Deciding What's News:
Diamond, Edwin
Books: MESSAGE FOR THE MEDIA HERBERT GANS is a distinguished DECIDING WHArs...
...So do mountain climrepresentatives, government officials, THIRD, GANS ARGUES, the news is bers, stubborn eccentrics and ethnics demayors, police officers, corporation shaped by values as well as consid- fending in their enclaves...
...The year of two papal conmore bottom up journalism hardly consti- by Andrew Greeley in The claves...
...This is called participant- all the news magazine men began coming Herbert J. Gans observation in sociology...
...That includes Political ideologies are suspect, but then public officials...
...Greeley and "Deep Purple;' you'll tutes a radical proposal, it does provoke Greeley, an eminent priest, see what happened-and how...
...That, he The College of Cardinals...
...But, the contemporary jourscarce resources-people, news space, racy should be removed (though nothing nalist's Enduring Values are very much air time...
...erations of power and efficiency...
...body counts...
...senators, Jacob Javits and Robert Ken- event-centered, so-called mirror theory, Straight off, let me state my involve- nedy...
...to the office in shirts with epaulets and all the reporter who wins permission to the women were going out and buying watch others at work is known as a fly- big glasses-we wish for a little more on-the-wall...
...First, he has life at the news achievement...
...P.S...
...law that affected millions of workers, groups these Enduring Values under 8. Leadership-Moral, competent and all the news media, daily and eight heads...
...urbs produce conformity and boredom...
...New technology is demonstrates, comes from those he calls become better known...
...Almost eight in every nor anyone else can, in the end, proceed scorns both highbrows and lowbrows...
...In a word, it is unprecedented...
...That's all the reporter these explanations, it's clear that none of ers, especially insiders, understand what really wanted anyway...
...Like the rest of us, Gans wants photo opportunities and pervasively use are more newsworthy than people, other news that meets his needs and his values...
...THE REV FREDERICK SHRIVER is professor of church history at the General Theological Seminary, New York...
...Meet thevorld's Still, as a realist, Gans doesn't want the journalist's non-integrated to est politicians paraideology to become a consistent ideology, even a left ideology...
...admittedly his views are im- leaders maintain the social order...
...executives, church leaders, celebrities...
...The president, our than the, very rich, who cheat on their He would like for himself a more liberal most known Known, is always seen and taxes...
...As Gans puts it, jourparticipant-observer ever again to find York headquarters and the bureaus...
...the news machine...
...version of the Washington Post and the heard: he has source power and his White 4. Small Town Pastoralism-Cities New York Times, but with far more news House image makers usually know how breed crime, conflict and default...
...Poor people testify, so does a cost...
...ten of these stories, he says, came from without values...
...Press...
...the relations between New make the news...
...Extremism is bad, foreign and domestic stories in the New ful...
...gays and others have learned how to individual must be preserved against the Names just don't make news...
...But Gans makes up for life in Boston's North End (The Urban his small kindnesses with his analysis of Villagers) and life in suburbia (The Levit- Gans's achievement takes place on news "objectivity"-his second major towners...
...I'm glad I helped open those doors 100 American newspapers...
...He also wants stories about Richard John Neuhaus now mostly only of historical interest...
...in journalism, Pantheon, $12.95, 393 pp...
...For America, he knows he has to On the other side, until recently, the Un- But the small town affirms the Jeffer- ask for something a bit different...
...The Unknowns-the sociologists and book reviewers...
...The reporter figures not much events determine the news, and jour...
...THOMAS V. McGOVERN is an assistant professor of psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University, and also a counselor in the MidLife Counseling...
...integrated-the journalist's paraideol(and a lot of dithering in the executive Political machines are bad...
...Books: MESSAGE FOR THE MEDIA HERBERT GANS is a distinguished DECIDING WHArs NEWS: studied...
...Most news, Gans needs, in ways it can use them, they have puters and data banks...
...A second model is readers and viewers-are in his debt...
...values its own above all...
...Previously, Gans has used Edwin Diamond wicked observation and Halberstameanthis technique superbly to tell us about style anecdote...
...Son in his determining forces, sometimes 1960s when I was a. big-time editor at pitch he offers a film bite of Kennedy technological...
...poor, the black, the unemployed, the en- values are not always explicit, although 7. Social Order-Threats to the nalisted men in Vietnam-tend to make the media consumers long ago learned to tion, the society and the system are bad...
...tions_ He exposes the unpious ELEANOR B. WYMARD is an associate professor in the English department of Carlow College, Pittsburgh...
...and selling of stories among editors and rate out certain actors and activities to Nobody ought to bother to be a reporters...
...Indeed, weekly, gave far more space and time, as pressionistic, but they ring true...
...as in Marshall McLuhan), Newsweek and when Gans first started plus other highlights and a possible inter- somtimes cultural or...
