Sources, Credibility and the Continuing Crisis of UK Journalism

Abstract

This chapter argues that the crisis confronting UK journalism, which is undermining both the fi nancial viability and editorial integrity of UK local and national newspapers, has a longer tap root into the history of UK journalism than many observers suggest. One aspect of the crisis that has received considerable emphasis has been journalists’ increasing reliance on PR materials to fi ll their editorial columns in the context of a growing problem with profi tability which has triggered job cuts and declining resources within the journalism industry (Franklin, 2008, 2009b; Phillips, 2010; Starr, 2009). Drawing on the fi ndings of early studies conducted since the mid 1980s, this chapter illustrates that journalists in the local and national press have always relied heavily on sources in public relations not only to set their editorial agenda, but to actually deliver stories which directly shape their editorial copy. The fi nancial recession since 2008 has undoubtedly exacerbated this relationship of dependence, but evidently and logically, has not created it. Distinguished Editor John Lloyd, current Director of Journalism at Oxford University, argues that journalism’s alleged separation from PR has rested too often on little more than a “grossly self serving” myth which “glosses over the fact that much of current journalism . . . is public relations in the sense that stories, ideas, features and even interviews are either suggested, or in the extreme actually written by public relations people” (Lloyd, cited in Fletcher, 2006).

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