Abstract submission

Theme: The Future of Journalism; Journalism, Sources and Public Relations.

Sourcing vs churning business news

Tom Van Hout

NewsTalk&Text
Ghent University

This paper feeds into public and academic discourses about declining quality standards in print
journalism, in particular the claim that professional journalism is being eroded by technological,
commercial and editorial change, causing fewer newsworkers to serve more newsmedia. Critics argue
that this pressure for increased productivity invariably yields low quality journalism or churnalism ,
the churning of ready-made source materials into news articles.

Drawing on data collected at the business newsdesk of a Flemish quality newspaper, I illustrate how
business journalists write news from corporate and agency sources by examining the “news
transmutation process to the point of its final shape” electronically and ethnographically.

My data provide detailed empirical evidence for the discursive intricacies of reproductive newswriting,
i.e. writing from sources. Specifically, my data show:

(i) how reliance on ready-made source texts prompt news frames which enable reporters to
write fast and efficiently while also forcing them to introduce new frames which balance
the story, establish authority and maximize news value;
(ii) the materiality, creativity and domain knowledge involved in writing from sources, even
in instances which would normally be considered churnalism.

Taken together, these findings contribute to a more empirically grounded discussion of sourcing
practices in a globalized journalism and make a case for the added value of professional journalism.