By Miles Maguire (University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh)
And Ivor Shapiro (Ryerson University)

About the authors

Miles Maguire (maguirem@uwosh.edu) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Journalism at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, 800 Algoma Boulevard, Oshkosh, WI 54901, USA. Ivor Shapiro (ishapiro@ryerson.ca) is an Associate Professor in the School of Journalism at Ryerson University, 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, ON M5B 2K3, Canada.

Abstract

This longitudinal review and textual analysis compares pivotal contributions to the literature of quality in journalism over the past four decades with equivalent literature on quality control in other industries written over the same period time. The roots of quality scholarship as a branch of management theory can be traced to the 1930s, but it was only in the second half of the 20th Century that quality was recognized as more than a narrow engineering discipline. During that time four major figures emerged: Crosby, Deming, Feigenbaum and Juran. A comparison of their works to those of key figures in the literature on journalism quality (including Merrill, Bogart, Gladney, Kim and Meyer, and Kovach and Rosenstiel) reveal a striking difference concerning the role of customers’ expectations in defining quality. While quality theorists focus on matching products to what customers seek, journalists’ criteria of quality tend to be drawn from their own values. Several questions merit further analysis, concerning not just how and by whom quality may be defined, but the role of corporate and professional culture and the impact of the immediacy of audience response thanks to current technologies.

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Scholarly discussions of journalism quality frequently originate with the work of John C. Merrill, who in the 1960s pioneered an effort to define what makes a newspaper great. The primary tool that he used was the survey, by which he began to identify, and then assemble lists of, indicators of journalism quality as perceived by experts such as professors of journalism. In a seminal 1964 article published in Journalism Quarterly, Merrill acknowledged shortcomings to his approach while expressing hope that his findings might “at least open this rather hazy area to serious consideration and […] perhaps result in further research.” Research into the matter of journalism quality has continued for nearly five decades, but the haziness remains. As Shapiro notes, writing in 2010, “The lack of a widely recognized framework for assessing quality or excellence in journalism amounts to a fog of aspiration.” This paper seeks to inject a set of concepts and a terminology that have been absent from most considerations of journalistic quality by comparing the development of the engineering and management discipline of quality, sometimes called quality control, with the evolution of journalistic considerations of quality since the 1960s. The use of this perspective may not necessarily pierce the clouds that surround the evaluation of journalistic excellence, and could well add another layer of disputation. But given that the body of knowledge about quality is so extensive and has been deployed in so many other fields, it seems reasonable to believe that at least some of the tenets of quality may help to illuminate the discussion of quality in a journalistic context.

The methodology employed is a longitudinal review and textual analysis in which key works on journalism quality are compared with the writings of four major figures in the field of quality management and quality control. This analysis will show how the scholarly discourse about journalism quality has evolved in a way that has been for the most part untouched by the way that approaches to quality have developed in other fields.

Icons of quality

The four quality theorists who have been chosen for review are Philip Crosby, W. Edwards Deming, Armand V. Feigenbaum, and Joseph M. Juran. All four of the men played active roles in the emergence of quality management as a key component of business strategy and operations during the second half of the 20^th Century. One indicator of the status that they enjoy in the field is that all four have had prestigious awards, in the form of medals that are bestowed annually, named after them by ASQ, an organization that was long known as the American Society for Quality and that is recognized as the leading international authority on quality.

• Philip Crosby’s contributions to quality theory can be summarized by a quote from his 1989 book, Let’s Talk Quality: “Zero defects is a symbolic way of saying ‘do it right the first time’” (Crosby, 1989, p. 63). Trained as a foot surgeon, he developed his ideas about quality while working first at Martin Marietta and later at International Telephone and Telegraph. In his view, achieving high levels of quality was possible at little net cost because the expense of reworking defective products or repairing relationships with unhappy customers was so great. If workers could be trained to do things right the first time with a goal of eliminating all errors, long-runs costs would fall enough to offset the initial cost of training and implementing new production methods (Crosby, 1979, p. 121-122). Although Crosby went on to become a highly successful consultant with clients among carmakers, technology firms, and hospitals, his ideas remained controversial within the quality field. Crosby argued that his main goal was to change attitudes about what was possible, even if that meant specifying an impossible goal (Crosby, 1989, p. 67). Other quality leaders, many of whom were trained in statistics, criticized his approach as misleading because it did not recognize the kind of random deviations that they argued were present in any system and could never be eliminated (Crosby, 1989: 79).
• W. Edwards Deming. Of the four quality theorists discussed in this paper, Deming is the one who has received the most attention in the popular media and who came the closest to getting American journalists to revamp their approach to quality, although in the end his ideas were emphatically rejected by editors at The New York Times. Deming and his ideas about quality were spotlighted in a 1980 documentary by the National Broadcasting Company called “If Japan Can … Why Can’t We?” At the time American companies, particularly in the manufacturing sector, seemed to be falling further behind their Japanese competitors, and so many of NBC’s viewers were surprised to learn that the Japanese credited their success in reducing costs and improving reliability to an American whose name was hardly known in his own country: Deming. Over the previous three decades he had been teaching Japanese managers how to use his methods, which were based on statistical analysis but extended into the realm of organizational culture and management behavior. One of his major contributions to quality theory was his insistence that quality problems were not the result of worker inattention but of bad management. He insisted on the need for corporations to “adopt the new philosophy” of focusing on long-term results and rejecting established standards of acceptable quality (Deming, 1986, p. 26-27). Many executives, not just those at the Times, found his manner off-putting, but he is credited with making corporations such as Ford Motor Company quality leaders (Aguayo, 1990, p. 5).
• Armand V. Feigenbaum. The phrase most frequently associated with Feigenbaum is “total quality,” which began as “total quality control” and was enlarged to “total quality management.” It is an approach that emphasizes a “systematic body of principles, practices, and technologies” (Feigenbaum, 1961, p. vii) and likewise a systematic approach to identifying and preventing quality breakdowns based on detailed schematics that map out a company’s operations  (Feigenbaum, 1961, p. 177-178). Feigenbaum, who holds a doctorate degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was the manager of worldwide manufacturing operations and quality control for General Electric Company, before forming his own consulting company, General Systems. One of his contributions to quality theory is the idea of the hidden production capacity within an organization that is caused by the diversion of resources to deal with quality breakdowns that might have been prevented in the first place. Higher quality, he argued, also means greater capacity, leading to more products, more customers, and more profits. But too many organizations, he wrote, “have been spending [their] quality dollars the wrong way” by focusing too heavily on inspection, what he called “appraisal,” as opposed to prevention (Feigenbaum, 1961, p. 84).
• Joseph J. Juran, a native of Romania, is, along with Deming, credited with helping the Japanese use quality management to become an economic superpower in the decades following World War II.  It could be said that Juran “wrote the book on quality” since his Quality Control Handbook, which first appeared in 1951, became a best-selling standard reference on the topic and was updated numerous times before his death in 2008. Juran helped popularize the Pareto Principle, the so-called 80-20 rule, in addressing quality issues. In Juran’s application of this concept, most problems, roughly 80 percent, could be traced to a handful of items, 20 percent of all potential causes. He used this construct to urge managers to direct most of their attention to the “vital few” while keeping the “useful many” under less guarded scrutiny (Juran, 1995, p. 540). Juran was also known for the “Juran Trilogy,” which broke the quality management process into three phases: planning, implementation, and ongoing improvement. (Juran, 1988, p. 2, 7). In this way he emphasized the need to take a dynamic approach to quality, recognizing that it would take continuous effort to improve quality levels.

In manufacturing, a focus on outcomes

Perhaps the way that quality management differs the most from quality in a purely journalistic sense is the specificity with which it addresses desired outcomes. Quality management adopts a results orientation that is often missing from discussions of journalism quality. In the same year that Merrill published his journal article, two of the major theorists of quality—as understood in a broader industrial context—also published books, although one was actually a reprint of a much earlier work. Both of these books demonstrate a far more pragmatic approach to quality than the one that Merrill articulated.

Deming’s book, Statistical Adjustments of Data, was, true to its name, largely about the technical issues associated with adjusting statistical information, but he begins by establishing a context for what he is about to explain, arguing that the accumulation of data should not be an idle intellectual exercise. Rather, “it must be understood that the purpose of taking the measurement is to use it for doing something,” Deming writes, adding in italics, “The object of taking data is to provide a basis for action.” (Deming, 1964, p. 1.) This is a stark contrast with Merrill’s purpose, to stimulate interest among journalism professors and perhaps provoke “additional … study” (Merrill, 1964, p. 572). In other words, the consideration of journalism quality begins with the idea of studying it some more, whereas quality theorists begin with the idea that the research that they do should be focused on a particular problem that needs to be solved.

Also in 1964 Juran published a slim volume that contained his thoughts on the proper role of managers. The book was called Managerial Breakthrough, and it laid out what Juran saw as the two key responsibilities of the manager: first to establish control over operations and secondly to establish the conditions for an organization to break through to higher levels of performance. In newsroom terms, this kind of approach might translate, for example, into the simultaneous elimination of factual errors in articles and initiation of some project, perhaps an investigation or perhaps the redesign of an existing section, which would lead to a markedly positive response on the part of readers.

By this point, in the mid-1960s, quality practitioners had begun to shift the focus away from control, an inspection-based process by which defective products are caught before they are delivered to customers. In 1961, Feigenbaum published Total Quality Control, a book that urged a systematic approach to quality that would lead to products that would be more attractive to customers, less expensive to make, and less frustrating for workers to deal with (Feigenbaum, 1961, p. 22). In this book, Feigenbaum also laid out his belief that quality cannot be pursued in an ideal, or absolute fashion. Quality, he argued, depends on the circumstances, and specifically on the expectations of the customer. Quality “means ‘best for certain customer conditions’” (Feigenbaum, 1961, p. 1).

If journalism scholars and journalists were largely unaware of these developments in the field of quality management in the 1960s, they were not alone. Many American companies at the time still approached quality as a matter of inspection and detection, spotting substandard products after they were made and trying to keep them out of the hands of consumers. In news-organization terms, we might see the primitive inspection-focused concept of quality as equivalent to the provision of copy desks and proof readers at the expense of strategic assignment and training of reporters and editors – clearly important, but not enough to assure good work. According to Juran’s history of quality management, in the decades immediately after World War II, at most companies “there was no organized approach for quality improvement—for improving the processes so as to reduce the incidence of defects and field failures” (Juran, 1995, p. 562).

In journalism, a focus on editors’ criteria

Merrill expanded on his 1964 article in two books, The Elite Press, published in 1968, and The World’s Great Dailies, published in 1980. The first of these, which proposed a pyramid of the elite press ranked by perceived quality, was “quite controversial” and, perhaps not surprisingly, “received its greatest criticism from those who were unhappy with such lists and rankings” (Merrill & Fisher, 1980, p. xi). For the second book, Merrill abandoned the idea of qualitative rankings and instead, along with a co-author, resorted to “arbitrarily selecting the newspapers ourselves for inclusion” ” (Merrill & Fisher, 1980, p. xi). Nonetheless the authors said they were guided by a set of standards that had been developed through consultation with experts, including an international panel of editors and a cross-section of American journalism professors. While readers played no direct role in determining which papers were among the great dailies of the world, Merrill did acknowledge the connection between a particular audience and a particular kind of journalism. Great newspapers, he said, are aimed at elite audiences whose members are “better educated and have a greater interest in public affairs than the average readers of the mass (or popular) press” (Merrill & Fisher, 1980, p. 9). In this formulation, newspapers that attracted a mass audience, by definition, were not quality newspapers.
The same year, the idea that only journalists are qualified to assess journalistic quality received further affirmation with the publication of Press and Public: Who Reads What, When, Where, and Why in American Newspapers by sociologist Leo Bogart, who wrote: “Editors’ judgments are, by definition, impeccable when it comes to evaluating quality in journalism. Who else, after all, can set standards of excellence?” (Bogart, 1989, p. 239.) This statement comes towards the end of the book, after Bogart has noted two major inconsistencies in his research and just before he is about to address the most important one of all.

The first inconsistency that he noted related to the degree to which readers and editors agreed about what factors were the most important contributors to the value of a newspaper. Since Bogart did not believe that readers had a role to play in judging journalistic quality, he did not ask about their yardsticks for measuring quality but merely about what caught their interest.  Here he found substantial overlap, as four of the top seven items readers ranked highly as important to them were also seen as strong indicators of editorial quality: “the number of letters to the editor, a high ratio of illustrations to text, a high ratio of staff-written copy, and a high ‘readability’ score” (Bogart, 1989, p. 198). Such a finding would seem to undercut the premises on which Merrill, Bogart, and many other journalism scholars have proceeded—that news audiences are unqualified or unequipped to judge journalistic quality and that therefore there must be irreconcilable differences between producers and consumers of journalism when it comes to evaluating news coverage.

The second inconsistency noted by Bogart related to the effect of improved content quality on business success. Bogart was especially concerned about the possible link between editorial quality and business success, as measured by circulation. But his data showed no obvious link, as papers that were gaining readers and those that were losing readers were “objectively identical” in important aspects of their editorial practices (Bogart, 1989, p. 200). Bogart argued that this disconnect suggests that circulation losses were the fault of marketing, “problems of selling and promotion,” as opposed to editorial decisions (Bogart, 1989, p. 200). Editing, for him, was one thing; distribution another thing entirely. While that dichotomy reflects a traditional and well-grounded value on a “church-state” separation of editorial and publishing functions, it also highlights how far the idea of a systematic “total quality” approach—encompassing both content and distribution strategies—was from the journalistic mindset of the time.

A third major discrepancy that Bogart found further illustrates the way that the tenets of quality management were not part of newsroom culture in the early 1980s.  He cited several surveys that showed the editors simply did not know their readers as well as they thought they did, in some cases significantly overestimating and in other cases significantly underestimating reader interest in certain kinds of stories. One practical result of this mismatch was that editors were running more feature material than readers said they wanted. As a result their efforts to “build audience rather than to enhance editorial quality” seem to be meeting neither objective (Bogart, 1989, p. 245).

