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NewsTalk&Text Working Paper SeriesNr. 5, Ghent: April 2009Lut Lams (Hogeschool-Universiteit Brussel)
Newspapers’ narratives based on wire stories:facsimiles of input?
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Newspapers’ narratives based on wire stories: facsimiles of input?
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Lams, Lut. (2009).
Newspapers’ narratives based on wire stories: facsimiles of input? NT&T Working Paper Series
,5, 1-20. Contact and copyright: Lut Lams, Hogeschool-Universiteit Brussel, Belgium. Lut.lams@hubrussel.be.
2
Abstract
Variation in news narratives can provide the empirical testing ground for investigating newsproduction processes, such as selecting and adapting input stories from external sources. In taking acomparative approach this paper maps changes between final newspaper output and original inputsupplied by news agencies as well as differences in dealing with the same source material by variousnews groups. While some texts are taken over verbatim, others are scrambled, reduced in size or amended. Reasons for any divergence may be of a purely practical or an ideological nature. If particular patterns of editorial adjustments are detected with a regular occurrence, it can be assumed that they areideologically inspired and/or that fixed editorial preferences or directives are at play. The analysis isbased on a study of language and ideology in news accounts about the Hong Kong transfer of sovereignty from the British Crown to China in 1997, which as a major international news eventgarnered worldwide media attention. For this paper’s purpose I look into a set of foreign newsagencies’ articles adopted by two Taiwanese English-language newspapers, the input versions of whichwere retrieved from the Associated Press archives.
Key words:
Editorial intervention, news writing process, discursive practice, domestication, ideologicaltransformation, news agency input, Taiwanese media, Hong Kong handover
1. Introduction
During a former study into the interplay of language and ideology in the two Taiwanese English-language newspapers’ coverage of the 1997 Hong Kong transfer of sovereignty from the British Crownto China
, it appeared that news articles stemming from the same input source differed consistentlybetween both newspapers. This begged the question where this divergence originated. Somewherealong the articles’ journey some intervention had to have taken place. Could it be traced to the editorialprocess at the various news outlets and if so, which paper was responsible for the amendments? Thiscould only be answered by retrieving the input articles from the original source, the news agencies. Inthe news production cycle an article does indeed follow several steps from the initial draft to the finalversion passing through various hands
and very often from international news agencies to national or local news desks.
This paper is concerned with tracing particular ‘structures of transformation’ (Bruck:89:117) to investigate how “primary materials are used by newsmakers as sources to build on, processand deliver” (Jacobs: 99:256). It aims to discuss transformations of texts across ‘intertextual chains of discursive practices’ (Fairclough, 92).
1
Lams (2004) examined all Hong Kong handover news stories, editorials and opinion articles over an eight day period (from 27June to 5 July 1997) in three English-language papers, namely
The China Post
(Taiwan),
The China News
(Taiwan) and
The China Daily
(PRC).
2
For a detailed description of the news cycle and the number of people contributing to one story, see Bell 91:44-46.
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Retracing these steps is far from easy. Problems may already arise at the practical level of approaching news workers who areforever fighting deadlines, or getting access to the news agencies’ archives, some of which can only be accessed via costly trainingsessions. A second problem relates to the technological aspect in the production process, i.e. hard copies of consecutive drafts areno longer stored. All files are processed electronically without leaving a trace of amendments, at least not in 1997.
Newspapers’ narratives based on wire stories: facsimiles of input?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lams, Lut. (2009).
Newspapers’ narratives based on wire stories: facsimiles of input? NT&T Working Paper Series
,5, 1-20. Contact and copyright: Lut Lams, Hogeschool-Universiteit Brussel, Belgium. Lut.lams@hubrussel.be.
3Since in this study we are dealing with an international event, and a sizeable amount of input frominternational wire agencies, the obvious divergence between newspapers within national boundariesseems not to fit with some of the claims made in the domestication model of global news theory, asforwarded by Lee et al.(99, 2000, 2001), which holds that international news is often treated as avariation of domestic themes in consonance with national interests and the foreign policy agenda of home countries. Most importantly, it is argued that media differences across the ideological dividewithin a nation tend to be dwarfed by media differences between nations (Lee et al, 2000). Thefindings of my comparative analysis of input and output stories will fine-tune the domestication modelwhen applied to the English-language media landscape in Taiwan.This paper first outlines the theoretical framework which combines insights from the field of pragmatics, critical linguistics, critical discourse analysis with concepts from global media theories,such as the tension between domestication and globalization. It formulates the central researchquestion probing into the extent to which categorization processes of ‘us’ and ‘them’ are sustained inthe journey form source text to output text. A second part sheds some light on contextual factorsinfluencing production processes. It first looks into the wider context of historical and sociopoliticalstructures and processes determining the news workers’ ideological lines of vision concerning themeaning of China and the political status of the island territory Taiwan, as it is precisely in this respectthat divergences between the media outlets emerge. Although the complexity of the problematicrelationship between China and Taiwan cannot be adequately addressed within the scope of this paper,this section should provide the bare essentials to better understand the sensitivities involved inlanguage referring to the actors involved in the cross-Strait (or Taiwan Strait) issue.Following this brief contextualization of the Taiwan Strait issue, a next section sketches theinstitutional background of the news organizations, the mission statements of both outlets, and theorganizational context in which the news workers operate. Much insight in journalistic and personalconsiderations was provided by interviews with professionals in action. Understanding internationalaffairs and knowledge about elements of identification themes of their receiving audience are essentialcompetences in the selection and production of international news information (Clausen, 2005:106).Furthermore, as Clausen argues, their personal attitudes, values and beliefs have great impact on theangle and choice of sources (2005:127).A third part lists some findings of the text analysis conducted on two levels: 1) comparison of newspaper stories originating from the same source material, 2) comparison of wire input andnewspaper output. In the conclusion, homogenization and domestication theories will be checkedagainst the findings of the editorial amendments. An answer will be provided to the question whether these emendations fit the overall ideological picture of both newspapers. Specifications related to thesize of corpus are provided in the introduction to the textual analysis.
1. Theoretical and methodological observations1.1. Mental scripts and categorization processes in framing reality
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