...He quotes me -and people view with two southern congressmen ists, for example, may consider jourI've known most of my professional who will add drama and balance by de- nalists as public relations people for life-throughout (the quotes are, quite nouncing the hunger do-gooders...
...the Kennedy piece the news in America...
...gate of beliefs that are not fully thought A time/motion checker would find a lot 2. Altruistic Democracy-Politics out, nor consistent nor wellof dawdling on the news assembly line should.be based on the public interest...
...televi- news is shaped by the professional news trying to write down the unwritten rules sion news with its greater space/time judgments of journalists (Nixon-Agnew of journalism...
...While journalists try to be objective, including atheism, religious fanaticism, York Times and the Washington Post (our that is, fair and balanced, "neither they and conspicuous consumption...
...waste is evil...
...is Senior Editor of Worldvie w and author most eye-witness to both Papal elec- I recently of Freedom for Ministry...
...considerations (social scientists better "summer read," but Gans delivers congressman, and New York's two favor this model...
...in his final section Knowns know how to stage news confer- deserving poor need help, but welfare he makes the case for another kind of ences, prepare press releases, provide cheaters are a continuing menace-and press...
...national big-media journalism, visiting magazines and the television news organ- The news, of course, is not objective...
...Gans discusses four general tional news organizations work...
...Greeley also had several inside claves called to elect successors Vatican sources, including "Deep to Pope Paul VI and Pope John Purple:" Paul 1. It is an honest look at the REVIEWERS The Making of the Popes 1978 Barque of Saint Peter, and, in the EDWIN DIAMOND, a journalist and broadcast is a brilliant combination of end, a hopeful one"-Father Theodore White's analytical gifts Theodore M. Hesburgh, presicritic, heads the News Study group at M.I.T...
...and Woodward-Bemstein's dent, U niversity of Notre Dame His latest book, Good News, Bad News, was aggressive, solidly-documented recently published by the M.I.T...
...the rest were bar- the above suffices as an explanation for journalists do, why we do it, and what gaining chips...
...ship that emerged from the confor him back in the late 1960s...
...Now thanks to Andrew Making of the Popes 1978...
...Journalists obviunconscious values help shape "objec- didn't make the final line-up, getting ously work in both an economic system tive" news coverage...
...These so arc politicians without principle...
...The capitalism, and the news as a new opiate properly, anonymous...
...The tation of workers...
...Mostly', Un- I 'plagued by labor problems," or the fact riots, news organizations stressed the knowns don't get in the news...
...the nalists must routinize their task to make it out how the news is made and how na- editorial jockeying for position and turf manageable...
...ment in this book...
...tion, or an irony, about the journalists he news stresses three elements- the power 22 June 1979: ?75 of official sources, the need for effi- manage the news or their own images...
...Marxhis research...
...When he does, for example, sociologist who, in the best tradition A STUDY OF CBS EVENING NEWS, when his sociologist's eye spots an unof his profession, gets out of his study NBC NIGHTLY NEWS, NEWSWEEK derlying conformity in big league and spends time with the people he's AND TIME journalist-individuals-that time when writing about...
...ogy...
...Service at that institution...
...sponsible capitalism-to prevent the illustrated by the day in 1974 when Con- More fundamental are what Gans calls reoccurrence of trouble...
...RICHARD JOHN NEUHAUS, a Lutheran pastor, Greeley actually makes you an...
...turn makes the Knowns-already power- should be competitive, but ought not Gans's description fits the national ful claimants of ink and air time-even seek unreasonable profits or gross exploi- press, and many journalists might more attractive sources of the news...
...In this he surely knows, were perfectly familiar ing "bottom up" journalism through a quasi-national foundation is perhaps the weakest part of his book...
...Gans has succeeded, and crunch, and the resulting "highlighting offered a demagogue's version of this the rest of us-journalists as well as our of the highlights...
...Gans finds that it does not fit on any offices...
...Poverty is bad, and the cherish it...
...On page 76, I am a newsworthy has happened-the anti- nalists only hold up mirrors to reflect friend "from college days" who opened hunger movement is making its same reality...
...Gans (ah...
...He raises believes, would dampen the open- political contests on earth...
...CBS News, NBC News, Time, and izations neatly figured out: the buying Some principles' of selection must sepaNewsweek as a sociological superfly...
...Gans's own model of the way...
...news only when they appear to threaten spot the more blatant locutions-the city Stability is good...
...sub- analysis and more stories about ordinary to serve up the news cheaply and quickly...
...That was back in the late likes Bobby Kennedy stories...
...Now he has done the same for three levels...
...Nobody can read crowded out by other film...
...economic...
...people...
...nalism today...
...Gans goes out with a model...
...Political obstacles to democ- America...
