NGOs as Newsmakers

NGOs as Newsmakers

Author: Matthew Powers

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2018-05-15

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 0231545754

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As traditional news outlets’ international coverage has waned, several prominent nongovernmental organizations have taken on a growing number of seemingly journalistic functions. Groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Médecins Sans Frontières send reporters to gather information and provide analysis and assign photographers and videographers to boost the visibility of their work. Digital technologies and social media have increased the potential for NGOs to communicate directly with the public, bypassing traditional gatekeepers. But have these efforts changed and expanded traditional news practices and coverage—and are there consequences to blurring the lines between reporting and advocacy? In NGOs as Newsmakers, Matthew Powers analyzes the growing role NGOs play in shaping—and sometimes directly producing—international news. Drawing on interviews, observations, and content analysis, he charts the dramatic growth in NGO news-making efforts, examines whether these efforts increase the organizations' chances of garnering news coverage, and analyzes the effects of digital technologies on publicity strategies. Although the contemporary media environment offers NGOs greater opportunities to shape the news, Powers finds, it also subjects them to news-media norms. While advocacy groups can and do provide coverage of otherwise ignored places and topics, they are still dependent on traditional media and political elites and influenced by the expectations of donors, officials, journalists, and NGOs themselves. Through an unprecedented glimpse into NGOs’ newsmaking efforts, Powers portrays the possibilities and limits of NGOs as newsmakers amid the transformations of international news, with important implications for the intersections of journalism and advocacy.


The American Journalist in the 1990s

The American Journalist in the 1990s

Author: David H. Weaver

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-08-13

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 1000149188

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Who are U.S. journalists? What are their backgrounds and educational experiences? Why did they choose journalism as an occupation? What do they think about their work? What are their professional and ethical values? What kinds of work do they consider their best? Do men differ from women on these questions? Do ethnic and racial minorities differ from the majority? Do journalists working for different print and broadcast news media differ? This book uses findings from the most comprehensive and representative study ever done of the demographic and educational backgrounds, working conditions, and professional and ethical values of 1,410 U.S. print and broadcast journalists working in the 1990s to answer these questions, including separate analyses for women and minority news people. It also compares many of these findings with those from the major studies of the early 1970s and 1980s. As such, it should be the standard reference on U.S. journalists for years to come. In addition, this study goes beyond the previous two in adding more open-ended questions to explain and enrich quantitative findings, in the belief that the numbers by themselves are not enough to provide explanations for the patterns that emerge. This book includes more of the journalists' own words to fill this gap, as well as an analysis of samples of their self-selected best work.


Newsmakers 96

Newsmakers 96

Author: Louise Mooney and Geri J. Speace Collins (eds)

Publisher:

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 9780810393219

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The Media Show

The Media Show

Author: Edwin Diamond

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 1991

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 9780262041256

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The Media Show is a lively analysis of one of the underreported major stories of our time: the growing power and influence of the media. In these essays and reports critic Edwin Diamond takes a hard look at the methods of the American media during a period of heightened competition and increased conglomeration, focusing on the way news stories are shaped, and sometimes distorted.Diamond first considers some of the consequences of the new order created by richer technologies and lowered aspirations. He explores the mixed results of this new system, including marked changes in American broadcasting as the networks downsize their expenditures to news and public affairs coverage. There is, he notes, often a serious conflict within networks between the public good and the bottom line, a conflict that the news media generally chooses not to examine.Diamond then scrutinizes the role of style and personality on television. Next he turns to specific examples of television coverage of the defining topics of the late 1980s and early 1990s, including the arrival of cable technology and CNN, which changed the way wars and crises are covered; how some members of the media practiced "unsafe journalism" in their reports on AIDS; the role the media assumed as the "moral police" in recent election campaigns; the way race and class influenced crime stories such as the Tawana Brawley and the Central Park jogger cases; how the media has often seemed "married to the mob" in its reporting about reputed godfather John Gotti; and the changes in White House press coverage as Ronald Reagan was succeeded by George Bush. Diamond concludes by proposing several ideas for creating new media structures.Edwin Diamond is Professor of Journalism at New York University, where he directs the News Study Group, and he is media columnist for New York magazine. His previous books include Good News, Bad News, Sign Off. The Last Days of Television, and The Spot: The Rise of Political Advertising on Television.


Making the Newsmakers

Making the Newsmakers

Author: Philip Gaunt

Publisher: Greenwood

Published: 1992-08-24

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13:

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The first worldwide survey of communication training since 1958, was sponsored by UNESCO, and covers 70 nations and lists 700 training institutions.


Preformulating the News

Preformulating the News

Author: Geert Jacobs

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 1999-05-15

Total Pages: 446

ISBN-13: 9027283877

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Preformulating the News is a study of press releases and of how they anticipate the requirements of journalistic writing. Drawing from a large corpus (Dutch and English), it is argued that the genre’s peculiar audience-directedness can be related to a number of metapragmatic textual features and that this sheds light on the asymmetries of what can be termed the ‘newsmaking’ and ‘news management’ processes. In the first chapter the study of press releases is put in the context of institutional discourse and the details of a linguistic pragmatic research method are proposed. Chapter 2 looks at the complex receiver roles in press releases, which are characterized as indirectly targeted, i.e. ‘projected’, discourse. In chapters 3 to 6 a data analysis of the metapragmatics of press releases is presented: in particular, it is shown that self-reference, pseudo-quotation and explicit semi-performative play a ‘preformulating’ role in press releases. Chapter 7 offers a case study of the press releases that the American multinational Exxon issued in the wake of the 1989 Alaska oil spill. In the eighth and final chapter it is suggested that the study’s findings support a hegemonic view of the media. In analysing the much neglected genre of press releases, the book aims to contribute to the study of the language of the news. At the same time, it explores more general issues of participation and footing as well as reflexive language, including deixis, reported speech and performativity.