Bogart’s influence in shaping the way journalism research has approached quality can be seen in the way his 1980 book, reissued in a second edition in 1989, formed the basis for two quality assessment articles published in the spring 1990 Newspaper Research Journal. Lacy and Fico’s “Newspaper Quality & Ownership: Rating the Groups” used a news quality index based on Bogart’s and supplemented seven of the attributes identified by newspaper editors with one additional measure to gauge the workload of reporters. The researchers found no “systematic effect” on quality that was based on group ownership. They argued for more studies of this type and made clear that they believed that readers were unable, on their own, to discern editorial quality. Like Bogart and Merrill before them, Lacy and Fico operated on the assumption that readers would not be able to form accurate assessments of news quality without an assist from experts. Since the researchers were worried that newspaper chains could cut back on spending to achieve news quality, they suggested the development of “systematic quality indexes to identify those newspaper groups and even individual newspapers that are providing low levels of quality” and then making these evaluations available to readers for “the newspapers they receive” (Lacy & Fico, 1990, p. 52).

The second Newspaper Research Journal article, Gladney’s “Newspaper Excellence: How Editors of Small & Large Papers Judge Quality,” relied on a survey of editors from papers of various sizes to test Bogart’s assertion that “editing appears to be a profession whose members really have common values.” The results were mixed, with general areas of agreement but also findings that small-paper editors put more value on the role that a newspaper plays within its community. Gladney raised the possibility of a survey of the public to clarify the expectations of community service by small papers, but for the most part his work supports the status quo idea that standards of journalistic excellence are the province of journalists, journalism educators, and journalism scholars and critics. (Galdney, 1990).

Half a dozen years later Gladney returned to the issue of quality assessment at large and small papers but this time focused on the ways that readers would or would not agree with the judgments of professional journalists. As Bogart did before him, Gladney, using a survey methodology, found that readers and editors “agree … on the most important standards of newspaper quality.” These were identified as “integrity, strong local news coverage, impartiality, accuracy, editorial independence, and good writing.” But, again like Bogart, Gladney found that editors misunderstood readers in significant ways, overestimating the public appetite for scandal and underestimating its desire for through, serious reporting. Some of the things that mattered most to editors, such as design and staff enterprise, did not matter nearly as much to readers, who said they put greater emphasis on a “lack of sensationalism and decency” than did editors (Gladney, 1996, p. 327).

From customer input to corporate culture

During the 1980s a range of industries had experienced what Juran called a “quality crisis” that “forced many Western companies to reexamine their approach” (Juran, 1988, p. vii). This reconsideration necessarily entailed further analysis of a subject that many executives may have considered already well-settled: how to define quality. But as Juran pointed out, “Reaching agreement on what is meant by quality is not simple” (Juran, 1988, p. 15). Juran’s preferred definition of quality is “fitness for use”  (Juran, 1988, p. 15), but he acknowledges that even this short phrase is problematic because it can encompass two distinct realms: product features that satisfy customer needs or, conversely, an absence of defects. In the end, he argues, the precise definition that an organization chooses to use is not nearly as important as making sure that everyone working in that organization shares the same understanding of what the word signifies (Juran, 1988, p. 18).

This problem of defining quality is an issue that other quality management theorists also addressed, or continued to address. A decade earlier Crosby had defined quality as “conformance to requirements,” again reflecting the idea of quality as a relative rather than absolute measure. A Cadillac, he said, was a quality car so long as it conformed to the requirements of a Cadillac. At the same time, a Pinto could be a quality car so long as it “conforms to all the requirements of a Pinto.” This approach, Crosby argued, would help to clear up other misconceptions about quality, such as that it cannot be measured and that it is costly (Crosby, 1979, p. 17-18).

Deming had also explored the challenges in defining quality, as well as the potential pitfalls in reacting to customer input. In his 1986 book Out of the Crisis, Deming noted that certain fields, such as education and medical care, present especially difficult problems in quality definition and measurement. But across all fields, he argued, the problem is the same: trying to take what customers are saying now and extrapolating from that to what customers will want in the future. While many quality theorists privilege the role of the customer in setting quality standards, Deming was cautious. The customer does not understand the product well enough to speculate about how it should be improved—such decisions belong to the producer. According to Deming, “A consumer can seldom say today what new product or what new service would be desirable and useful to him three years from now, or a decade from now” (Deming, 1986, p. 182).

As a result, a producer needs to proceed in a systematic way to make use of customer input using an approach that is sometimes called the Deming cycle, although Deming credited it to Walter A. Shewhart, a mentor and a Bell Labs scientist who is often described as the inventor of statistical quality control. The four step Deming/Shewhard process consists of planning, doing, checking, and acting, so that a new feature or product is designed, marketed, tested for customer acceptance, and then revised based on customer response. In Deming’s view successful companies repeated this cycle in a “helix of continual improvement of satisfaction of the customer, at lower and lower cost.” But the producer was always the driver of the process. Product improvements do not come from talking to the customer, Deming said, but “by knowledge, imagination, innovation, risk, trial, and error on the part of the producer” (Deming, 1986, p. 182).

The latter formulation will, perhaps, strike journalists and journalism scholars as more familiar than some other concepts surrounding quality engineering, and not only because it seems close to the way journalists think about leading rather than merely following audience interests. Unlike products that are mass-produced from a die or template, journalism’s most important products are produced from scratch day-by-day or minute-by-minute as a result of new-found original knowledge and the exercise of producers’ knowledge and imagination. (On the essential part that “imagination” plays in the production of journalism, see Adam, 1993.)

Understanding and managing quality, therefore, may start (in the minds of quality theorists but not journalists) with understanding customer’s needs, but for Deming and others, it by no means ends there. As quality management evolved from its factory roots in measuring and improving production processes, the leading theorists placed greater emphasis on the need to change management practices. As Juran noted, quality management practices were based on ones that Japanese companies had successfully deployed in rebuilding after World War II. He cited four in particular: upper management taking responsibility for quality, expanded training, a focus on rapid quality improvement, and workforce participation (Juran, 1989, p. 13). In Out of the Crisis, Deming enumerated “14 points” that he said were necessary for the transformation of Western industry.  His list included such things as adopting a new management philosophy, eliminating employee performance evaluations, and breaking down barriers between departments. At this point quality theory had evolved from the rather narrow field of statistical analysis to an all-encompassing approach to improvement. In Deming’s words, “The 14 points apply anywhere, to small organizations as well as large ones, to the service industry as well as to manufacturing” (Deming, 1986, p. 23).

As noted above the quality theorists had a results orientation that is usually missing from the journalism scholarship. The heart of the matter, they felt, was no less than changing corporate culture (Crosby, 1979, p. 130). For quality improvement to occur, they argued, it had to operate on a systematic level rather than focusing on individual performance. Both Juran and Deming specifically warned against the use of slogans and exhortations to raise quality. “Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force,” said Deming (1986, p. 24). Juran emphasized the importance of specific goals with clear plans and assignment of responsibilities to meet those goals (Juran, 1988, p. 3).

In the 21^st Century: what do customers (and audiences) want?

By the turn of the 21^st Century perceptions about the role and importance of quality management had changed profoundly, although the underlying reasons were the subject of dispute. Garten in 2000 noted that few CEOs of major American corporations continued to see quality as a major concern. But it wasn’t clear whether the shift had occurred because quality principles were being ignored once companies put the matter of product defects behind them or if quality principles were getting less attention because they had simply become integral to standard ways of doing business. Garten also noted that the heightened intensity of business competition, manifested in part by decreased loyalty toward employees, made it increasingly difficult for executives to focus on quality, even if they wanted to (Garten, 2000).

By the end of the first decade of the new century, three of the four major voices of quality management were dead. Only Feigenbaum remained, and his writings—while still based on his background on quality—had shifted their focus, away from defect prevention and toward larger issues of management and innovation. In a 2003 book, he emphasized the concept of what he called “quality value,” although he did not provide a precise definition. In the new business environment, consumer sovereignty had reached new heights, as customers had come to expect products that were both essentially perfect and economically priced. In addition they had come to believe that products should be tailored to their specific situations, or “customer-determined” (Feigenbaum, 2003, p. 179). Companies that could show that they had improved quality based on quantitative measures were still falling behind in quality as perceived by their customers, Feigenbaum warned.

Among journalism scholars and practitioners, concerns about quality and excellence continued to draw attention and study in the new century, even as the economics of the business deteriorated at an alarming rate. While most other industries had long come to adopt the idea that business success was dependent upon quality products and practices, in journalism quality remained the province of the experts, generally journalists and academic researchers.

In a work published first in 2001 and revised in 2007, U.S. authors Kovach and Rosenstiel, reporting on the work of the Committee of Concerned Journalists, described a consensus that the social purpose of journalism is ‘‘to provide people with the information they need to be free and self-governing,’’ and ten ‘‘elements’’ involved in  achieving this goal. These address journalists’ obligations of truthfulness and verification, their duties of loyalty to citizens and independence from those they cover, their role as monitors of power and providers of ‘‘a forum for public criticism and compromise,’’ the need for journalism to be interesting, relevant, comprehensive, and proportional, the need for journalists to exercise freedom of conscience, and ‘‘the rights and responsibilities of citizens’’ (Kovach & Rosenstiel, 2007).

By now, a consensus on editors’ quality criteria had emerged. In 2004, Bogart concluded that U.S. editors and journalists shared a vision of quality including “integrity, fairness, balance, accuracy, comprehensiveness, diligence of discovery, authority, breadth of coverage, variety of content, reflection of the entire home community, vivid writing, attractive makeup, packaging or appearance, and easy navigability” plus, less explicitly, ‘‘clear differentiation of reporting and opinion’’ (Bogart, 2004, p. 40). Kim and Meyer (2005) found that editors’ ranking of criteria produced five broad categories of quality: ease of use, localism, editorial vigor, news quantity and interpretation.  And a study of Canadian and U.S. online news editors by Gladney, Shapiro and Castaldo (2007) found that while the online news people placed high value on navigability, their ideas on what constituted quality in news content differed little from the ideas expressed by newspaper journalists over the previous decades.

Not dissimilar in essence, although somewhat different in terminology, are the statements made by Quebec journalists as well as executives and managers in qualitative interviews conducted by Marcotte. These subjects evaluated journalism in terms of the kind of news covered (hard or soft), its relationship in subject matter to matters of public interest, its “proximity” to audiences in non-geographic terms, its impact and usefulness, its being “interesting” in terms of story-telling and a degree of entertainment. The interviewees also cited the concept of “added value” beyond raw news, and the importance of investigative reporting (Marcotte, 2008).

But how do journalists’ peer expectations compare with what audiences want? The Readership Institute at Northwestern University, which was established by newspaper publishers and CEOs with support from the American Society of Newspaper Editors, painted a broad picture of what journalism’s consumers want out of journalism. (“Newspaper Experience Study,” 2003). Its results indicated that the top motivator for reading the newspaper is that it is a daily habit (“a regular part of my day”). The runner up is that the paper “looks out for my interests,” that is: “Reading the newspaper helps me to participate and get the most out of being a member of the community.  To not read, even for a short time, would be to become socially isolated and disadvantaged.  The newspaper acts as a watchdog for citizens and society.  It makes me enjoy the community more by helping me plan what I want to see or do.”  The third, fourth and fifth most highly ranked motivators were that the paper provides something to talk about (“…The newspaper helps me give information to other people — something I really enjoy”); makes the reader “smarter” (“Reading the newspaper is educational for me; I learn a lot from both the editorial and the ads…”), that it provides information about “people I know” in the community; and that it “touches and inspires” the reader.

The following table compares audience “experience,” according to the 2003 Northwestern study, with Bogart’s 2004 “consensus” of editors’ quality criteria. Included as reader experiences are only those expectations that either showed above-average correlation with readership (measured by time, completeness and frequency) or garnered an above-average level of agreement from readers. (Double asterisks indicate an aspect with above-average scores for both correlation and agreement; a single asterisk indicates  a correlation with readership but not agreement). The items are ranked on this list according to their correlation to readership.

Audience expectations **Regular part of my day **Looks out for my interests **Something to talk about **Makes me smarter **People I know **Touches and inspires me **High quality, unique content **I connect with the writers **My personal timeout *Makes me more interesting *Commands my attention Taking a stand My dining companion Grabs me visually Makes me want to read Pass it around Ad credibility Ad usefulness (“Newspaper Experience Study,” 2003)

Journalists’ criteria Integrity Fairness Balance Accuracy Comprehensiveness Diligence of discovery Authority Breadth of coverage Variety of content Reflection of entire home community Vivid writing Attractive makeup, packaging or appearance Easy navigability Clear differentiation of reporting and opinion (Bogart, 2004, p. 40)

Comparing what editors and audiences value in their papers, one can, with some thought, discern echoes. The value placed by editors on authority seems easy to marry with readers’ need to feel smarter; the same arguably goes for the editors’ comprehensiveness, breadth of coverage, and variety of content. The editors’ reflection of entire home community echoes readers’ interest in people I know. Both editors and readers value style and presentation. (Editors: vivid writing, attractive makeup, packaging or appearance, easy navigability. Readers: commands my attention, grabs me visually; makes me want to read.) But, as we have argued elsewhere, it is harder to marry the interests of journalism’s audiences and speakers when one focuses on answers pertaining to:

1)    Virtues: Other, perhaps, than “ad credibility” and “ad usefulness,” there is nothing in the readership experience statements to indicate an interest in the more ethical aspirations of editors, such as integrity, fairness, balance, accuracy, diligence of discovery and the differentiation of reporting and opinion.

2)    Emotions: The editors’ interests seem largely intellectual, detached and technical, while audiences want to be touched and inspired. They also want their paper to take a stand (a desire elucidated in the study as follows: “I like to hear other people’s opinions.  I would like to see the newspaper take positions on more issues.”) (Shapiro & Maguire, 2011.)

This comparison seems to underline the millennial conclusion of Gardner, Csikszentmihalyi and Damon that journalists, their audiences, scholars, and shareholders of media corporations “differ sharply in their aspirations.” While journalists and audiences concur only on broad notions such as truthfulness and fairness, other professions have achieved a much higher degree of alignment between the generally accepted values of the profession and those of the culture in which they work (Gardner, Csikszentmihalyi & Damon, 2001).

