Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures and tables
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I The process and practice of everyday journalism
- Part II Conceptualizing the news
- 4 News values and their significance in text and practice
- 5 The “story meeting”: Deciding what's fit to print
- 6 The interaction-based nature of journalism
- Part III Constructing the story: texts and contexts
- Part IV Decoding the discourse
- Conclusion and key points
- Epilogue
- Appendices
- Glossary of news and linguistic terms
- References
- Index
5 - The “story meeting”: Deciding what's fit to print
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures and tables
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I The process and practice of everyday journalism
- Part II Conceptualizing the news
- 4 News values and their significance in text and practice
- 5 The “story meeting”: Deciding what's fit to print
- 6 The interaction-based nature of journalism
- Part III Constructing the story: texts and contexts
- Part IV Decoding the discourse
- Conclusion and key points
- Epilogue
- Appendices
- Glossary of news and linguistic terms
- References
- Index
Summary
KEY POINTS
The story meeting – the regular daily meetings of editors to discuss news and decide story play – is the predominant “speech event” in the news-production process. It serves a gate-keeping function, as well as a place to negotiate and reinforce journalistic identity through discussion of news stories and their placement.
In the meetings, news values are invoked by different editors to resolve differences of opinion and support positions. Story meeting negotiations of newsworthiness are a more internally situated (and thus not visible) function of a newspaper's priorities and commitments than the editorial pages.
Issues of craft and community are reified in the story meeting, through explicit reference to them.
Looking at the process of newsgathering requires a focus on the dynamic and emergent, as well as the patterned and habitual. The “story meeting” (or “budget meeting,” as it is also known) is one such patterned and dynamic event. Several times a day, editors gather to talk about the major stories that will appear in the coming day's paper, discussing and arguing for stories eligible for Page One. The story meeting, as a recurrent speech event where a great deal of professional activity is performed and decisions are made, is a primary setting for the daily negotiation and reinforcement of professional values. The story meeting, and the discursive activities that comprise the story meeting, predominate in the news process.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- News TalkInvestigating the Language of Journalism, pp. 88 - 109Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010