...But, he reasons, "New York" explains the news in terms of outside observer Gans...
...the enemy dead is measured in Values in the news, Gans sees an aggrespeaks about is not industrial efficiency...
...After the 1960's ghetto or to confound the Knowns...
...network reporter on a Washington as- organizational-centered, looking at David Halberstam's Irving Wallace-style signment to cover a news conference on structures, at divisions of labor and at narrative, The Powers That Be, may be a hunger...
...those duels on the staircase...
...Here, I 6. Moderatism- Individualism must Gans cites one content analysis of 2,850 think, Gans is at his best, and most use- not be carried too far...
...But the news assembly line Government- officials must be closely current conventional left-right scale in nevertheless demands the allocation of watched...
...But what he New York producer, as the reporter ex- of the masses...
...why corporations have so much power, He is extremely confident about what is about why poverty, unemployment, ra- OHN HICK gets himself into something and is not believable to modern man, and cism and sexism are still with us...
...We rec- social process should be determined by well as headlines, to the appointment of ognize these olds in the news: people of skill and charisma, not by inNelson Rockefeller to the second-highest 1. Ethnocentrism-American news stitutions...
...tive core of the Christian faith, leaving power are still so unequally divided in aside the mass of intellectual barnacles, America...
...PETER STEINFELS is executive editor of The Pblitics of Intrigue in theVatican Commonweal and the author of The Neo- $l2.9 at book and department stores conservatives, the Men Who Are Changing America's Politics, about to be published by Simon & Schuster...
...He would like to see Denying both logic and history stories told from the point of the bottom up, rather than from official sources and established authority...
...They political intrigues that are the elect a Pope in one of the greatest rule in Vatican politics...
...News organizations have to de- very much is said about economic obsta- like the values of the Progressive Moveliver news to their audiences at a pre- cles...
...dangerous...
...The news, in gress approved a change in the pension the Enduring Values in the news...
...A third model is the real news about news...
...ment of the early twentieth century...
...reporting...
...As a mild left- THE CENTER OF CHRISTIANITY rewrite of his Christianity at the Center socialist, he wants more economic John Hick (1970) Hick wants to set forth "the posistories, more analysis of why wealth and Harper & Row, $6.95, 128 pp...
...thought in a craft not given to reflection...
...Perhaps that Stokely Carmichael "turned up" need for political and social reform-for the place of ordinary people in the somewhere while on the same day the more altruistic democracy and more renews," he writes, "is most dramatically president "arrived" somewhere else...
...He sel- also an aggregate of subinterests and extension, other news outlets-in a fresh dom permits himself a personal observa- subcultures...
...American GI's Stepping back from these Enduring The efficiency consideration that Gans die...
...questions that only someone of mindedness he sees in the best of jour- Behind closed doors...
...He knowns did not know how to stage- sonian values of nature and indepen- wishes that the news carried more news Commonweal: 376 of American society, of the Unknowns and the ignored...
...sociologist and journalist TIME "Father Greeley's book conGans has made us look behind the news calls him "an informational ma- tains interpretative reporting chine gun" ~ covered last year's necessary to the understanding of in a fresh way and think about what we two historic conclaves for over the new style of ecclesial leadersee...
...22 June 1979: 377...
...Not Gans...
...Self-made men and women the Knowns-the president, senators, attract coverage...
...To dence (apotheosized in Charles Kuralt's ciency in news operations, and what he the extent that Unknowns, such as "On The Road...
...The news two best papers...
...and a nationl cultural environment...
...He's t of a bind, and that is too bad because is constantly asserting "recent" and not sure how many people will buy this the intention and intelligence behind the "newly discovered" viewpoints that, as kind of news, and his proposal for fund- book are deserving of respect...
...learned from us he has taken and put in a pected, buys only Kennedy, and only the . While Gans sees some merit in each of larger, systematic frame that helps insid- highlight of it...
...But, his analysis without looking at television If anything, Gans is too kind in his as Gans points out, the United States is news and the news magazines-and by description of editorial reality...
...Doors his stature dare ask and answer...
...ironic style of news magazine prose and journalist-centered, the idea that the One of his sources said to him, you are the highlighting of the dramatic...
...the models of selectivity and routine...
...While Gans's case for which have finally been opened 1978...
...The scheduled time, and this requirement in 3. Responsible Capitalism-Business press is reformist, circa 1905...
...official serve up materials the news machine inroads of society-and especially comnames make news...
...He short, supports the existing social order...
...One is has now written the book on the subject...
...calls the paraideology of American jour- blacks, women, Chicanos, pro-lifers, 5. Individualism-The freedom of the nalists...
...office in the land...
...A fourth,model, really models, the doors at Newsweek for participant- points...
Vol. 106 • June 1979 • No. 12
