Churnalism

Churnalism is a form of journalism in which press releases, wire stories and other forms of pre-packaged material are used to create articles in newspapers and other news media in order to meet increasing pressures of time and cost without undertaking further research or checking.^[1]

Prevalence

In his book Flat Earth News,^[2] the British journalist Nick Davies reported a study at Cardiff University by Professor Justin Lewis and a team of researchers^[3] which found that 80% of the stories in Britain's quality press were not original and that only 12% of stories were generated by reporters.^[1] The result is a reduction of quality and accuracy as the articles are open to manipulation and distortion.

BBC journalist Waseem Zakir has been credited for coining the term churnalism.^[4] According to Zakir, the trend towards this form of journalism involves reporters becoming more reactive and less proactive in searching for news - "You get copy coming in on the wires and reporters churn it out, processing stuff and maybe adding the odd local quote. It's affecting every newsroom in the country and reporters are becoming churnalists."^[5]

An editorial on the matter in the British Journalism Review saw this trend as terminal for current journalism, "...a harbinger of the end of news journalism as we know it, the coroner's verdict can be nothing other than suicide."^[6] Others, such as Peter Preston, former editor of The Guardian, see the issue as over-wrought, saying that there was never a golden age of journalism in which journalists were not subject to such pressures.^[7]

In 2011 the Daily Mail reported that under former editor of The Sun and News of the World, Rebekah Brooks, "Scores, if not hundreds, of front-page stories were written by the PR men. They would think up a headline and story and The Sun and News of the World would run it, word for word. Some of them were complete fiction. Meanwhile, proper stories by proper journalists were buried deep inside the paper."^[8]

Churnalism does not only occur in newspapers; for example, Chris Anderson's wide use of "writethroughs" in his book Free has been labelled churnalism,^[9] and psychiatrist David Healy has criticised past use of ghost-written copy in academic journals.

Economic causes

Traditional newspapers have cut staff as their advertising revenue has declined because of competition from other media such as television and the internet.^[10] They no longer have sufficient staff to generate news stories by making the rounds of civic and business activities. Local newspapers and trade magazines are commonly produced by only one or two staff and these rely upon stories which are increasingly brought to them by professional PR representatives, according to a senior public relations professional.^[11] When the matter was debated at the Foreign Press Association, it was agreed that there was a relationship between the numbers of PR staff employed and journalists unemployed.^[12]

Other commentators have said the modern journalism is increasingly being performed in a cheaper, high-volume way, describing the resulting product with derogatory terms such as newszak (combination of "news" and "muzak"),^[13] infotainment and junk-food journalism.^[14]

Fabrications

The creators of a documentary film, Starsuckers, created fake stories about celebrities such as Amy Winehouse, whose hair was said to have caught fire, and Pixie Geldof, who was said to have padded her bra with sweets. Several newspapers including the Daily Express, Daily Mirror, Daily Star and Sun published these hoaxes. The Daily Mail was the only newspaper tested which did not publish any of the fake stories. Once the stories were published, numerous other publications across the world such as Cosmopolitan, the New York Post, the Times of India and Turkish Weekly picked up and recycled the stories. The director, Chris Atkins, said that untrue stories of this kind are now to be found in all news media.^[15]

Speed

In their book, No Time to Think,^[16] authors Howard Rosenberg and Charles S. Feldman, emphasised the role of speed in degrading the quality of modern journalism.^[17] An example is given of the BBC guide for online staff which gives advice to ensure good quality but also the contradictory advice, "Get the story up as fast as you can… We encourage a sense of urgency—we want to be first."^[17]

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Sally Jackson (June 5, 2008), Fearing the rise of 'churnalism', The Australian, http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,23811929-7582,00.html?from=public_rss 
2. ^ Nick Davies (2008), Flat Earth News, Chatto and Windus, ISBN 9780701181451, http://books.google.com/books?id=RV4bAQAAIAAJ 
3. ^ Gary Merrill, Criticising the critical, The Journalist, http://www.thejournalist.org.uk/flatearth.html 
4. ^ Wahl-Jorgensen, Karin (2008), The Handbook of Journalism Studies, Taylor & Francis, ISBN 1410618064 
5. ^ Tony Harcup (2004), Journalism, pp. 3–4, ISBN 9780761974994, http://books.google.com/?id=Y3bYN5iaROwC 
6. ^ "Trivia pursuit", British Journalism Review 19 (1): 3–4, 2008, doi:10.1177/0956474808090188, http://bjr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/19/1/3 
7. ^ Herman Wasserman (30 June 2008), "The dangers of ‘churnalism’", The Media, http://www.marketingweb.co.za/marketingweb/view/marketingweb/en/page71642?oid=105985&sn=Marketingweb%20detail 
8. ^ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2013046/Rebekah-Brooks-Sun-News-World-run-fictional-stories-insider-claims.html
9. ^ Andrew Orlowski (2009-06-25). "WiReD editor 'fesses to churnalism: Information wants to be stolen". The Register. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/25/chris_anderson_cut_and_paste/. 
10. ^ David Nyhan (May 2, 1991), When trash appears as news, Boston Globe, http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=BG&p_theme=bg&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EADDF51CFB1BC06&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM 
11. ^ Jim R. Macnamara, The Impact of PR on the Media, Mass Communication Group, http://www.pria.com.au/sitebuilder/resources/knowledge/files/1172/primpactmedia.pdf 
12. ^ John Mair (May 19, 2009), Hacks beat Flacks to knockout in Pall Mall debate, http://blogs.journalism.co.uk/editors/2009/05/19/hacks-beat-flacks-to-knockout-in-pall-mall-debate/ 
13. ^ newszak Word Spy. Retrieved: 2011-07-09.
14. ^ Aeron Davis (2010), Political Communication and Social Theory, Taylor & Francis, p. 60, ISBN 9780415547123, http://books.google.com/books?id=kRGXrTL1bJoC&pg=PA60 
15. ^ Paul Lewis (15 October 2009), Gotcha!, The Guardian 
16. ^ Howard Rosenberg, Charles S. Feldman (2008), No Time to Think, ISBN 9780826429315, http://books.google.com/?id=5PgiNRL6K10C 
17. ^ ^{a b} Howard Rosenberg and Charles S. Feldman (2008-08-19), Why Is Speed So Bad?, USA Today, http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/excerpts/2008-08-19-no-time-to-think_N.htm 

See also

• 24-hour news cycle
• Hack writer
• Fact-checking

External links

• John May interviews Nick Davies
• Search engine for detecting churnalism in the UK