Overview

There is little argument that mass media news projects a particular point of view. The question is how that bias is formed. Most media critics look to the attitudes of reporters and editors, the covert news policy of a publisher, or the outside pressures of politicians and advertisers. Manufacturing the News takes a different tack. Mark Fishman's research shows how the routine methods of gathering news, rather than any hidden manipulators, determine the ideological character of the product. News organizations cover the world mainly through ""beats,"" which tend to route reporters exclusively through governmental agencies and corporate bureaucracies in their search for news. Crime, for instance, is covered through the police and court bureaucracies; local politics through the meetings of the city council, county commissioners, and other official agencies. Reporters under daily deadlines come to depend upon these organizations for the predictable, steady flow of raw news material they provide. It is part of the function of such bureaucracies to transform complex happenings into procedurally defined ""cases."" Thus the information they produce for newsworkers represents their own bureaucratic reality. Occurrences which are not part of some bureaucratic phase are simply ignored. Journalists participate in this system by publicizing bureaucratic reality as hard fact, while accounts from other sources are treated as unconfirmed reports which cannot be published without time-consuming investigation. Were journalists to employ different methods of news gathering, Fishman concludes, a different reality would emerge in the news-one that might challenge the legitimacy of prevailing political structures. But, under the traditional system, news reports will continue to support the interests of the status quo independently of the attitudes and intentions of reporters, editors, and news sources.

Full Product Details

Author:   Mark Fishman
Publisher:   University of Texas Press
Imprint:   University of Texas Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 1.10cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.454kg
ISBN:  

9780292751040

ISBN 10:   0292751044
Pages:   190
Publication Date:   01 May 1980
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments 1. News and Public Events Assembling a Crime Wave Creating Public Events Studying Newswork The Organization of This Book The Research Setting Purissima’s Press Corps Methodology I: Observations as an Apprentice Methodology II: Observations as a Researcher 2. Exposure to the Newsworld The Beat The Detection of Events Preconditions of Exposure to the Newsworld The Beat Round The Bureaucratic Foundations of News Exposure 3. Seeing News Events The Interpretation of Activities The Uses of Phase Structures Nonevents 4. Grounds for Investigating the News “Fact” and Bureaucratic Accounts Reasons for Believing Bureaucratic Accounts Doubting Bureaucratic Accounts 5. Methods for Investigating and Formulating Stories Irregularities and Missing Information: Filling-in The Perspectival Nature of Events: Fact-by-Triangulation Fact-by-Triangulation as a Framework for News Investigation and Story Formulation 6. The Practice and Politics of Newswork News, Ideology, and Legitimation The Sources of News Ideology The Politics of Newswork Notes References Index

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Author Information

Mark Fishman received his PhD in sociology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1977 and taught at Brooklyn College, CUNY for many years.

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