ABSTRACT
This chapter continues the analysis of news by looking at what or who makes the news, how it is organized, selected and processed in the newsroom and in its wider organizational context. News is generally produced by journalism professionals (of which there are different types with different journalistic subcultures, for example, reporters, producers, technical staff and managerial staff) working in a routine dayto-day manner within a news organization. In many fictitious accounts of newsrooms (especially in films) we see the fearless and usually maverick investigative journalist, standing up for journalistic integrity against the organization’s determination to prioritize profit or their own interests above the truth.1 The day-to-day reality is rather different since news is shaped by a multitude of influences: combined, these influences may be judged in two ways. The first way is that they are ideological in the sense that they are formed within an existing system of meanings, values and beliefs within which we all live and within which news journalism operates, and here the room for mavericks is small. Thus for example, Williams (1977:109) argues that ideology is a ‘relatively formal and articulated system of meanings, values and beliefs’ which comprises a more or less organized ‘world view’. The second way is derived from a critical theoretical approach which argues that news media organizations are ideological insofar as they have the power to define a world view which supports their particular interests and values, by controlling what we see and by making it appear ‘natural’ or obvious’. Here the room for the freedom-loving maverick news journalist remains embarrassingly large. Accordingly, the ideological character of the news media can either refer to the adoption of a particular shared (relatively) ‘world view’, or to the way news reports are used instrumentally to help establish and maintain a particular set of power relationships.
