ABSTRACT
The quotation above, from a senior member of the Financial Times editorial staff, provides a rare practitioner’s conceptualisation of the ‘media organisation’ as the crucial context in the making and framing of news1 (Lloyd, 2004). Lloyd declares that the context is often ‘by far the most important thing about news’ as it ‘will usually determine how the bare facts are given’ (ibid.: 80-81). Although the news organisation for which the journalist works comprises the ‘most powerful context’, this factor ‘is surprisingly often neglected’ (ibid.: 81). As Lloyd indicates, once journalists have internalised the news organisation’s ‘line’ or ‘attitude’, it tends to be reproduced continuously or ‘almost unconsciously’ (ibid.: 81) – an argument that resonates with the findings of several seminal studies on news influences as we will see below. This chapter examines the research literature on news organisations as influ-
ences on journalism practices and news cultures. It also considers more recent work addressing technological and managerial innovations in news organisations. This chapter also briefly considers findings from our primary research concerning the influence of ownership structures and market forces.
