Responsibility and the conventions of attribution in news agency discourse
Issue: Vol 9 No. 3 (2012) Discourse and Responsibility
Journal: Journal of Applied Linguistics and Professional Practice
Subject Areas: Writing and Composition Linguistics
Abstract:
The paper examines conventions of attribution in the discourse of two global news agencies, AP (the Associated Press) and Reuters, from the point of view of responsibility. In news agency reporting, the notion of responsibility is central on various intertwining levels. At the macro-level, news agencies bear responsibility as powerful distributors of news. They are important agenda-setters for other media and, to a great extent, also responsible for creating and reinforcing conventions of news writing. At the micro-level, the study explores two kinds of responsibility in the attribution of claims: the responsibility of news actors, i.e. those who have been quoted in news reports, and that of journalists. The analysis illustrates how the traditional structure of a news report affects attribution routines. Discontinuous topic realization, together with the tendency of proceeding from general to specific, opens up various rhetorical options to the journalist and can lead to ambiguity. The study further deals with the complex issue of sharing responsibility between the journalist and the news actor, for examples when sources remain anonymous.
Author: Maija Stenvall
References :
Associated Press (2005) AP statement on anonymous sources. Retrieved on May 14, 2007 from http://www.apme.com/committees/credibility/052705anonymous.shtml
Associated Press (n.d.) About Us –Associated Press. Retrieved on March 10, 2014 from http://www.ap.org/company/about-us
Bell, A. (1991) The Language of News Media. Oxford: Blackwell.
Boyd-Barrett, O. (1998) ‘Global’ news agencies. In O. Boyd-Barrett and T. Rantanen (eds) The Globalization of News, 19–34. London: Sage.
Carey, J. W. (1989) Communication as Culture: Essays on Media and Society. Boston: Unwin Hyman.
Chandler, D. (1995) Semiotics for Beginners. Retrieved on August 13, 2004 from http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem09.html
Chilton, P. and Lakoff, G. (1995) Foreign policy by metaphor. In C. Schäffner and A. Wenden (eds) Language and Peace, 37–59. Aldershot: Dartmouth Publishing.
Errico, M., with April, J., Asch, A., Khalfani, L., Smith, M. A. and Ybarra, X. R. (1996) The evolution of the summary news lead. Retrieved on August 13, 2004 from http://www.scripps.ohiou.edu/mediahistory/mhmjour1-1.htm
Fishman, M. (1980) Manufacturing the News. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Fowler, R. (1991) Language in the News: Discourse and Ideology in the Press. London: Routledge.
Fox, W. (1977) Writing the News: Print Journalism in the Electronic Age. New York: Hastings House.
Galtung, J. and Holmboe Ruge, M. (1970 [1965]) The structure of foreign news. In J. Tunstall (ed.) Media Sociology, 259–298. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Halliday, M. (1994) An Introduction to Functional Grammar. Second edition. London: Edward Arnold.
Hartley, J. (1982) Understanding News. London: Methuen.
Jukes, S. (2002) Real-time responsibility – journalism’s challenges in an instantaneous age. Harvard International Review 24 (2) 14–18. Retrieved on August 13, 2004 from http://hir.harvard.edu/archives/1016
Kearsarge Regional High School (n.d.) Syllabus. Retrieved on August 13, 2004 from http://www.kearsarge.k12.nh.us/~klee/166syllabus.htm
Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. (1980) Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Reuters (2008) Reuters Handbook of Journalism. Retrieved on March 10, 2014 from http://handbook.reuters.com/index.php?title=Main_Page
Scanlan, C. (2000) Reporting and Writing: Basics for the 21st Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sigal, L. V. (1986) Sources make the news. In R. K. Manoff and M. Schudson (eds) Reading the News, 9–37. New York: Pantheon Books.
Silverman, M. and Carroll, K. (2005) AP reminds staff about policy. Retrieved on May 14, 2007 from http://www.apme.com/committees/credibility/061705apletter.shtml
Stenvall, M. (1995) The last round of the Maastricht poker game: A study of news agency language. Language Forum 3 (1–2): 1–57.
Stenvall, M. (2008) Unnamed sources as rhetorical constructs in news agency reports. Journalism Studies 9 (2): 229–243. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14616700701848279
Tuchman, G. (1978) Making News: A Study in the Construction of Reality. New York: Free Press.
Tunstall, J. (1999) World news duopoly. In H. Tumber (ed.) News: A Reader, 191–200. New York: Oxford University Press. Reprinted from J. Tunstall and D. Machin (1999) The Anglo-American Media Connection. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
University of Minnesota Duluth (n.d.) Media communications course program. Retrieved on August 13, 2004 from http://www.d.umn.edu/~dpeters1/comm3505-1/spring04syllabus.htm
van Dijk, T. A. (1988) News as Discourse. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
White, P. R. R. (1998) Telling Media Tales: The News Story as Rhetoric. Unpublished PhD Dissertation, University of Sydney.