Argues that the criteria used in deciding news value has little to do with how editors and reporters operate in the everyday world of journalism. Contends that journalists' knowledge of news is reducible to their common-sensical understanding of it. (MS)

Reviews diversity as an epistemological claim and how that claim has been trivialized in programs of journalism and mass communication. Discusses the contradictions between professionalism and diversity. Suggests how students can be equipped to combat the indifference to difference that is the inevitable by-product of a professional education. (SR)

This paper explores an alternative way of studying journalism in the classroom by focusing on contemporary journalists' ironic treatment of morality. The paper examines the performative character of the language of news, when the words investigative journalists use are of interest not so much for what they say but for what they do. The paper…

That every community needs its own distinctive newspaper is the conclusion drawn in this review of the literature on journalism and communication. Following a summary of John Dewey's definition of democracy in the introduction, the first section of the paper points out the conflict that newspapers experience in trying to be a news source…

Reports that Connecticut's daily newspapers demonstrated a significantly higher utilization of local and regional wire services in 1967 than in 1976, and that there was a significantly higher utilization of wire service than of staff originated copy regardless of year. (GW)

Examines a particular rhetorical and narrative strategy--irony--used in a particular genre of contemporary journalism--investigative reporting--to tell stories about suffering and injustice. Argues that irony "in" journalism presents several ironies "of" journalism. (RS)

In focusing on the epistemology of journalism, this paper seeks to determine how reporters, particularly investigative reporters, know what they know. It begins by distinguishing between the validity of knowledge claims and their everyday justification, assuming the latter to be the proper focus for a phenomenological study of what passes as…

Warns journalists that too much concern for brevity as measured by the Flesch readability formula and the Fang listenability formula may unnecessarily restrict the use of symbols and, in turn, affect how the consumers of the mass media perceive and think. (RB)

Examines three news stories to illustrate how journalists can use irony to undercut and even reverse the literal or ostensible meaning of what is being reported. Argues that, by issuing its judgment quietly, irony renders morality a private matter, which is arguably dysfunctional in a society where the role of the press is to foster public debate…

A 1977 Court of Appeals decision, "Edwards v. National Audubon Society," outlined the principle of "neutral reportage": the press is not required to suppress newsworthy statements by public officials merely because the truth of those statements is doubtful. The author outlines this court case because it illustrates so well the consequences of the…

A truly diverse press not only takes seriously its political role of fostering robust debate but stands committed to its cultural role of providing a distinctively local context for the issues and discussions it reports. However, what contributes to the diminution of press diversity remains a controversial question that continues to attract…

Noting that while much has been said about privacy and the defense of newsworthiness in legal cases involving the unauthorized publication of true but embarrassing facts, this paper points out that there appear to be only three broadly distinguishable--and largely disparate--theories of privacy and newsworthiness, none of them in circulation long…

The news stories about the governor of Connecticut that appeared in 12 Connecticut daily newspapers during three-month periods in 1967 and 1976 were examined for the news sources used--whether the stories were written by local newspaper staff, local news service, or national wire service. The results demonstrate a significantly higher percentage…

Examines how investigative journalists work within the unresolved tension between detached observation and active moral agency. Concludes that investigative journalism may oversee the reinforcement of dominant moral values, but may also preside over the definition and development, as well as the debasement and dissolution, of those values. (MS)

Objective news reporting, in which reporters present but do not evaluate facts, has certain negative consequences. When the convention of journalistic objectivity was adopted around 1900, journalists moved from interpreting and analyzing events to being relatively passive links between sources and audiences. The most troublesome convention of…