Should journalists be content to formulate their own ideas on quality, or should their customers’ expressed needs prevail?  If the trouble with producers driving quality discourse is a kind of post-modernistic subjectivity (“we will decide when our own work is good and what makes it good”), the trouble with customer satisfaction as the driving rhetorical force is that it would seem to strive for a modernistic moral neutrality (“whatever the customer wants is good”).  We suggest that a productive approach would involve, not a choice between journalists’ values and customers’ needs, but one that involves a dynamic exchange, and creative tensions, among journalism’s participants (producers, subjects, sources and audiences). Audiences might, for example, respond more directly to rhetorical technique and “edge” than to independence and verification, but the latter methodological values will arguably prove vital in the long term to maintaining not just journalists’ distinct social identity but their compact with audiences. Meanwhile, as current media technologies continue to force producers and audiences to interact and respond dynamically to one another, it seems inevitable that not just content but the underlying values of journalism will evolve in response to audience expectations.

This consideration of diverse understandings of the definition and measurement of quality, while by no means comprehensive or complete, must draw to a close now with more questions raised than answered. It may be helpful to list here the questions that seem to merit further analysis. They are:

1. Whose point of view should predominate in deciding the degree to which journalistic quality has been achieved? Is it the impact on audience/customer, the values of the journalist/producer, or some kind of interaction between the two?
2. What is the best definition of quality? Specifically, is it measured by defects or characteristics? Is it a deal-breaker (something that will keep producers from meeting their goals) or a ticket for entry (something that must be done as a baseline)?
3. What are the dynamics of quality definition? To what extent does the meaning of quality change over time?
4. What is the role of corporate or professional culture in achieving quality?
5. What is the Internet’s impact on the idea of quality in journalism? Given the speed at which customers may now “buy,” respond to and correct defects, to what extent is the question of quality increasingly ipso facto resolved by instant audience reaction, to which news organizations either must adapt, or die?

References

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Par Simon Thibault

À propos de l’auteur

Simon Thibault est doctorant à l’Université Laval et Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3. 1055, avenue du Séminaire, Québec, Québec, G1V 0A6. Centre Bièvre – 3e étage, porte B 1 rue Censier, 75005, Paris. simon.thibault@gmail.com

Résumé de l’article

Depuis le milieu des années 1990, des agences de développement nationales et multilatérales encouragent la réforme du système médiatique de pays en reconstruction comme la Bosnie-Herzégovine et le Kosovo. Or, dans ces deux pays, le processus de réforme a mis en lumière les divergences entre diplomates américains et européens quant aux politiques à mettre en œuvre en matière de médias (Thompson and Price, 2002). Nous suggérons que ces divergences émanent des philosophies distinctes des responsables américains et européens et reflètent les normes de leur tradition médiatique. Nous avançons par ailleurs que les théories normatives de la presse permettent d’identifier les normes dominantes de leurs traditions médiatiques. Ce faisant, nous proposons deux idéal-types qui illustrent les caractéristiques fondamentales des approches américaine et européenne.

***

Mise en contexte : un débat transatlantique

Depuis le milieu des années 1990, des gouvernements occidentaux et des agences multilatérales ont investi des millions de dollars pour réformer le système médiatique de pays affectés par un conflit récent ou en cours. Ces efforts, poursuivis notamment en Bosnie-Herzégovine, au Kosovo, en Irak et en Afghanistan, ont été défendus dans les hautes sphères de la diplomatie internationale. Par exemple, Louise Fréchette, alors qu’elle était sous-secrétaire générale des Nations unies en 2000, a souligné que l’objectif de créer une presse libre et indépendante au sein de sociétés ravagées par la guerre était au cœur de la stratégie de l’ONU pour construire la démocratie. (Fréchette, 2000, p. 80). L’ancien président de la Banque mondiale, James Wolfenson, son économiste en chef Joseph Stiglitz et l’ancienne commissaire chargée des relations extérieures de l’Union européenne, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, ont aussi rappelé l’importance de promouvoir la liberté de la presse pour favoriser le développement et la démocratisation de sociétés en reconstruction. (Wolfenson, 1999; Stiglitz, 2002, Ferrero-Waldner, 2007)

Pourtant, sur le terrain, des observateurs ont déploré les dissensions entre les fonctionnaires internationaux chargés de mettre en œuvre les réformes médiatiques. (Nikoltchev, 2007, p. 169) Ce fut le cas dans les Balkans où les désaccords entre les diplomates américains et européens ont été particulièrement intenses. (Price et Thompson, 2002, p. 21) La question du financement des médias publics, en particulier, a constitué un important point d’achoppement. Le journaliste de l’AFP Dan De Luce, qui a travaillé de 1997-1999 au Bureau du Haut Représentant en Bosnie-Herzégovine – une agence internationale créée pour assurer la mise en œuvre des accords de paix de Dayton mettant fin au conflit bosniaque en 1995 – a été témoin des débats houleux entre les fonctionnaires américains et européens: “The Americans were adamantly opposed to any donor funds going to public broadcasting, arguing that public broadcasters should not have an “unfair” advantage over private “commercial broadcasters”” (De Luce, 2011). Selon l’ex-fonctionnaire, les diplomates américains chargés de définir les politiques de réforme médiatique en Bosnie-Herzégovine ne comprenaient pas le fonctionnement des télédiffuseurs publics en Europe: “They came from the American experience, with commercial television news being the most influential and public TV being an afterthought” (De Luce, 2011). Cela dit, malgré des objections américaines, des sommes importantes ont été investies pour dépolitiser la télévision d’État bosniaque (RTVBiH) et la transformer en télédiffuseur public indépendant, consacrant par le fait même la position européenne.

Nous suggérons que les divergences entre les donateurs américains et européens quant au système médiatique à instaurer en Bosnie-Herzégovine et au Kosovo émanent de leurs philosophies d’intervention issues des normes dominantes de leur tradition médiatique[i]. Les États-Unis, d’une part, encouragent activement la création de médias privés au sein de pays en reconstruction. Au Kosovo, par exemple, l’agence d’aide au développement américaine USAID a investi des millions de dollars dans le développement de TV21 et KTV, deux chaînes de télévision privées à diffusion nationale. (ARB, 2004, p. 10) Dans sa stratégie d’aide pour le Kosovo (2001-03), l’agence de développement américaine USAID a d’ailleurs reconnu que sa priorité était de soutenir des médias privés et que le soutien au télédiffuseur public RTK était essentiellement l’affaire de ses partenaires européens. (USAID, 2000, p. 31) En réalité, cette stratégie favorisant le secteur privé est conséquente avec les normes de la tradition américaine où le rôle de la presse commerciale est grandement valorisé et l’État généralement perçu avec méfiance.

De leur côté, les gouvernements européens (et leurs représentants au sein d’organisations multilatérales comme l’ONU et l’OCDE) semblent plus ouverts à l’intervention de l’État, entre autres pour subventionner les radiotélévisions publiques et réglementer l’environnement médiatique. En Bosnie-Herzégovine et au Kosovo, par exemple, des responsables européens ont encouragé la mise sur pied de conseils de presse et de commission de radio et télédiffusion avec des codes de déontologie rigoureux pour encadrer les médias locaux. Ils ont par ailleurs soutenu, entre autres avec l’Agence européenne pour la reconstruction, la transformation des médias d’État en radiotélévisions publiques. Derrière ces efforts, il y a la conviction que les médias publics indépendants sont mieux adaptés à la réalité des pays en reconstruction puisque le financement public les rendrait moins perméables aux pressions politiques et économiques liées à la faiblesse des marchés publicitaires locaux. (Thompson et Price, 2002, p. 21-22)

Comment comprendre les divergences
entre diplomates américains et européens?

La réforme des systèmes médiatiques de la Bosnie-Herzégovine et plus tard du Kosovo constitue un évènement original sur la scène internationale. Depuis la tutelle des médias allemands, japonais et italiens par les forces alliées à la fin de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, c’est la première fois que des gouvernements et des organisations internationales s’intéressent au rôle des médias dans un processus de réconciliation nationale. (Thompson et Price, 2002, p. 21) C’est en effet en tentant de mettre en œuvre les accords de paix de Dayton que les diplomates internationaux ont constaté l’influence néfaste des médias pour la plupart alignés sur les discours ethnistes et belliqueux des partis politiques locaux. (p. 204-212) Dès lors, ils ont eu pour objectif de dépolitiser et de professionnaliser le secteur journalistique en réformant ses lois et ses règlements selon des normes en vigueur en occident. Or, c’est précisément cet aspect qu’il nous apparaît important d’approfondir pour expliquer les divergences entre responsables américaines et européens. Quelles furent les normes en matière de médias — c’est-à-dire les règles subjectives déterminant les rapports d’une société avec les médias — qui ont guidé les responsables européens et américains impliqués dans la restructuration des systèmes médiatiques de la Bosnie-Herzégovine et du Kosovo? Cette question est importante, car elle invite à nous interroger sur les fondements normatifs des initiatives américaines et européennes en matière de médias dans un contexte de reconstruction.

L’apport des théories normatives de la presse et la proposition de deux idéal-types : l’approche américaine et l’approche ouest-européenne[ii]

L’étude des théories normatives de la presse s’avère essentielle pour mieux comprendre les choix des diplomates américains et européens. Ces théories permettent en effet de faire ressortir les caractéristiques clés des traditions philosophiques de la presse qui se sont imposées à certains moments de l’histoire. (Christians, Glasser et al., 2009, p. 19-25) Ce faisant, elles permettent d’identifier les normes dominantes qui définissent la façon dont une société (ou un espace politique régional comme l’Union européenne – UE) entend organiser ses rapports avec les médias. (McQuail, 2010, p. 162)

Dans la littérature, de nombreux auteurs ont associé la tradition médiatique américaine à la théorie libérale de la presse. Siebert, Peterson et al. (1956) ont été les premiers auteurs à tenter une explication de cette théorie — qu’ils appelaient libertarian theory — dans l’ouvrage Four Theories of the Press. Plus récemment, Hallin et Mancini (2004) ont offert une typologie visant à comparer les systèmes médiatiques de l’Amérique du Nord et de l’Europe. Selon eux, un modèle libéral, caractérisé par une prédominance des médias commerciaux, prévaut aux États-Unis, au Canada, en Grande-Bretagne et en Irlande. (2004, p. 67) Ils ajoutent que les États-Unis incarnent la forme la plus pure de ce modèle dominé par le libre marché. (p. 198) Cette nuance est due à la place importante laissée aux télédiffuseurs publics en Grande-Bretagne, en Irlande et au Canada. Cela distinguerait ces pays de la tradition médiatique américaine où les médias publics sont peu financés et marginalisés par rapport aux chaînes commerciales.

Nous aurons l’occasion d’approfondir les éléments de la théorie libérale des médias. Ces quelques observations nous amènent néanmoins à suggérer que la philosophie d’intervention des responsables américains s’inscrit principalement dans tradition de la théorie libérale des médias. Les responsables américains impliqués dans la réforme du système médiatique en Bosnie et au Kosovo auraient en effet promu une approche libérale, c’est-à-dire une approche qui valorise un environnement médiatique privé fort où l’État est peu porté à soutenir les médias publics. Bien évidemment, le concept « approche libérale » — que nous appellerons « approche américaine » en référence à la tradition médiatique américaine — est un idéal-type qui simplifie volontairement une réalité éminemment complexe.

Nous simplifions également lorsque nous référons à « l’approche ouest-européenne » pour décrire la philosophie d’intervention des diplomates européens en Bosnie et au Kosovo. Il existe de multiples réalités médiatiques en Europe de l’Ouest et les dissemblances entre les pays de la région peuvent être importantes. Par exemple, peu de choses rapprochent l’expérience de la radiodiffusion britannique avec celle française. Il suffit de penser au contrôle de la télévision d’État française par l’Élysée des années 1960 aux années 1980 et de comparer cette situation avec la tradition d’indépendance de la BBC pour s’en convaincre.  Cela dit, des auteurs comme Dennis McQuail, Jan van Cuilenburg, Daniel C. Hallin, Paolo Mancini, Clifford G. Christians, Theodore L. Glasser, Kaarle Nordenstreng, John Nerone et Robert Picard, entre autres, ont souligné les similitudes qui existent entre les normes médiatiques de nombreux pays d’Europe de l’Ouest. Les normes définissant la conduite des radiotélévisions publiques, les lois interdisant le discours haineux ou la forte tradition d’autoréglementation de la presse écrite dans les pays scandinaves en sont quelques exemples. La méthode idéal-typique devient alors un outil intéressant éclairer les différences entre les traditions américaine et européenne et par extension, entre les approches de leurs diplomates pour transformer l’environnement médiatique de la Bosnie et du Kosovo.

Pour comprendre notre deuxième idéal-type, l’approche ouest-européenne, il faut rappeler que l’interventionnisme de l’État dans le marché médiatique a été plus soutenu en Europe de l’Ouest qu’aux États-Unis depuis la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Cuilenburg et McQuail (2003) attribuent cette situation à la tradition « plus corporatiste » des États européens, en particulier dans le domaine de la radiodiffusion où plusieurs gouvernements — à l’exception de la Grande-Bretagne — ont  « […] opéré un monopole public de la radio et de la télévision » jusque dans les années 1980-1990. (p. 193) La presse écrite européenne n’a pas non plus échappé à l’interventionnisme de l’État. Dans les années 1960-70, en particulier, plusieurs gouvernements européens ont soutenu des mesures fiscales (subventions, crédits d’impôt, etc.) et législatives visant, entre autres, à limiter la concentration de la propriété de la presse et favoriser son pluralisme. (Picard, 1985, p. 26)  Ces efforts illustreraient la vision plus positive qui existerait en Europe de l’Ouest quant au rôle que peut jouer l’État comme chien de garde de l’intérêt public au sein la sphère médiatique. (p. 26-27)

L’idée que les médias, peu importe leur nature, sont redevables au public est une autre particularité qui distingue la tradition médiatique ouest-européenne de celle américaine. On retrouve notamment cette idée dans l’article 10 de la Convention européenne des droits de l’homme, adoptée en 1950 par les quatorze États alors membres du Conseil de l’Europe. (CE, 1950) D’une part, l’article 10 souligne les droits associés à la liberté d’expression — liberté d’opinion, liberté de communiquer des informations, etc. — et d’autre part, il rappelle les devoirs et les responsabilités concernant l’exercice de ces droits et les sanctions qui peuvent être prévues par la loi dans l’intérêt public. (p. 5) En un sens, la Convention européenne des droits de l’homme stipule que la liberté d’expression des citoyens, comme celle des journalistes et des médias, n’est pas sans limites. Comme nous le verrons, cette conception est pour le moins éloignée de l’esprit du premier amendement de la constitution des États-Unis et elle a eu un impact sur la formulation des codes de conduite pour réglementer les médias au Kosovo.

