ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a classification of news sources and news channels as political communicators. Both classifications are based upon the consistent attitude patterns which emerge from analysis of the interview data. Three basic attitude patterns were revealed in information officers' responses: the informer-recorder, the educator-expositor, and the promoter-prescriber. The newsman as a political communicator is a channel for information flowing to the citizen. A consideration of the functions, performance, and expectations of information officers and newsmen opens certain areas of speculation regarding the nature of the source-channel relationship. Both information officers and newsmen define their personal behavior within the framework of a function conceded to be inherently political. A trend in political communication, resulting from the use of publicity as policy, has been recognized by the newsmen themselves-the necessity to break from objective reporting of selected facts and to interpret events in broader contexts.
