What Is Covered And Reported?

By Author: Jordon
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News gathering is affected by access, costs, and limitations of time and space. News stories must attract and hold an audience and avoid offending advertisers, audiences, and media owners. These factors influence what choices news people make and ultimately determine which stories will be printed and aired.

Some of the factors influencing news coverage lie outside the event or medium itself. These are external constraints. If an event is to be covered, reporters must know it is to happen; if it is to be videotaped, there Thomas Sabo Charms must be enough advance notice to get a camera crew to the scene. The event must happen early enough to let reporters meet their deadlines, and the cost of the coverage must seem reasonable. In addition, coverage is affected by competition from other media and from other newsworthy events.

Access News organizations struggle to impose order in the midst of chaos. Reporters often have little or no idea when or where the news will break: when or where a crime will be committed, a riot will break out, or one country will attack ...
... another. Thus, re-porters are assigned to beats so they can monitor the goings-on in places where news-worthy events often occur -- the police station, city hall, the State Department, the House of Representatives, the Supreme Court, and the White House. The chance that an event will be covered is increased if it is part of a reporter's regular beat, or if official sources that are regularly consulted call it to her or his attention. For instance, one study of 2,850 stories appearing in the New York Times and the Washington Post found that such routine channels accounted for 58.2 percent of the articles.

Many newsworthy events fall between the cracks of assigned beats. Reporters may be assigned to substantive beats, such as energy or the environment, to overcome this problem. In addition, there are general assignment reporters who are dispatched to cover breaking stories or who try to ferret out newsworthy events. The beat system is really a pattern of access for reporters. It is a method by which reporters' survey the scene to learn what is happening and by which they develop "informed, reliable sources" of information. Modern news organizations rely heavily on officials in government bureaucracies. Events on regular beats or those confirmed by official sources tend to be covered and reported; events outside these beats or denied by official sources usually go unpublished.

Many news stories could not be written without the help of confidential sources. Jack Nelson, Washington bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, notes that such sources help uncover information others try to conceal from the public, and that some of the most important exposes have been developed Thomas Sabo Bracelets this way, including stories about the Pentagon Papers and Watergate. Specifically, the Pulitzer Prize--winning My Lai stories of Seymour Hersh were made possible by the confidential involvement of three army officers, a member of Congress, and two congressional aides.

Although beats and official sources are efficient ways for reporters to obtain and check information, this system limits some kinds of coverage. For example, because early events in a developing social movement fall outside this system of beats and sources, they tend not to be noticed by the news media. Only as movements increase in size and scope and seek press coverage will reporters be assigned to cover them. Examples are the South Africa divestment movement, the antinuclear disarmament movement, feminism, and gay rights.