outcomesJ (/eterson $%%,5 $@). 6iewed as such news production ecomes a process ofente!tuali#ation (?auman * ?riggs ,%K ?riggs * ?auman ,$K Filverstein * 8ran ,0) i.e.the e!traction (deconte!tuali#ation) of source material and its suse4uent insertion(reconte!tuali#ation) into news discourse. 2n attempt to illustrate this process of ente!tuali#ationwe present a case study documenting how a senior usiness reporter discovers a storyintroduces it into the newsroom writes a news story and reflects on it.

2. Mt!od

We propose a comination of frame analysis newsroom ethnography and computer-assistedwriting process analysis. 3rames are understood as those principles of selection emphasis anpresentation composed of little tacit theories aout what e!ists what happens and what mattersE(itlin ,%5 0).iComparing the frames in the source te!ts and the final pulished news storyenales us to investigate which sources have the authority to produce versions of knowledgewhich frameE pulic understandings of events. 8sing participant oservation (Cottle ,) andinterview data we conte!tuali#e how ournalists write news stories (see Fleurs * Bacos $%% fora pilot study on writing press releases) within the institutional conte!t of a newsroom. Theseethnographic data are complemented y online writing process data in the tradition of cognitivepsychology (+ac1rthur raham * 3it#gerald $%%0). To this end two software applications wereused5 2nputlog and Camtasia Ftudio. 2nputlog iiis a +icrosoft Windows ased logging tool which

records keyoard strokes and mouse movements and generates datafiles for statistical te!tpause and mode analyses (Leiten * 6an Waes $%%0). Camtasia Ftudioiii is an online screenregistration tool which we used to make screenvideos of the oserved writing processes. Thesefiles enaled easy and immediate playack of the recorded writing process data duringretrospective interviews. ?oth applications were used to record reconstruct and analy#e writingprocesses.

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2

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Participants:

GRI reporter

ONL reporter TRE reporter

AMT reporter

HOM reporter

LRN desk chief

HO reporter

TRA cop! editor

"there#s a$so er%& '()*+1,*(-*eco*1.#12&/

244. TRE: Pieter- xxx Pieter on his cartoons xxx

245. AMT: theres also erm-246. (laughter)

24. !"M: #osh$ are %o& alrea'% 'oin# that no

24*. +R,: %eah$ thats incre'ile that xxx thats #oin# to

ecome a xxx or somethin#

24/. AMT: the si#nin# o0 the ne mana#ement

a#reement eteen the 1lemish #oernment an' erm

the 3 , an' ,ME the%re #ettin# 27 more mone%

25. +R,: hat to

months

258. TRE: Three

252. +R,: three months an' hes alrea'% 9&ttin# him in 0ront

o0 the t

25;. "

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the 3 , an' ,ME the%re #ettin# 27 more mone%

This doule-edged pitch offers a first glimpse at how 1+T (re)ente!tuali#es the 62? story5 shiftinginto a more formal nominal register typical of story summaries 1+T echoes the opening line ofthe 62? press release5 =Today 3lemish +inister for Fcience and 2nnovation 3iente +oerman hasHsicI signed the new management agreements ($%%M O $%,,) for 62? and 2+:C.> 1pparently

1+T employs preformulation socially to promote the 62? story to LNA. The notion ofpreformulation (Bacos ,) was hitherto conceived of as primarily a te!tual property of pressreleases. This e!cerpt however illustrates how it can also e used in social interaction5 to pitch anews story to the desk chief. Ae!t 1+T drives his story promotion home y referring to the scaleof the financial event involvedK a $%P udget increase is a significant O and hence newsworthy Oevent. 1gain this resonates the language of the press release5 =The udget of operation of othinstitutes increases with $%P>. 2t should e noted that 1+T does not attriute the source normention the actor involved namely the 3lemish minister of Fcience 3iente +oerman. ?y doingthis 1+T claims authorship of the story.

1 very rief negotiation etween 1+T and LNA ensues (lines $00-) in which 1+T asksif this story should e run. The passive voice construction in line $00 functions as a sort ofauthorship hedge illustrating the supply and demand mechanism of story meetings.

266. AMT: sho&l' attention e 9ai' to this

26. =R) and not in asolute terms (=&%% million euro>) thus

emphasi#ing the ratio of the increase and not the amount of money involved.1t this point the copy editor whoEs sitting at the other end of the conference taleoverhears the discussion and asks 1+T for clarification as she writes in a noteook. 1+Treiterates the appeal to newsworthiness (line $M%)5

26/. TRA: hats that AMT$ the 1lemish #oernment an'

2. AMT: i an' ,mec are #ettin# more mone%

28. !"M: 0rom 1ient>e

22. AMT: 0rom 1ient>e

This triggers 7

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not asolute terms) and the suggestion of ournalistic presence =ased on having een thereE sothat H1+TI can report itE> (/eterson $%%@5 MM). Crucially the employment of these heuristics andepistemologies should e seen in the conte!t of a social field in which reputations power andprofessional statuses are at stake.