Pour comprendre les caractéristiques de l’approche européenne, nous aurons recours à la théorie de la responsabilité sociale de la presse. Cette théorie a eu un grand impact en Europe de l’Ouest dans les décennies suivant la Seconde Guerre mondiale. (Balle, 2003, p. 261; McQuail, 2005, p. 172; Christians et Nordenstreng, 2004, p. 10) Elle a émergé en réaction aux excès des médias et, sans remettre en question leur liberté, elle a rappelé leur responsabilité envers le public. Cette notion est importante, car elle pose la question de la réglementation (et l’autoréglementation) des médias. Nous verrons d’ailleurs que la tradition d’encadrement des médias est importante dans de nombreux pays d’Europe de l’Ouest alors qu’elle est faible aux États-Unis. Cette analyse s’avèrera utile pour éclairer les stratégies de réformes médiatiques de l’Organisation pour la sécurité et la coopération en Europe (OSCE), des Nations Unies et des donateurs en général au Kosovo et en Bosnie-Herzégovine.

L’utilité de la méthode idéal-typique

On pourrait objecter que les idéal-types proposés ici sont des simplifications excessives qui ne peuvent rendre compte de la complexité des phénomènes étudiés. À cette critique, nous répondons que toute réalité sociale est en soi « inépuisable et incommensurable » et qu’il est illusoire de « chercher à la décrire dans sa totalité » (Brin, Charron et al., 2004, p. 9). Or, à « […] défaut de pouvoir décrire une réalité de manière exhaustive, Weber suggère de substituer à cette description un idéal-type, c’est-à-dire une représentation abstraite de cette réalité qui n’en retient que les traits jugés typiques ou caractéristiques par le chercheur » (p. 10). Dans ses Essais sur les théories de la science, le  sociologue allemand explique que l’idéal-type est un concept construit qui sert de « tableau de pensée » au chercheur dont la tâche est de déterminer « combien la réalité s’écarte ou se rapproche de ce tableau idéal » (Weber, 1992, p. 172-173). Le concept idéal-typique est donc un « puissant outil théorique » : il permet de relever les « aspects jugés cruciaux d’un phénomène » afin de le circonscrire à « quelques dimensions essentielles » pour le rendre intelligible dans un cadre d’analyse simplifié. (Brin, Charron et al., 2004, p. 10-15).

C’est dans cet esprit que nous proposons les idéal-types « approche américaine » et « approche ouest-européenne ». Dans la littérature, le concept « approche » a notamment été utilisé par  Cuilenburg et McQuail (2003) pour contraster les expériences américaine et européenne en matière de politiques publiques en communication depuis le milieu du 19^e siècle. (p. 192) Cela dit, nous aurions pu utiliser les idéal-types « modèle américain et modèle européen » pour décrire les philosophies d’intervention des donateurs en matière de médias en Bosnie et au Kosovo. Mais ces concepts nous apparaissaient trop restrictifs et ne permettaient pas de faire les nuances nécessaires. Il ne faut pas voir, en effet, les négociations entre responsables américains et européens comme une joute dogmatique où chaque camp tente d’imposer un « modèle » calqué sur son système médiatique. Certes, les diplomates américains et européens ont promu des approches qui reflétaient des normes importantes de leurs traditions médiatiques, ils ont eu des divergences à ce sujet, mais ils ont aussi fait preuve de pragmatisme.

Un exemple de ce pragmatisme apparent est l’intervention, en mai 2000, de l’ambassadeur américain David T. Johnson à l’OSCE. Johnson a enjoint les membres du Conseil permanent à implanter un code de conduite pour la presse écrite au Kosovo qui prévoyait des sanctions. (Darbishire, 2002, p. 355) Quelques semaines plus tard, le représentant spécial du Secrétaire général de l’ONU au Kosovo, Bernard  Kouchner, mettait en œuvre un tel code de conduite pour la presse écrite. Le code prévoyait des sanctions sévères aux médias écrits qui enfreindraient les règles de déontologie journalistique, notamment en ce qui a trait à la divulgation d’informations personnelles menaçant la vie et la sécurité des citoyens ou l’incitation à la haine[iii]. (Mertus et Thompson, 2002, 272) L’éventail des pénalités imposées par le Commissaire était large. Il allait de l’excuse publique à la saisie d’équipement, en passant par l’amende (pouvant atteindre 100,000 Deutsch Marks) ou la fermeture complète du média fautif. (UNMIK, 2000/37)

Compte tenu de la faible tradition d’autoréglementation de la presse écrite aux États-Unis, la position de l’ambassadeur américain à l’OSCE peut paraître étonnante. Comme nous le verrons, il n’existe pas de conseil de presse aux États unis chargé de faire respecter un code de conduite au plan national. Cet exemple illustre que des diplomates (américains dans ce cas) ont défendu des politiques contraires à l’esprit de leur tradition médiatique, probablement par pragmatisme. La réalité n’est donc jamais simple, mais rappelons qu’un idéal-type est un tableau de pensée — ou si l’on préfère un cadre d’analyse — qui vise à guider l’étude d’un phénomène. Dans ce contexte, le chercheur doit « déterminer dans chaque cas particulier combien la réalité se rapproche ou s’écarte de ce tableau idéal » (Weber, 1992, p. 173). C’est à cette tâche que nous nous consacrerons lorsque nous analyserons les données recueillies sur le terrain et lors des entrevues.

Avant d’expliquer les caractéristiques de nos idéal-types, il convient de préciser que plus d’un courant théorique peut exister au sein d’une tradition médiatique. Nous ne pouvons pas, en effet, réduire l’approche américaine à la théorie libérale ou bien l’approche ouest-européenne à la théorie de la responsabilité sociale. Différentes théories peuvent coexister au sein d’une même tradition. Dans The Normative Theories of the Media, les auteurs identifient quatre courants normatifs des médias à travers l’histoire (ils préfèrent parler de traditions plutôt que de théories[iv]) : la tradition corporatiste (aussi appelée autoritaire), la tradition libérale, la tradition de la responsabilité sociale et la tradition de la participation citoyenne, qui serait en émergence. (Christians, Glasser et al., 2009, p. 19-25) Ces traditions incarnent « un ensemble de valeurs » qui se sont imposées à certains moments de l’histoire et dont influence persiste jusqu’à aujourd’hui au sein de chaque système médiatique, voir au sein de chaque journaliste: « […] we suggest that each national media system and medium – even each individual journalist – share more than one intellectual tradition, and that typologies serve the purpose of analytical distinctions and not of totalizing labels » (p. X et 20).

Une théorie de la presse ne peut donc pas, à elle seule, expliquer toute la complexité de la réalité médiatique d’un pays ou d’une région. Si l’on convient que la théorie libérale de la presse résume le plus justement l’essence du paysage médiatique américain, on y retrouve aussi l’influence d’autres théories, comme celle de la responsabilité sociale. De même, si l’on convient que la théorie de la responsabilité sociale décrit bien la tradition médiatique ouest-européenne (avec le rôle joué par l’État en radiodiffusion, la culture d’autoréglementation de la presse au sein de nombreux pays[v], ses lois protégeant le droit de réponse, ses lois criminalisant les propos discriminatoires et haineux, etc.), on y retrouve aussi l’influence des théories libérale et corporatiste. (Hallin et Mancini, 2004, p. 10) En somme, les théories permettent d’apprécier les différentes normes d’un système médiatique (celles dominantes et celles moins dominantes). Nous mettrons néanmoins l’accent sur les théories libérales et de la responsabilité sociale de la presse, car ce sont ces théories qui illustrent le mieux, à notre avis, l’esprit des traditions américaines et ouest-européennes et par extension, les philosophies d’interventions de leurs diplomates en matière de médias.

Notons enfin que les normes en matière de médias se définissent de plus en plus dans un contexte transnational. C’est le cas au sein de l’Union européenne où une commission et un parlement peuvent élaborer des politiques de communication et en matière de médias au nom d’un ensemble de pays (Raboy, 2002, p. 7).  Les règlements et les directives adoptés par les législateurs européens façonnent ainsi le paysage médiatique des États membres. Depuis les années 1980, ce paysage a été marqué par deux courants opposés. (Cuilenburg et McQuail, 2003, p. 196). Le premier courant s’inscrit dans une perspective libérale de laisser-faire. Il incarne le processus de privatisation et de dérèglementation qui a touché le domaine des télécommunications et de la radiodiffusion en Europe depuis une trentaine d’années. L’autre courant s’inscrit dans l’esprit de la théorie de la responsabilité sociale. Devant les excès du marché, il réaffirme le rôle central de la radiodiffusion publique comme institution sociale, culturelle et démocratique garantissant le pluralisme des médias (Christians et Nordenstreng, 2009, p. 8). Ces principes sont d’ailleurs soulignés dans le protocole sur le système de radiodiffusion publique du Traité d’Amsterdam qui justifie le financement gouvernemental des radiotélévisions et le protège ainsi de la politique de concurrence de l’UE (p. 8; Traité d’Amsterdam, 1997, p. 109). Christians et Nordenstreng (2009) comparent même le protocole sur la radiodiffusion à « une sorte de premier amendement de la constitution de l’Union européenne » :

“The protocol thus becomes an integral and binding part of the European Community Treaty, originally known as the ‘Treaty of Rome’. This was the first time that the media are acknowledged at this high legal level in the EU. The Amsterdam Protocol can be seen as a kind of ‘First Amendment’ to the EU Constitution.”  (p. 26)

Dans les pages qui suivent, nous contrasterons donc les traditions américaine et européenne à la lumière de la théorie libérale et de la théorie de la responsabilité sociale de la presse. Nous mettrons l’accent en particulier sur les normes américaines et européennes en matière de radiodiffusion, de même que la culture de réglementation et d’autoréglementation des médias. Nous croyons en effet que ce sont dans ces domaines que les différences entre les approches des diplomates américains et européens en Bosnie et au Kosovo ont été les plus marquantes.

L’approche américaine

Notre premier concept idéal-typique, l’approche américaine, est étroitement associé à la théorie libérale de la presse. Dans la littérature anglophone, on se réfère régulièrement, et parfois  de façon interchangeable, à la théorie libérale de la presse et à la théorie libertarienne de la presse. Cette apparente confusion s’explique du fait qu’à partir des années 1950, des intellectuels américains libéraux classiques ont commencé à s’identifier comme libertariens (libertarians en anglais) pour se dissocier des libéraux sociaux-démocrates et autres mouvements politiques à qui on attribuait l’épithète libérale. (En ligne : http://www.knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclopedia/Libertarian/)  Ironiquement, ce mouvement a contribué à embrouiller le débat en dehors des frontières américaines. Car comme le rappelle Ronald Hamowy (2008), ce qu’on nomme « […] libertarianisme dans certains pays anglo-saxons est toujours appelé libéralisme dans le reste du monde » (Hamowy, 2008, p. XV-XVI).

De plus, certains chercheurs utiliseraient à tort le terme libertarien pour désigner la théorie libérale de la presse. Ils le feraient par méconnaissance des courants philosophiques associés à ces concepts. Ce serait le cas de Fredrick Siebert, l’un des auteurs de Four Theories of the Press. Selon John Nerone (1995), Siebert a confondu libéralisme et libertarianisme en associant la pensée de Milton, Jefferson et Mill au libertarianisme alors que ces auteurs s’inscrivent plutôt dans le courant philosophique libéral classique (1995, p. 42-43). La tradition médiatique anglo-américaine que Siebert a accolée à la théorie « libertarienne » serait en fait plus proche du libéralisme et des idées que ce courant incarne, que ce soit la liberté individuelle, le laisser-faire économique ou le non-interventionnisme de l’État (p. 47 et 76). En ce qui nous concerne, nous utiliserons les termes « théorie libérale des médias ou théorie libérale de la presse », qui sont couramment employés dans la littérature francophone.

La tradition médiatique aux États-Unis et la théorie libérale de la presse

La théorie libérale de la presse s’inscrit dans une tradition philosophique où la liberté individuelle est une valeur fondamentale qui doit être protégée de tout despotisme. La crainte de l’autoritarisme est récurrente dans les écrits des penseurs libéraux classiques comme Locke, Rousseau et Voltaire, qui se sont opposés aux abus de l’Église ou de la royauté. La défense de la liberté d’expression constitue un autre fondement de la pensée libérale classique. À ce titre, on réfère souvent aux textes fondateurs de John Milton (1644) et à sa dénonciation passionnée de la censure dans Areopagitica ou à l’ouvrage De la liberté de John Stuart Mill (1859), qui défend la liberté d’expression, même si l’opinion exprimée est fausse, car le choc des idées permet à la vérité de prévaloir. (Milton, 1644; Mill 1992 [1859])

Dans la littérature, il existe plusieurs façons de référer à la théorie libérale et aux modèles conceptuels qu’elle a inspirés. McQuail (2005), d’une part, parle d’un modèle « libéral pluraliste » ou d’un « modèle de marché » où la presse est faiblement autoréglementée et où l’État ne jour pas un grand rôle (p. 185). À l’instar de McQuail, Merrill (1989) utilise lui aussi le concept de « modèle de marché » pour décrire l’essence du système de presse libéral. Pour expliquer la genèse de ce système, il souligne l’influence historique de l’éthique de travail protestante, de même que les idées associées la philosophie rationaliste du 17^e siècle, comme l’individualisme et la liberté (Merril, 1989, p.12). De leur côté, Christians, Glasser et al. (2009), réfèrent à une tradition «libérale individualiste », alors que William Hachten et James F. Scotton (2007) parlent de « modèle occidental » (Western concept) (p. 23; Hachten et Scotton, 2007, p. 19-23).

