ABSTRACT
Opinions about what is news vary in accordance with who is discussing it. Kevin Williams (2003:16) identifies three levels at which discussion about news occurs: the common-sense level, the practitioner level and the academic level. Although both common-sense and academic views often provide a critique of news and the profession which writes and mediates it, the two are quite different. Critical common-sense views are not grounded in empirical evidence or theory, although it appears that some early pessimistic critical academic theories did serve to underpin people’s articulations about a ‘golden era’ of news and to justify the assertions that standards are slipping, or that the quality of news is in decline.