Writing process

2n 1+TEs newspaper article all interte!tual links to news sources are rendered implicit. This is acommon practice in news ournalismK y concealing news sources O referencing at est to thesource te!t in the form of a trope like =according to a statement issued y the company> O as wellas their own actions for otaining the information reported on reporters assume authorship andthus estalish ournalistic authority. -ME%%>) two te!t construction phases (ME%%>-,0E%,> and ,ME%$>- $&E%@>)and a revision phase. The preparatory phase consists of mouse movements (scrolling throughemails and opening attachments) while the te!t construction phases show a high numer ofkeyoard movements (te!t insertion and deletion) as well as mouse movements (cursormovement switching and resi#ing computer windows looking for online information). During therevision phase 1+T revises and edits his te!t switching ack and forth etween the previewpane and the editing window. 1 screenshot is given y way of illustration (3igure @).

,

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1s regards 1+TEs sourcing practices the process data show that 1+T draws on twosources5 the press release issued y the +inister of Fcience and the powerpoint slides usedduring the press conference. The former 1+T prints out and places on his desk the latter heopens in a te!t editing window. 1 screenshot taken from the video data illustrates this setup(3igure &). 1+TEs use of sources largely overlaps with the two main te!t construction phases5information from the press release was used to write the headline lead and ackgroundinformation aout the research institutes during the first te!t construction phase while thepowerpoint slides were used to write the concluding paragraphs on government demands andagreement types during the second te!t construction phase (a translation of the news article cane found in the 1ppendi!).

Crucially this illustrates how and where preformulation worksE5 apparently preformulatedte!ts allow ournalists to write 4uickly and thus save time. The fact that 1+T largely retellspreformulated information partially accounts for 1+TEs highly routini#ed and linear writing process(cf. infra). 2n addition we would also like to underline 1+TEs use of the presentation slides.2ndeed much like the press release 1+T draws on these slides to write aout the re4uirement ofa new corporate governance policy and performance indicators. ?y doing so 1+T assumes

authorship of the information drawn from oth sources and thus falsely taking credit for havingeen at the press conference. During the retrospective interview 1+T commented that overtsource attriutions such as according to an official statementE are =rather useless> and that hemakes a point of not mentioning them. 7owever in his news article 1+T refers to the =newmanagement agreements which were signed yesterday y the +inister of Fcience and 2nnovation3iente +oermanG>. Commenting on why he refers e!plicitly to this pseudo-event 1+T said=well there was a press conference so it would e weird not to write that>. This statement notonly provides evidence for a conscious decision on 1+TEs part ut it also provides support for/etersonEs claim that ournalistic authority is ased on having een thereE. 1+TEs ournalisticauthority is uilt on his concealment of the two preformulated news sources - which happened tofall on his lap O without his having to attend the press conference.

2f we then look at some descriptive statistics of the writing process (Tale ,) there is astrikingly small difference etween process and product data5 differentials of $M& characters and

&@ words are low when compared to similar writing from (multiple) sources tasks (

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Figure %. Screenshot of previe! pane

Figure . Screenshot sho!ing "ac'groun(e( presentation sli(e an( te)t e(iting !in(o!

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2nterestingly if we look for pause length in the writing process we find that the meanpause time is &.@&& seconds (with a standard deviation of M.M@& seconds). While a full-fledgedanalysis of the pausing ehavior is eyond the reach of this paper we would like to conclude thispart with a rief e!ample of 1+TEs pausing ehavior in relation to his sourcing practices. 2n orderto visuali#e the writing process 2nputlog generates linear logs of recorded writing sessions. 2f welook at how 1+T writes the opening sentence the linear log looks like this5

Figure *. +inear log passage

This fragment shows a very fluent writing process typical of the sort of highly routini#ed ehaviorthat writing from sources is for usiness ournalists. The fragment also shows the effects ofpreformulation5 1+T rewrites the opening line of the press release from5

=Today 3lemish +inister for Fcience and 2nnovation 3iente +oerman has HsicI signed thenew management agreements ($%%M O $%,,) for 62? and 2+:C.>

to

=The susidy raise is included in the new management agreements which were signedyesterday in hent.>

1+T thus foregrounds the udget increase. 2n the linear log we see a second pause (milliseconds) efore 1+T writes =susidieverhoging> (:ng. su"si(y raise). This hesitation is adirect result of 1+TEs reliance on the press release which does not mention the term susidyraiseE. This hesitation is significant ecause 1+T does not pause when he writes the rest of theopening sentence. The typographical error at the %E$,> mark he corrects directly. 7e thenswitches to the preview pane (30). During the revision phase toward the end of his writingprocess the spelling error in the Dutch relative pronoun =die> (:ng. that) is corrected at the $05@mark.

Framing

The hesitation therefore indicates a frame shift. The previous e!tracts indicate that when 1+Tshifts the focus (i.e. to return to itlinEs phrase (,%5 0) what mattersE) away from the pressrelease a pause is logged. Aevertheless overall he takes the predominant press release frameson oard thus enaling his short production time. Without going into an elaorate frame analysisat this stage the 62? press release and presentation prioriti#e three frames for the events5 (i)cooperation (management agreementsE) (ii) employment (2+:C plans more than ,%% newrecruitmentsE) and (iii) efficiency (performance indicatorsE rather than research for the sake ofincreased knowledge).

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Bacos eert (,). 4reformulating the ne!s. An analysis of the metapragmatics of press releases.1msterdam5 Bohn ?enamins.Bakos :va-+aria ($%%@). Neproductive writing - writing from sources. /ournal of 4ragmatics@ @O%0.Leiten +ariSlle and 6an Waes Luuk ($%%0). 2nputlog5 Aew perspectives on the logging of on-line writing processes in a windows

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