Selon la théorie libérale,  le rôle des médias est d’être un contre-pouvoir à l’État dans le cadre d’un marché capitaliste où règne une vive concurrence (Curran, 2000, p. 121). L’État, en ce sens, est perçu comme une menace potentielle aux libertés individuelles et les médias, s’ils jouent leur rôle, peuvent prévenir les abus du pouvoir. Cette conception négative de la liberté, pour reprendre la distinction du philosophe Isaiah Berlin[vi], est au cœur des écrits des penseurs libéraux classiques comme John Stuart Mill et Thomas Jefferson (Berlin, 2002 [1958], p. 173). La liberté individuelle est alors jugée au degré d’interférence (liberty from) du pouvoir en place (p. 178-204).

Les États-Unis ont été une terre d’accueil fertile pour les idées des penseurs libéraux classiques. L’essor du capitalisme, l’individualisme, la pratique naissante de la démocratie et les hauts taux d’alphabétisation des immigrants protestants ont favorisé le développement de la presse aux États-Unis au 18^e siècle (Hallin et Mancini, 2004, p. 237). Mais ce sont les signataires de la constitution américaine qui ont consacré la liberté d’expression et surtout, la liberté de presse, comme normes constitutives du système médiatique américain en adoptant une Déclaration des droits (Bill of Rights) (p. 237). Le premier amendement stipule en effet que : « Le Congrès ne fera aucune loi […] restreignant la liberté d’expression et de presse » (Cornu, 1997, p. 76). Pour John Merrill, un intellectuel américain partisan d’une approche de laisser-faire pour les médias, il est révélateur que le premier amendement de la constitution américaine fasse mention de la liberté de presse : « If this were simply the same as freedom of expression then there would have been no need to mention the press freedom specifically » (1974, p. 64).

Si les intentions des pères fondateurs des États-Unis font toujours l’objet de discussions dans les cercles universitaires, il reste un fait indéniable. L’inclusion d’une Déclaration des droits dans la constitution américaine a fait l’objet d’un âpre débat avant son adoption. Dans une lettre à James Madison, Thomas Jefferson s’inquiétait d’ailleurs de l’absence d’un tel document :

« […] I do not like […] the omission of a bill of rights providing clearly and without the aid of sophisms for freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection against standing armies, restriction against monopolies, the eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury in all matters of fact triable by the laws of the land and not by the laws of nations » (Jefferson, 1787 [2006], p. 168).

La Déclaration des droits, rédigée par Madison, fut finalement adoptée par le Congrès et entérinée le 15 décembre 1791 par les trois quarts des États fédérés. Son application favorisera l’émergence d’une culture judiciaire soucieuse de protéger coûte que coûte les droits individuels inscrits dans la constitution. Au nom du principe de la liberté d’expression (et de la presse) inscrit dans le premier amendement, il est par exemple permis aux États-Unis de tenir ou de diffuser des propos haineux à l’égard de minorités visibles si ces propos ne constituent pas une « incitation imminente » à la violence (Schauer, 2005, p. 1; Liptak, 2008).

C’est la Cour suprême qui a établi cette notion d’incitation « imminente » dans son jugement sur l’affaire Brandenburg v. Ohio en 1969. Brandenburg était un chef du Ku Klux Klan de l’Ohio qui avait été condamné pour avoir, entre autres, proféré des menaces à l’égard des juifs et des noirs devant une équipe de télévision locale. Or, la Cour suprême a annulé la condamnation de Brandenburg parce ses propos ne constituaient pas, selon elle, un appel « imminent » à perpétrer des actes de violence (U.S. Supreme Court, 1969).  Malgré son contenu raciste et belliqueux, le propos de Brandenburg était donc protégé par la constitution (Schauer, 2005, p. 10-11). La Cour suprême créait par le fait même un important précédent pour la jurisprudence américaine.

Cette conception quasi absolue de la liberté d’expression est une caractéristique fondamentale de la justice américaine qui distingue ce pays des autres démocraties occidentales (Downing, 1999, p. 175). Dans la plupart des pays d’Europe de l’Ouest, la liberté d’opinion (et de presse) est plus réglementée et la tenue de propos racistes est généralement interdite par la loi. En France et en Allemagne, par exemple, la négation de l’holocauste constitue une infraction (Schauer, 2005, p. 7-8). Aux États-Unis, à l’inverse, les discours haineux ou discriminatoires sont tolérés dans la sphère publique et les médias (Liptak, 2008). Des études montrent d’ailleurs que l’usage de propos haineux à l’égard des immigrants et des minorités semble être répandu sur les ondes (Noriega et Iribarre, 2009).

Inévitablement, le contexte légal créé par le premier amendement rend l’encadrement des médias américains par le gouvernement plus ardu : « […] many kind of media regulations that are common in Europe – privacy rules, regulations on political advertising, free-time requirements for political communication, and right-of-reply laws […] are politically and legally untenable in the United States » (Hallin et Mancini, 2004, p. 229). Ce climat propice au laisser-faire permet de mieux comprendre, en contrepartie, la faiblesse de la culture d’autoréglementation de la presse écrite américaine. Car contrairement à la situation dans de des pays d’Europe de l’Ouest comme l’Allemagne, la Belgique, les Pays-Bas, la Norvège, la Finlande ou la Suède, il n’existe pas, aux États-Unis, de conseil de presse national chargé de faire respecter les règles de déontologie journalistique aux journaux et aux magazines. Certes, un tel organisme, le National News Council a déjà existé de 1973 à 1984. Mais ce conseil de presse n’avait qu’un rôle symbolique, sans pouvoir de sanction et, faute d’appuis au sein de la communauté journalistique, il a dû fermer ses portes (Cornu, 1997, p. 24-25).

L’échec du National News Council est symptomatique de la réticence qu’ont les journalistes et les éditeurs américains à l’idée de rendre des comptes à une instance externe à leur média où peuvent siéger des membres du public. Cette résistance a d’ailleurs été documentée. Des sondages réalisés depuis les années 1970 ont révélé l’opposition du milieu journalistique aux conseils de presse (Ugland, 2008, p. 6). Cette culture non interventionniste est cohérente avec l’esprit de la théorie libérale de la presse qui voit la concurrence du marché comme le meilleur rempart aux erreurs de la profession.(Siebert, Peterson et al, 1956, p. 71). Dans ce contexte, on comprend pourquoi des médias comme le New York Times et des organisations américaines de défense de la presse ont vivement critiqué l’OSCE lorsque l’organisation a voulu créer, en 1999, une commission des médias chargée de réglementer les médias au Kosovo (Mertus et Thompson, 2002, p. 262-263). En vérité, toute tentative de contrôle, même venant de la profession, est perçue avec méfiance au sein du milieu journalistique américain.

Pour comprendre la tradition médiatique dans laquelle s’inscrit la philosophie d’intervention des diplomates américains, il faut également rappeler que l’interventionnisme du gouvernement dans le marché médiatique a été moins soutenu aux États-Unis qu’en Europe de l’Ouest. Il suffit de comparer les politiques publiques dans le domaine des télécommunications pour s’en convaincre. Aux États-Unis, les industries du télégraphe et de la téléphonie ont été rapidement contrôlées par des monopoles privés (Cuilenburg et McQuail, 2003, p. 187). En Grande-Bretagne, en Allemagne, en France, aux Pays-Bas et en Suède en revanche, ces services sont plutôt devenus des monopoles publics (p. 188). À quelques variantes près, le contraste est aussi marqué dans le domaine de la radiodiffusion. Au sortir de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, de nombreux gouvernements d’Europe de l’Ouest ont « reconstruit leur système médiatique » et ont fait passer le secteur naissant de l’audiovisuel sous le monopole d’État (p. 193). Les monopoles publics en radiodiffusion sont d’ailleurs demeurés la caractéristique dominante du paysage audiovisuel ouest européen pendant une trentaine d’années. Il faudra attendre jusqu’aux années 1980 pour que ces monopoles soient remis en questions avec l’émergence des radios et télévisions commerciales et la mise en place d’un modèle mixte en radiodiffusion (Raboy, 1995).

Aux États-Unis, à l’opposé, l’audiovisuel a été dominé par le secteur privé depuis son apparition, avec la présence négligeable d’une radiotélévision publique[vii] (Raboy, 1996). Certes, le gouvernement américain n’est pas demeuré inactif dans le domaine de la radiodiffusion. En 1927, il a adopté la Loi sur la radio et en 1934, la Loi sur les communications qui crée la Federal Communication Commission (FCC), une agence gouvernementale indépendante chargée de réglementer les communications par radio, télé, câble et satellite. Mais cet interventionnisme n’est pas inhabituel. Comme ailleurs dans le monde, le gouvernement américain a dû réglementer le secteur de la radiodiffusion en raison de la rareté des fréquences. Ce qui étonne, en retour, c’est de constater le degré de sous-financement du radiodiffuseur public (NPR) et du télédiffuseur public (PBS) américain. De 2000 à 2005, la contribution du gouvernement fédéral aux médias publics américains a constitué moins de 20 % de leurs revenus annuels de 2,3 milliards, ce qui force PBS et NPR à solliciter des fonds privés (Silver, Strayer et al, 2009, p. 266-267). À titre de comparaison, cet investissement dans les médias publics représente une dépense annuelle de 1,35 $ par personne aux États-Unis, alors que ce sont 26,76 $ en Allemagne, 80,36 $ au Royaume-Uni et 101 $ au Danemark et en Finlande (p. 266-267).

Ces chiffres aident à mettre en contexte les réticences des diplomates américains qui craignaient que les télédiffuseurs publics bosniaques et kosovars soient indûment avantagés par rapport aux chaînes commerciales en bénéficiant de revenus publics et publicitaires (Bajraktari et Hsu, 2007, p. 19). En réalité, cette position est conséquente avec une culture médiatique commerciale où les chaînes privées ont historiquement occupé l’avant-scène, alors que la radiotélévision publique a été confinée à la marge.

La tradition médiatique américaine
et l’influence (amoindrie) de la théorie de la responsabilité sociale

Si une théorie de la presse permet d’identifier les caractéristiques d’une tradition médiatique, elle peut aussi révéler des aspects plus secondaires. Dans cette section, nous montrerons comment la théorie de la responsabilité sociale (TRS) offre un éclairage intéressant sur les débats qui ont eu lieu au sein de l’arène légale (et politique) concernant  ce que l’on appelle aux États-Unis la « fairness doctrine » ou si l’on préfère, la doctrine de l’équité.

La TRS a eut, rappelons-le, un grand impact en Europe de l’Ouest dans les décennies suivant la Seconde Guerre mondiale (McQuail, 2005, p. 172; Balle, 2003, p. 261). Certains auteurs font remonter les origines de cette théorie au 19^e siècle, alors que des scandales de la presse à sensation provoquent les premiers appels à la réglementation de la presse (Christians, Glasser et al, 2009, p. 53). Cela dit, on associe généralement la TRS aux travaux d’une commission américaine sur la liberté de la presse qui a publié en 1947 un document intitulé le « rapport Hutchins », du nom du président de la commission (Merrill, 1974, p. 88; Christians et Nordenstreng, 2004, p. 3). Le rapport Hutchins défend la liberté de la presse, mais aussi l’idée que les médias ont des responsabilités envers la société et que l’État peut jouer un rôle pour éviter les dérives d’un marché médiatique laissé à lui-même. La TRS souligne aussi le rôle que devraient jouer les médias pour assurer l’équilibre de leur couverture :

« […] all the important viewpoints and interests in the society should be represented in its agencies of mass communication. Those who have these viewpoints and interests cannot count on explaining them to their fellow citizens through newspapers or radio stations of their own […] An ideal combination would include general media, inevitably solicitous to present their own views, but setting forth other views fairly » (Commission on Freedom of the Press, 1947, p. 24-25).

Aux États-Unis, ce principe d’équilibre dans la couverture journalistique a vu le jour sous le nom de « fairness doctrine », officiellement établi par la FCC en 1949. Selon cette doctrine, les radios et télédiffuseurs titulaires de permis doivent assurer une couverture équilibrée des enjeux publics en permettant aux différents points de vue de se faire entendre (US Supreme Court, 1969). En 1967, la FCC promulgue deux nouveaux règlements. Pour obtenir ou renouveler leur permis, les radios et télédiffuseurs ont désormais l’obligation d’accorder un droit de réponse à tout politicien critiqué par un éditorial, de même qu’à tout individu ou groupe lésé par une attaque sur un enjeu public et controversé discuté en onde (Simmons, 1977, p. 998).

La constitutionnalité de la « fairness doctrine », souvent contestée en vertu du premier amendement, a été grandement légitimée, en 1969, par une décision de la Cour suprême dans l’affaire Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. Federal Communications Commission (Kurnit, 1975, p. 137). Dans la cause, Fred J. Cook estimait avoir été lésé par le traitement critique d’une émission du radiodiffuseur Red Lion Broadcasting, mais la station avait refusé de lui accorder du temps d’antenne pour se défendre. La FCC avait conclu que Cook avait été victime d’une attaque et que la station avait manqué à ses obligations sous la “fairness doctrine” en ne contactant pas Cook et en ne lui offrant pas du temps d’antenne pour répondre aux critiques faites à son égard[viii] (U.S. Supreme Court, 1969). De son côté, la station rejetait les règles de la “fairness doctrine”, allégeant qu’elles violaient l’esprit du premier amendement de la constitution américaine et par conséquent leur liberté d’expression et de presse.

Dans son jugement, la Cour suprême statue que :

« The First Amendment is relevant to public broadcasting, but it is the right of the viewing and listening public, and not the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount […] The First Amendment does not protect private censorship by broadcasters who are licensed by the Government to use a scarce resource which is denied to others » (US Supreme Court, 1969).

Dans cet arrêt clé, la Cour suprême a privilégié le droit du public d’être exposé aux différents points de vue dans un contexte de rareté des ondes. En cela, la décision de la cour rejoint l’esprit de la commission Hutchins qui exhortait, 22 ans plus tôt, les médias à plus d’ouverture et de pluralisme: « […] if they [the press] do not publish ideas, which differ from their own, those ideas will never reach the ear of America. If that happens, one of the chief reasons for the freedom which these giants claim disappears » (Commission on Freedom of the Press, 1947, p. 92-93).

