When editorial offices copy instead of create
Media study An analysis shows: Journalistic originality is increasingly becoming an exception.
Media study An analysis shows: Journalistic originality is increasingly becoming the exception.intertextuality" is a central working concept for literary studies. How much Flaubert is there in Thomas Mann, for example? More generally: what (reading) traces of one work can be reconstructed in another? On the other hand, one would rather not apply it to journalistic texts, as it would scratch the varnish of journalists' independence, but this is exactly what a research group led by Harald Burger, Professor of Linguistics at the University of Zurich, has done in the study "Media texts between author and audience". Conclusion: News journalists copy each other without restraint. "The author's share of a media text is minimal, but intertextuality is the order of the day." The image of reality created in this way becomes an inextricable construct for the recipient, which does not reveal sources of information but systematically obscures them.
The study examined reporting and evaluation in daily and weekly newspapers as well as in public and private radio and television programs on the topics of genetic engineering and social insurance. It made sense to compare not only articles and broadcasts, but also their everyday origins.
This usually means that the agencies start reporting. As the linguists point out, "agencies only seem to provide neutral information", even though they claim to do so. Their texts already contain assessments of the so-called pre-text, i.e. the wording used at the press conference. The electronic media are the next in the news utilization chain to attempt to differentiate their reporting by interviewing experts or those affected. However, the original evaluation remains the same, because "during their work, journalists constantly compare their reports with those of other media".
But it's not just the up-to-the-minute reporting of current affairs that tends to create a uniform mishmash; the print media on the following day also provide only minimal differentiation. National newspapers in particular take a stand in commentaries, but there is often no time to do the necessary research. Their texts are therefore again based on (agency) urtext - which closes the circle.
In a sober style, this analysis pursues and proves the dismantling of journalists as authors. Instead, they appear as "text composers" - and the mass media are portrayed as institutions that are kept on their toes by a well-oiled PR machine. This makes the unshakeable trust of the recipients all the more alarming. A parallel, non-representative survey shows that the public rates the influence of agencies as low and the proportion of self-research as high.
The explosive finding for all media professionals - including commercial ones - that editorial offices are increasingly turning into copy agencies means a creeping loss of credibility and uniqueness for their journalistic products. The erosion of these two pillars will not only be noticed by the audience, but also by the advertising industry at some point and acknowledged accordingly.
> Media texts between author and audience. Intertextuality in the press, radio and television by Martin Luginbühl, Thomas Baumberger, Kathrine Schwab and Harald Burger. Seismo-Verlag, Zurich 2002. 248 pages, Fr. 42.-.
The study examined reporting and evaluation in daily and weekly newspapers as well as in public and private radio and television programs on the topics of genetic engineering and social insurance. It made sense to compare not only articles and broadcasts, but also their everyday origins.
This usually means that the agencies start reporting. As the linguists point out, "agencies only seem to provide neutral information", even though they claim to do so. Their texts already contain assessments of the so-called pre-text, i.e. the wording used at the press conference. The electronic media are the next in the news utilization chain to attempt to differentiate their reporting by interviewing experts or those affected. However, the original evaluation remains the same, because "during their work, journalists constantly compare their reports with those of other media".
But it's not just the up-to-the-minute reporting of current affairs that tends to create a uniform mishmash; the print media on the following day also provide only minimal differentiation. National newspapers in particular take a stand in commentaries, but there is often no time to do the necessary research. Their texts are therefore again based on (agency) urtext - which closes the circle.
In a sober style, this analysis pursues and proves the dismantling of journalists as authors. Instead, they appear as "text composers" - and the mass media are portrayed as institutions that are kept on their toes by a well-oiled PR machine. This makes the unshakeable trust of the recipients all the more alarming. A parallel, non-representative survey shows that the public rates the influence of agencies as low and the proportion of self-research as high.
The explosive finding for all media professionals - including commercial ones - that editorial offices are increasingly turning into copy agencies means a creeping loss of credibility and uniqueness for their journalistic products. The erosion of these two pillars will not only be noticed by the audience, but also by the advertising industry at some point and acknowledged accordingly.
> Media texts between author and audience. Intertextuality in the press, radio and television by Martin Luginbühl, Thomas Baumberger, Kathrine Schwab and Harald Burger. Seismo-Verlag, Zurich 2002. 248 pages, Fr. 42.-.
Mari Serrano