Pourtant, cinq ans plus tard, la Cour suprême parvient à un raisonnement opposé dans l’affaire Miami Herald Pub. Co. Vs. Tornillo. Tornillo était un candidat à l’élection à la chambre des représentants de la Floride. Critiqué dans deux éditoriaux du Miami Herald, Tornillo exigeait que le journal lui accorde un droit de réponse en vertu d’un statut de la loi en Floride, ce qui lui a été refusé par le journal (Nerone, 1995, p. 59). Après un revers en première instance, la cour suprême de la Floride a reconnu le droit de réponse Tornillo, jugeant que celui-ci ne violait pas le principe de liberté de la presse, tel qu’inscrit dans le premier amendement[ix] (U.S . Supreme Court, 1974). Or, la Cour suprême infirma cette décision jugeant que ce droit de réponse était bel et bien inconstitutionnel :

« Even if a newspaper would face no additional costs to comply with the statute and would not be forced to forgo publication of news or opinion by the inclusion of a reply, the statute still fails to clear the First Amendment’s barriers because of its intrusion into the function of editors in choosing what material goes into a newspaper and in deciding on the size and content of the paper and the treatment of public issues and officials. […] A responsible press is an undoubtedly desirable goal, but press responsibility is not mandated by the Constitution, and, like many other virtues, it cannot be legislated » (U.S. Supreme Court, 1974).

Alors que le jugement de Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC reflétait les principes de la TRS, la décision de Miami Herald Co. v. Tornillo s’inscrit plutôt dans la tradition de la théorie libérale en rejetant la notion de « responsabilité des médias » (Nerone, 1995, p. 57-63). Cette contradiction s’explique par la nature des médias en question : dans le cas de Red Lion Broadcasting v. FCC, nous sommes en présence d’un radiodiffuseur; les fréquences (et les permis pour les opérer) étant limitées, la station se devait de donner un droit de réponse selon la cour suprême (p. 61). Dans le cas du Miami Herald v. Tornillo, il s’agit d’un journal. La cour suprême a alors tranché, en symbiose avec l’esprit de la théorie libérale des médias, qu’un marché de la presse écrite concurrentiel et non réglementé permettait de mieux faire entendre les opinions les plus diverses.(p. 61-63). Dans ce contexte, la cours jugeait l’intervention de la FCC inutile : « The choice of material to go into a new paper, and the decisions made as to limitations on the size and content of the paper, and treatment of public issues and public official — whether fair or unfair — constitute the exercise of editorial control and judgment » (U.S. Supreme Court, 1974).

La décision de la FCC d’abolir la fairness doctrine en 1987 confirme le déclin des idées associées à la TRS dans le domaine américain de l’audiovisuel. Elle illustre aussi l’emprise de l’esprit de la théorie libérale sur l’ensemble des médias. Une domination qui coïncide avec l’émergence des nouvelles technologies en radiodiffusion (télé par câble, par satellite, Internet), des technologies qui remettent en question le principe de la rareté des fréquences qui justifiait, à l’origine, la réglementation gouvernementale.

C’est principalement à Marc Folwer, nommé à la présidence de la FCC par Ronald Reagan de 1981 à 1987, qu’on doit attribuer l’abolition de la fairness doctrine. Ce partisan de la dérèglementation et du libre marché a en effet mené une bataille rangée avec le congrès, avec l’appui de Reagan, pour abroger la doctrine (Devins, 1993, p. 145). Qui plus est, en 2000, la FCC a renoncé à appliquer deux règlements associés à la fairness doctrine : le droit de réponse à un éditorial et le droit de réponse à une attaque en ondes. En 2009, un porte-parole de la maison blanche a par ailleurs affirmé que Barack Obama ne souhaiterait pas le retour de la fairness doctrine (Foxnews, 2009). Or, en favorisant un climat de laisser-faire au sein de l’audiovisuel, les États-Unis s’inscrivent à contre-courant des récents débats européens. En 2004, le Conseil de l’Europe a suggéré aux États membres d’étendre le droit de réponse à tous les médias, notamment sur Internet (Conseil de l’Europe, 2004). Encore une fois, les différences entre les normes médiatiques américaines et ouest-européennes procurent certains repères pour éclairer les approches des diplomates américains et européens en Bosnie et au Kosovo.

L’approche ouest-européenne

Nous avons identifié, à l’aide de la théorie libérale de la presse, quelques-unes des normes dominantes de la tradition médiatique américaine (méfiance de l’État, philosophie de laisser-faire en radiodiffusion depuis la fin des années 1980, faible culture d’autoréglementation de la presse, etc.). Ces normes s’ancrent, nous l’avons vu, dans une culture légale et politique grandement influencée par une interprétation stricte du premier amendement (Schauer, 2005; Downing, 1999). Elles illustrent aussi le rôle effacé de l’État dans le paysage médiatique américain qui est dominé par l’entreprise privée. Certes, le gouvernement américain soutient les médias, notamment par le biais de subventions postales, de publicités publiques ou de crédits d’impôt qui totalisent plusieurs centaines de millions de dollars annuellement (Pritchard, 2010, p. 21-22). Mais ce soutien financier est, toute proportion gardée, plus faible que celui octroyé par les gouvernements ouest-européens. Surtout si l’on compare la situation des médias publics américains, qui sont sous financés par rapport aux télédiffuseurs publics en Europe de l’Ouest (Silver, Strayer et al, 2009, p. 266-267).

Ce désengagement du gouvernement américain pas unique au secteur médiatique. Depuis la fin de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, les gouvernements ouest-européens ont investi de façon considérable dans leurs programmes sociaux. L’objectif était de favoriser la justice sociale et l’égalité des chances grâce à l’intervention de l’État dans l’économie pour stimuler la croissance. Ce système, appelé l’État providence (welfare state), a connu ses heures de gloire jusqu’aux années 1980, avant d’être ébranlé par la montée du néolibéralisme[x].

Cela dit, la tradition de l’État providence n’a pas pris racine aux États-Unis comme ce fut le cas en Europe de l’Ouest où les programmes sociaux sont plus généreux et inclusifs et les taux d’imposition plus progressifs (Alesina, Glaeser et al, 2001, p. 187). Pour expliquer cette différence, on avance que la constitution américaine — façonnée par une philosophie libérale classique du 18^e siècle — vise d’abord à protéger les libertés individuelles et la propriété (p. 225-226). En Europe de l’Ouest, les constitutions signées après la Seconde Guerre mondiale mettent plutôt l’accent sur la règle de la majorité et le bien-être public (p. 225-226).

L’influence de la théorie de la responsabilité sociale (TRS)

Dans son livre The Press and the Decline of Democracy, Robert Picard fait un lien entre l’interventionnisme des gouvernements et la conception du rôle de l’État au sein de la société (1985, p. 26). Aux États-Unis, cette conception est plus négative et limiterait l’intervention de l’État, tandis que dans la plupart des pays d’Europe de l’Ouest, l’interventionnisme gouvernemental est généralement mieux accepté (p. 26). Cette réalité expliquerait pourquoi les idées de la TRS, qui ouvrent la porte à l’intervention de l’État, ont eu plus d’écho en Europe de l’Ouest qu’aux États-Unis.

Rappelons que plusieurs auteurs donnent la paternité des idées de la TRS aux travaux de la commission Hutchins qui a publié, en 1947, un rapport intitulé : A Free and Responsible Press (Siebert, Peterson et al, 1956;  Merrill, 1974, Christians et Nordenstreng, 2004).  Comme son titre l’indique, les auteurs de ce rapport défendent la notion de la liberté de la presse, mais également l’idée que les médias ont des responsabilités envers la société. Les médias restent donc libres, mais s’ils ne parviennent pas à s’autodiscipliner en s’autoréglementant, l’État peut intervenir pour défendre l’intérêt public (Commission on the Freedom of the Press, 1947, p. 18).

Dans un ouvrage sur l’éthique journalistique, John Merrill (1997) résume les cinq « exigences » mises de l’avant par la commission Hutchins afin que les médias soient « responsables » (p. 17) :

1. « The media should provide a truthful, comprehensive and intelligent account of the days’ events in a context which gives them meaning. (Media should be accurate; they should not lie, should separate the fact from opinion, should report in a meaningful way internationally, and should go beyond the facts and report the truth.)

2. The media should serve as a forum for the exchange of comments and criticisms. Media should be common carriers; they should publish ideas contrary to their own […] all “important viewpoints and interests” in the society should be represented […].

3, The media should project a representative picture of the constituent groups in the society. (When images presented by the media fail to present a social group truly, judgment is perverted; truth about any group must be representative; it must include the group’s values and aspirations, but it should not exclude the group’s weakness and vices.)

4. The media should present and clarify the goals and values of the society. (Media are educational instruments; they must assume a responsibility to state and clarify the ideals toward which the community should strive.)

5. The media should provide full access to the day’s intelligence. (There is a need for the “wide distribution of news and opinions” » (p. 17).

Il est intéressant de noter que les normes et pratiques journalistiques énumérées ici — ex. l’importance d’une information diversifiée et plurielle, l’accès universel à l’information, le rôle éducatif des médias, etc. — sont présentes dans la plupart des chartes et codes de déontologie des radiotélévisions publiques (Christians, Glasser et al., 2009, p. 10.). Bien évidemment, les normes associées à la TRS sont aux antipodes de la pensée des partisans du laisser-faire qui croient que les médias et les journalistes ne doivent rien à personne (Merrill, 1974, p. 101). Selon la TRS, les médias sont plutôt considérés comme un « bien public »; ils ont des « obligations » envers la société qu’ils doivent servir (McKenzie, 2006, p. 78). Voilà l’élément clé qui distingue la tradition médiatique américaine et de la tradition ouest-européenne. Alors qu’aux États-Unis les médias sont vus comme des entreprises commerciales, en Europe de l’Ouest, ils sont avant tout perçus comme des « institutions sociales » au service du public (Hallin et Mancini, 2004, p. 49). Cette conception façonne en retour le rôle du gouvernement dans le marché médiatique :

« Just as the state in Europe is expected to play an active in mediating dispute between capital and labor or in maintaining the health of national industries, it is expected to intervene in media markets to accomplish a variety of collective goals from political pluralism and improving the quality of democratic life […] » (Dahl et Lindblom, 1976; Gustafsson, 1980; cités dans Hallin et Mancini, 2004, p. 49).

C’est dans le secteur de la radiodiffusion, plus que dans le domaine de la presse écrite, que le contraste entre les traditions américaine et ouest-européenne est le plus marquant. Aux États-Unis, la radio et la télévision ont été laissées aux mains de l’entreprise privée (CMRTV/CEM, 2000 p. 8). On a estimé que l’intérêt du public serait mieux servi par une presse commerciale qui est « […] libre du contrôle gouvernemental et de son influence »  (p. 8; Siebert, Peterson et al., 1956, p. 3-4). En Europe de l’Ouest, au contraire, l’État a été beaucoup plus présent dans le marché médiatique. Au sortir de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, nous l’avons vu, la plupart des gouvernements ouest-européens ont exercé un monopole public de la radio et de la télévision dont le degré d’autonomie variait d’un pays à l’autre (Cuilenburg et McQuail, 2003, p. 193). En Grande-Bretagne, par exemple, la radiotélévision publique a bénéficié d’une grande autonomie puisque son indépendance est garantie par une charte royale depuis 1927. Dans les pays où il existe une culture politique dirigiste, le contrôle gouvernemental de la radiodiffusion a été plus important. Les radiodiffuseurs des pays méditerranéens comme la France, l’Italie et la Grèce ont subi l’influence, voire le contrôle ou la censure, des autorités en place (Hallin et Mancini, 2004, p. 30). Mais cette interférence a eu tendance à diminuer au fil des ans grâce aux réformes mises en œuvre (p. 30-67). De leur côté, les radiotélévisions publiques des pays nordiques (Danemark, Finlande, Norvège et Suède) ont bénéficié d’un grand degré d’autonomie (p. 165-169).

La fin des monopoles publics,
la libéralisation des marchés et le Traité d’Amsterdam

À partir des années 1980, le monopole des gouvernements ouest-européens en radiodiffusion s’effrite. L’émergence de la télévision par câble et satellite favorise l’essor des radios et des télévisions commerciales. On assiste alors à l’établissement d’un système de radiodiffusion mixte en Europe de l’Ouest où des chaînes privées côtoient les radiotélévisions publiques. La transformation du secteur de l’audiovisuel survient au moment où l’Union européenne (UE) consolide son marché commun avec l’Acte unique européen en 1986 et le Traité de Maastricht en 1992. Sur la scène mondiale, les négociations menant à la signature en 1994 de l’Accord général du commerce des services — qui crée l’OMC — donnent lieu à des débats houleux sur la commercialisation des biens et des services culturels (Cahn et Schimmel, 1997, p. 282). Avec la libéralisation des échanges à l’ordre du jour, la priorité est d’harmoniser les législations nationales, ce qui a pour effet de limiter l’étendue des pouvoirs des gouvernements nationaux.

Le secteur de la radiodiffusion n’échappe à cette dynamique. En 1984, la Commission européenne (CE) publie un Livre vert sur la création d’un marché unique de la radiodiffusion. Le document explore les enjeux liés à l’établissement d’un « marché de l’information ouvert et concurrentiel » (Commission européenne, 1984, en ligne). Les discussions à ce sujet mèneront à l’adoption, en 1989, de la directive sur la « Télévision sans Frontières », maintenant nommée la Directive sur les services de médias audiovisuels. Cette politique vise à établir « […] des règles communes ouvrant les marchés nationaux les uns aux autres » (Conseil des communautés européennes, 1989, p. 23-24). La directive établit également le principe de la « liberté de réception » selon lequel un État membre ne peut empêcher la retransmission sur son territoire de programmes provenant d’autres États membres. (Commission européenne, 1989, en ligne) La directive prévoit enfin des dispositions relatives à la publicité télévisée, à la protection des mineurs et au respect du droit de réponse des citoyens lésé à la suite d’une allégation incorrecte lors d’un programme télévisé (Conseil des communautés européennes, 1989, p. 28-30).

La création d’un marché commun de l’audiovisuel au plan régional va de pair avec un processus de déréglementation de la radiodiffusion au plan national. De nombreux gouvernements assouplissent leurs lois sur la concentration de la propriété des médias, ainsi que sur la propriété croisée (Doyle, 1998, p. 451-452). Cette situation favorise la fusion de compagnies européennes qui forment de grands conglomérats transnationaux pour concurrencer les multinationales américaines de l’audiovisuel.

Mais c’est surtout l’essor de la radio et de la télévision par satellite qui contribue à ébranler le système de radiodiffusion et plus spécifiquement le principe de la rareté des fréquences sur lequel il se fonde (Dyson et Humphreys, 1989, p. 137-138). Avec les nouvelles technologies, l’offre en radiodiffusion devient pratiquement illimitée : « The […] multiplication of broadcasting channels has raised the prospect of broadcasting as a form of ‘electronic publishing’ with little space left for extensive regulation and restriction of entrance to the sector » (p. 139). Parallèlement, les propriétaires de médias commerciaux contestent les aides gouvernementales aux radiotélévisions publiques en soulignant qu’elles violent l’esprit du marché commun et la politique de concurrence de l’UE (Christians et Nordenstreng, 2004, p. 8). (Au Kosovo, les diplomates américaines ont avancé un argument semblable en dénonçant le fait que la radiotélévision publique kosovare bénéficie de revenus publicitaires en plus de redevances publiques) (Bajraktari et Hsu, 2007, p. 19).

À ce stade, il peut être intéressant de faire un parallèle entre la déréglementation du secteur de la radiodiffusion amorcée dans les années 1980 et la théorie libérale de la presse. Car derrière le processus de dérégulation, il y a la croyance que l’entrepreneuriat, la concurrence et le marché sauront mieux répondre aux défis d’un secteur audiovisuel en bouleversement. Ces idées, nous l’avons vu, rejoignent l’esprit de théorie libérale qui met l’individu au centre de ses préoccupations et où l’État est perçu comme un obstacle potentiel au « libre marché des idées » (McQuail, 2005, p. 185). Pourtant, en dépit des politiques favorisant les médias commerciaux (ouverture des marchés, assouplissements des règles sur la propriété des médias, privatisation de monopoles d’État, etc.), les radiotélévisions publiques ont conservé leur influence. Dans la plupart des pays d’Europe de l’Ouest, leurs parts de marché varient entre 30 % et 50 % — alors que c’est seulement 2 % aux États-Unis (Hallin et Mancini, 2004, p. 42). Qui plus est, l’importance du modèle public a été soulignée par les États membres de l’UE lors de la signature du Traité d’Amsterdam en 1997 avec l’adoption d’un protocole sur le système de la radiodiffusion publique :

« Les Hautes Parties contractantes, considérant que la radiodiffusion de service public dans les États membres est directement liée aux besoins démocratiques, sociaux et culturels de chaque société ainsi qu’à la nécessité de préserver le pluralisme dans les médias, sont convenues des dispositions interprétatives ci-après, qui sont annexées au traité instituant la Communauté européenne:

Les dispositions du traité instituant la Communauté européenne sont sans préjudice de la compétence des États membres de pourvoir au financement du service public de radiodiffusion dans la mesure où ce financement est accordé aux organismes de radiodiffusion aux fins de l’accomplissement de la mission de service public telle qu’elle a été conférée, définie et organisée par chaque État membre et dans la mesure où ce financement n’altère pas les conditions des échanges et de la concurrence dans la Communauté dans une mesure qui serait contraire à l’intérêt commun, étant entendu que la réalisation du mandat de ce service public doit être prise en compte. » (Traité d’Amsterdam, 1997, p. 109)

Les membres de l’UE affirment ainsi haut et fort la mission sociale, culturelle et démocratique des radiotélévisions publiques. Le document établit une distinction claire entre les radiodiffuseurs commerciaux, régis par des impératifs marchands, et les radiotélévisions publiques dont le rôle est de servir le public selon les priorités nationales de chaque État membre. Par le fait même, le Traité valide le principe du financement national de la radiodiffusion publique au sein du marché européen : « The […] text specifies that the funding of public service broadcasting, notably licence fees paid annually by consumers, is protected at the national against normal EU-wide competition rules » (Christians et Nordenstreng, 2004, p. 8).

Par ailleurs, en soulignant « la nécessité de préserver le pluralisme dans les médias », les signataires du traité abordent l’enjeu de la concentration des médias en Europe (p. 8). Christians et Nordenstreng (2004) voient dans cette mention un autre exemple de l’influence de la TRS en Europe :

« There is a clear corollary between the Hutchins Commission’s defence of the press against what it saw as an excessively commercial market and the European defence of the media against the purely commercial market. […] In Europe, the SR (social responsibility) theory prevails in the deep structures of political economy and media policy. Therefore one is entitled to say that the spirit of Hutchins is very much Alive in Europe today » (p. 9-10).

Christians et Nordenstreng reconnaissent tout de même l’aspect « schizophrène » des politiques européennes en communication où, d’une part, on craint une trop grande concentration de la presse et, d’autre part, on encourage l’essor de conglomérats européens pour concurrencer les multinationales américaines de l’audiovisuel (p. 9-10). Mais malgré la commercialisation du secteur de la radiodiffusion, l’influence de la TRS est toujours très prégnante en Europe de l’Ouest.

Quelques exemples de l’influence
de la TRS en Bosnie-Herzégovine et au Kosovo

L’objectif de ce travail n’est pas de faire une analyse des réformes médiatiques implantées en Bosnie-Herzégovine et au Kosovo en matière de médias. Il nous apparaît néanmoins pertinent, en terminant, de faire quelques mentions de l’influence de la SRT et du modèle de la radiotélévision publique dans les initiatives mises en œuvre pour réformer le secteur médiatique de ces deux pays. Tout d’abord, les références aux « standards européens » sont fréquentes dans les déclarations des responsables des organisations internationales sur le terrain. En Bosnie-Herzégovine, le Bureau du Haut Représentant — qui représente les pays impliqués dans la mise en œuvre de l’accord de paix — a indiqué dès 1998 que le radiodiffuseur public devait être financé par les contribuables et réformé selon les « standards européens » et ce, malgré des divergences apparentes avec les Américains. (OHR, 1998) Au Kosovo, la mission d’administration intérimaire des Nations Unies (MINUK) et l’Organisation pour la sécurité et la coopération en Europe (OSCE) ont aussi vigoureusement encouragé la transformation de la radio et la télévision d’État en radiotélévision publique indépendante (Mertus et Thompson, 2002, p. 266-267).

L’influence des normes médiatiques ouest-européennes est aussi explicite dans le régime réglementaire en radiodiffusion qui a été établi par les diplomates de l’ONU et de l’OSCE. Au Kosovo, le Commissaire provisoire aux médias — un poste créé par la MINUK — a établi en 2000 un Code de conduite pour  les radiotélévisions publiques et privées du pays. Selon l’OSCE, le code : « […] spells out generally accepted norms and responsibilities similar to those contained in other European codes applicable to the broadcast media » (OSCE, 2000). Entre autres choses, le code encourage :

1. La recherche de la vérité, de la précision, de l’équilibre, de l’impartialité et de l’indépendance dans la couverture journalistique;
2. Le respect des différences ethniques, culturelles et religieuses du Kosovo, incluant les langues minoritaires;
3. L’interdiction de diffuser le nom, les coordonnées et la photo d’un individu accusé d’avoir commis un crime sans autorisation de la justice. (OSCE, 2000)

Inutile de préciser que les normes et pratiques journalistiques soulignées ici s’inscrivent dans l’esprit de la SRT, comme la responsabilité de représenter les différents groupes de la société, en particulier les minorités, de façon non stéréotypée (Commission on Freedom of the Press, 1947, p. 26).

Notons par ailleurs que le Code de conduite des radiodiffuseurs kosovars fait mention explicite de l’article 10 de la Convention européenne des droits de l’homme (Mertus et Thompson, 2002, p. 275). Or, le sens de l’article 10 peut paraître contradictoire. Dans le premier paragraphe, on y précise que : « […] Toute personne a droit à la liberté d’expression. Ce droit comprend la liberté d’opinion et la liberté de recevoir ou de communiquer des informations ou des idées sans qu’il puisse y avoir ingérence d’autorités publiques et sans considération de frontière » (Conseil de l’Europe, 1950, p. 5). Néanmoins, dans le deuxième paragraphe, il est ajouté que :

« L’exercice de ces libertés comportant des devoirs et des responsabilités peut être soumis à certaines formalités, conditions, restrictions ou sanctions prévues par la loi, qui constituent des mesures nécessaires, dans une société démocratique, à la sécurité nationale, à l’intégrité territoriale ou à la sûreté publique, à la défense de l’ordre et à la prévention du crime, à la protection de la santé ou de la morale, à la protection de la réputation ou des droits d’autrui, pour empêcher la divulgation d’informations confidentielles ou pour garantir l’autorité et l’impartialité du pouvoir judiciaire » (p. 5).

La notion de « responsabilité », si présente dans la TRS, prend ici une dimension importante. Elle précise que la liberté d’expression et les libertés qui lui sont associées (liberté d’opinion, de communication) ne sont pas sans limites et peuvent faire l’objet de restrictions, voire de sanctions. Cette conception est pour le moins éloignée de l’esprit du premier amendement de la constitution des États-Unis qui stipule que le Congrès ne peut adopter aucune loi restreignant la liberté d’expression ou de presse. Cette notion de responsabilité a d’ailleurs fait l’objet de débats entre les diplomates européens et américains à l’OSCE, ces derniers ne comprenant pas comment un droit aussi essentiel peut-être ainsi contraint (Nikoltchev, 2010). Or, d’un point de vue européen, la perspective d’une liberté d’expression quasi absolue où, comme c’est le cas aux États-Unis, des discours haineux peuvent être tenus s’ils n’incitent pas à la violence imminente n’est pas envisageable (Schauer, 2005, p. 10-11). D’ailleurs, c’est probablement l’une des raisons qui explique la référence à l’article 10 dans le Code de conduite des radiodiffuseurs kosovars compte tenu du climat social et politique explosif du pays après la guerre.

Enfin, la tradition d’autoréglementation de la presse de certains pays d’Europe de l’Ouest — un principe clé de la SRT — permet d’éclairer le travail de l’OSCE au Kosovo. En 2004, l’organisation a facilité la création d’un Conseil de presse national, un organe d’autorégulation de la presse écrite kosovare. Fait plutôt rare, le Conseil a eu le pouvoir d’imposer des amendes aux médias écrits qui ne respectaient pas son code de conduite jusqu’en 2010[xi]. Peu de conseils de presse nationaux disposent de tels pouvoirs dans les pays où ils existent. Mais comme le rappellent Hallin et Mancini (2004), les pays de tradition « démocratique corporatiste » comme l’Allemagne, la Finlande, la Norvège, la Suède et les Pays-Bas, ont une forte tradition d’autoréglementation des médias écrits où les conseils de presse jouent un rôle important (p. 172-173). La Suède, en particulier, possède un conseil de presse dont les origines remontent à 1916. Le conseil est dirigé par un juge, l’industrie des médias y est présente, mais minoritaire et un ombudsman enquête sur les plaintes du public, du secteur privé ou du gouvernement. (En ligne, http://www.po.se/english/) Le conseil peut également imposer des amendes et exiger que les journaux et magazines suédois publient ses décisions. Cette situation contraste avec les pouvoirs habituellement symboliques des autres conseils de presse d’autres pays qui font plutôt office de tribunaux d’honneur. Dans ce contexte, les responsables de l’OSCE ont-ils tenu compte de l’expérience suédoise lorsqu’ils ont voulu mettre sur pied le Conseil de presse avec le concours de la communauté journalistique kosovare? La réponse à cette question viendra seulement après une collecte de données sur le terrain.

Conclusions préliminaires

Les deux idéal-types proposés — l’approche américaine et l’approche européenne — offrent un cadre théorique utile pour interpréter les divergences qui ont opposé les diplomates américains et européens dans la réforme du secteur médiatique en Bosnie et au Kosovo. Grâce à la théorie libérale de la presse et à la TRS, nous avons identifié les normes importantes des traditions médiatiques américaine et ouest-européenne. Nous avançons que ces normes ont façonné les approches des diplomates américains et européens dans la mise en œuvre des réformes médiatiques en Bosnie et au Kosovo, d’où la proposition de nos idéal-types.

Bien évidemment, ces idéal-types sont des simplifications de réalités complexes. Mais l’approche idéale typique requiert justement de ne retenir que les traits jugés typiques ou caractéristiques du phénomène étudié (Brin, Charron et al, 2004 p. 10). La tradition médiatique américaine, par exemple, est essentiellement libérale. Dans ce pays, la méfiance de l’État est devenue une norme dominante au sein de l’arène politique et judiciaire, notamment en raison d’une interprétation rigide du premier amendement par les tribunaux (Schauer, 2005, Downing, 1999). La tradition médiatique américaine se distingue également par la domination des médias commerciaux et par un très faible investissement de l’État dans le système public de radiodiffusion. De plus, la promotion d’une philosophie de laisser-faire par les autorités politiques américaines a contribué à la dérèglementation progressive de l’audiovisuel avec l’abolition, en 1987, de la « fairness doctrine » et, en 2000, des droits de réponse à un éditorial et à une attaque en ondes. Les États-Unis se démarquent enfin par une faible culture d’autoréglementation de la presse. En somme, la conception de la liberté dans la tradition médiatique américaine est fondamentalement négative, pour reprendre la distinction d’Isaiah Berlin. Pour que les médias soient libres, il faut éliminer l’interférence de l’État qui représente un obstacle à la réalisation de leur travail (McQuail, 2005, p. 185).

En Europe de l’Ouest, le rôle de l’État est perçu de façon plus positive (Picard, 1985, p. 25-26). La forte tradition de l’État providence en est un indicateur probant. Les gouvernements d’Europe de l’Ouest ont été aussi très présents dans le domaine de la radiodiffusion en exerçant des monopoles de l’État jusque dans les années 1980. Or, si les forces de la mondialisation et les avancées technologiques en radiodiffusion ont favorisé la déréglementation et la mise en place d’un système mixte dans ce secteur, les radiotélévisions publiques n’ont pas pour autant perdu leur influence. La tradition du service de radiotélévision publique, et les normes de la SRT qui y sont associées, est toujours vibrante en Europe de l’Ouest (Christians et Nordenstreng, 2004, p. 9-10). La reconnaissance par le Traité d’Amsterdam de l’apport social, culturel et démocratique de la radiotélévision publique en fait foi. De même, il existe une forte culture de réglementation et d’autoréglementation de la presse dans de nombreux pays d’Europe de l’Ouest, comme l’illustrent les lois sur le droit de réponse et les codes de conduite pour les radiodiffuseurs et les médias écrits. Enfin, la conception de la liberté dans la tradition ouest-européenne est plus positive. L’État peut jouer un rôle utile dans le secteur médiatique, en s’assurant notamment que la radiotélévision publique peut remplir sa mission sociale ou culturelle ou en mettant un frein à une trop grande concentration de la presse.

Ainsi, à la lumière de la littérature analysée, l’approche américaine et l’approche ouest-européenne nous semblent des concepts idéal-typiques tout à fait pertinents pour conceptualiser le phénomène étudié. Cela dit, nous n’avons pas l’intention de nous laisser aveugler par nos idéal-types. Nous savons que la réalité que nous rencontrerons sur le terrain risque de s’éloigner de ce « tableau de pensée » que nous avons construit. C’est d’ailleurs la tâche du chercheur de déterminer « combien la réalité s’écarte ou se rapproche de ce tableau idéal » (Weber, 1992, p. 172-173). C’est donc sur le terrain, lors de la réalisation des entrevues avec les acteurs clés, que nous pourrons, ultimement, juger de la validité de nos concepts.

Notes

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[i] Par normes, nous entendons les règles subjectives déterminant les rapports entre une société (ou un regroupement de sociétés) et les médias au plan national ou transnational. Ces règles peuvent être inscrites dans les articles de la constitution d’un pays, dans les articles d’un traité régional ou international, sous forme de lois ou sous forme de conventions ou de règlements spécifiés dans le code de déontologie d’un média ou d’une association professionnelle. Les normes sont des règles subjectives en ce sens qu’elles représentent une « vision du monde », c’est-à-dire une vision des rapports idéaux qui devraient exister entre les médias et une société, selon les normes dominantes au plan social, politique, économique ou culturel. Bien évidemment, ces normes ont évolué au cours de l’histoire. Dans Normative Theories of the Media, Christians, Glasser et al. écrivent que les « normes contemporaines en communication publique sont le résultat d’une conversation continue qui a évolué depuis plus de 2500 ans […] » et qui représente la vision philosophique du monde d’une société à un moment de son histoire. Voir : Clifford G. Christians, Theodore L. Glasser et al. (2009), Normative Theories of the Media, Urbana/Chicago : University of Illinois Press, p. 37-38. Vois aussi Denis McQuail (2010), Mass Communication Theory, London : Sage Publications, p. 162.

[ii] Dans la littérature sur les théories de la presse, les auteurs qui emploient les termes « Europe » ou « Europe de l’Ouest » ne spécifient généralement pas les pays auxquels ils réfèrent. En ce qui nous concerne, lorsque nous parlons d’approche « ouest-européenne », nous référons aux pays européens où il existe une tradition démocratique avec une presse libre (Allemagne, Autriche, Belgique, Danemark, Finlande, France, Italie, Pays-Bas, Norvège, Royaume-Uni, Suède, Suisse). C’est en effet dans ces pays que les idées associées aux théories de la presse, comme la théorie de la responsabilité sociale, ont pu prendre forme après la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Notre catégorisation exclut donc les pays d’Europe de l’Est annexés par l’Union soviétique après la Deuxième Guerre mondiale et aussi certains pays du sud de l’Europe, comme l’Espagne, la Grèce et le Portugal, qui ont connu des épisodes dictatoriaux. Lorsque nous référons aux « diplomates européens », nous faisons référence aux fonctionnaires européens qui travaillent pour les organisations régionales et internationales présentes en Bosnie et au Kosovo, à savoir l’OSCE, le Conseil européen et les Nations unies, de même que pour des ambassades et des agences de pays européens impliquées dans le processus de réforme des médias. Par « diplomates américains », nous faisons aussi références aux fonctionnaires américains (généralement à l’emploi du Secrétariat d’État) qui travaillent au sein des ambassades américaines et des institutions impliquées dans le processus de réforme médiatique comme l’OSCE et les missions des Nations Unies en Bosnie et au Kosovo.

[iii] L’application des codes de conduite pour les médias kosovars (écrits et en audiovisuel) est survenue un mois après la découverte du corps de Petar Topoljski. Ce Serbe du Kosovo avait été qualifié de criminel de guerre par le journal kosovar de langue albanaise Dita. Le journal avait publié le nom, l’adresse, le lieu de travail et ses lieux de fréquentation de Topoljski, qui a été assassiné quelques jours plus tard. L’incident — publicisé après l’intervention de l’ambassadeur Thompson à l’OSCE — aurait incité Kouchner à aller de l’avant avec les sanctions prévues par les codes.

[iv] Dans la littérature sur les théories normatives de la presse, on emploie souvent les termes « théories » et « traditions » de façon interchangeable pour décrire les théories corporatiste, libérale ou de la responsabilité sociale des médias. De leur côté, Christians, Glasser et al. (2009) préfèrent parler de « traditions » ou de « traditions paradigmatiques ». Ils expliquent que les traditions normatives des médias sont des « entités historiques stables » et « trop fragmentées » pour être conçues comme des théories (p. 20). Pourtant, quelques pages plus tôt, les auteurs parlent de l’existence de « quatre traditions historiques de la théorie normative », ce qui laisse le lecteur un peu perplexe (p. 16). Pour éviter toute confusion, nous nous en tiendrons à l’interprétation suivante : les théories normatives de la presse auxquels nous référons sont en fait le produit de traditions philosophiques, elles-mêmes fondées sur des normes et des valeurs qui se sont imposées à certains moments de l’histoire (p. 19-25) et qui ont été conceptualisées par la suite par des chercheurs et théoriciens. Par exemple, de nombreux auteurs (Merrill, 1974, McQuail, 2005, Balle, 2003, Christians et Nordenstreng, 2004) citent les travaux de la Commission Hutchins de 1947 comme étant le fondement philosophique de la théorie de la responsabilité sociale. Mais ce n’est que quelques années plus tard que ce concept a été théorisé par Siebert, Peterson et al., dans le classique Four Theories of The Press, publié en 1956 (Merrill, 1974, p. 88). En ce sens, une théorie peut cristalliser les éléments forts d’une tradition philosophique.

[v] Il y a des exceptions. La faible culture d’autoréglementation de la presse écrite britannique a été remise en question avec le scandale du piratage des comptes cellulaires de citoyens britanniques par des journalistes et contractuels travaillant pour News Corp., la compagnie de Rupert Murdoch. En juillet 2011, le premier ministre David Cameron a annoncé une enquête publique sur le scandale. Des observateurs spéculaient sur la possibilité que le gouvernement renforce le système de réglementation des médias écrits compte tenu du discrédit planant sur la Press Complaint Commission (PCC). La PCC est un organe d’autoréglementation émanant de l’industrie de la presse qui est chargé d’étudier les plaintes à son égard et qui est critiqué pour son inefficacité. Voir Guy Ghazan (2011), « Tougher U.K. Press Regulation Is Seen », The Wall Street Journal, Vol. 29 (117), July 15-17, p. 3.

[vi] Selon la conception positive de la liberté (freedom to), le gouvernement peut contribuer à l’amélioration ou au renforcement des droits individuels, devenant par le fait même un vecteur d’émancipation. Berlin reste néanmoins critique des penseurs qui ont une conception positive de la liberté, en particulier Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Il perçoit avec méfiance les velléités interventionnistes de Rousseau au nom de la liberté et de la souveraineté populaire, car elles peuvent mener à l’arbitraire et au despotisme. Isaiah Berlin (1958), Two Concepts of Liberty. Dans Hardy Henry (2000) (dir.), Isaiah Berlin, Liberty, Oxford : Oxford University Press, p. 173-214

[vii] Lors d’une interview par Radio-Canada, Marc Raboy raconte la rencontre, en 1929, de l’équipe de la commission d’enquête royale sur la radiodiffusion, présidée par John Aird, avec Franklin Roosevelt, alors gouverneur de l’État de New York. Lors de la rencontre à New York, Roosevelt leur aurait dit : « Ne faites pas comme nous [aux États-Unis]. Ne faites pas en sorte que la radio soit une affaire [commerciale]. Il faut que la radio demeure dans le domaine public. » Selon Raboy, le président Aird et son équipe auraient été « […] gagnés à l’idée que la radio était essentiellement un instrument éducatif et culturel et pour réaliser les objectifs socio-culturels, elle devait être organisée dans le secteur public ». Marc Raboy (1996), Entrevue à Radio-Canada, De la radiodiffusion aux télécommunications, Montréal : Radio-Canada. URL http://archives.radio-canada.ca/arts_culture/medias/dossiers/918/ [10 juillet 2011].

[viii] Pour plus de détails les faits résumés ici, voir le compte rendu intégral du jugement de la Cour suprême : U.S. Supreme Court. (1969). Red Lion Broadcasting Co., Inc. v. FCC, 395 U.S. 367. URL: http://supreme.justia.com/us/395/367/case.html#386 [15 juillet 2011].

[ix] Pour les faits résumés ici, voir : U.S. Supreme Court (1974), Miami Herald Pub. Co. v. Tornillo, 418 u. s. 241.  URL http://supreme.justia.com/us/418/241/case.html [15 juin 2011]

[x] De nombreux articles et livres ont été consacrés à l’explication (et à la critique) du néolibéralisme.  L’Oxford English Dictionary propose une définition simple qui décrit cette idéologie comme étant : « […] characteristic of a modified or revived form of traditional liberalism, especially one based on belief in free market capitalism and the rights of the individual”. Oxford English Dictionary (1993), “Neo-liberal”, dans Third edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press. URL http://oed.com/ [20 juillet 2011]. Comme la définition le laisse entendre, on retrouve dans le courant de pensée néolibéral de nombreuses idées attribuées au libéralisme classique (individualisme, croyance au marché et méfiance de l’État, tendance au laisser-faire, etc.). Dans le domaine économique, on associe généralement le néolibéralisme aux politiques de privatisation, de libéralisation et de déréglementation qui visent à restreindre le contrôle du gouvernement sur l’économie au profit du secteur privé, notamment en démantelant les monopoles d’État, en diminuant les impôts et réduisant les barrières tarifaires (Cohen, 2007, p. 5). À l’international, les politiques « néolibérales » ont été liées aux efforts de gouvernements pour créer, dans un contexte de mondialisation, des zones de libre-échange (NAFTA, MERCOSUR, UE, etc.) afin de stimuler les échanges commerciaux. Voir aussi : Joseph Nathan Cohen (2007), “The Impact of Neoliberalism, Political Institutions and Financial Autonomy on Economic Development, 1980–2003″, Dissertation, Princeton University, p. 5.

[xi] Depuis le 26 janvier 2010, le Conseil de presse du Kosovo n’impose plus d’amendes. Bien que ce développement soit intéressant, ce sont avant tout les débats qui ont eu lieu avant la création du Conseil qui nous intéressent, de même que les raisons pour lesquelles on a accordé à cet organe le pouvoir d’imposer de telles sanctions. US. Department of State (2011), 2010 Human Rights Report: Kosovo, Washington. D.C.. URL http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2010/eur/154432.htm [25 juillet 2011]

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Par Isabelle Bédard-Brûlé, Kasia Mychajlowycz, Colette Brin et Ivor Shapiro

À propos des auteurs

Isabelle Bédard-Brûlé est auxiliaire de recherche et doctorante au Département d’information et de communication de l’Université Laval, Québec, Canada, G1V 0A6, isabelle.bedard-brule.1@ulaval.ca

Kasia Mychajlowycz est assitante de recherche et candidate à la maîtrise en journalisme à la Yeates School of Graduate Studies, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada, kmychaj@gmail.com

Colette Brin est professeure titulaire au Département d’information et de communication de l’Université Laval, Québec, Canada, G1V 0A6, colette.brin@com.ulaval.ca

Ivor Shapiro est professeur-associé et directeur du programme de premier cycle de l’école de journalisme de l’Université Ryerson, Toront0, Canada, ishapiro@fcad.ryerson.ca

Résumé de l’article

Les journalistes subissent désormais la concurrence d’un nombre quasi infini de sources sur Internet. Sur quelles bases peuvent-ils aujourd’hui réclamer l’attention et la confiance du public? L’exigence d’exactitude apparaît comme fondamentale et universelle, mais, au-delà de l’importance que les journalistes accordent d’emblée à la vérification, quelles sont les règles qui régissent leurs routines quotidiennes? Cette étude examine à la fois les pratiques et le discours des journalistes de quotidiens canadiens, dans le but de contribuer au développement de meilleures pratiques de vérification journalistique. Nous y présentons les résultats de quatre entretiens individuels réalisés auprès de journalistes récipiendaires ou finalistes de prix d’excellence afin de reconstruire les stratégies de vérification utilisées par les reporters et de comprendre leur point de vue sur les normes qui les régissent.

Abstract

Journalists must now compete with other citizens in a Web-dominated information marketplace. On what basis may they now claim public attention and trust? One distinguishing and universal value is a drive for accuracy, but what exactly does verification mean in everyday practice? Under what circumstances and how frequently does a journalist systematically verify information? This study will examine both practices and discourse of journalists working in daily newspapers with the aim to contribute to the development of journalistic “best practices”. We will present results of four interviews conducted with award-winning journalists to reconstruct the fact-checking strategies and standards employed by the reporter, and probe individual views on verification.

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Introduction

Avec la montée d’Internet, le rôle conventionnel des journalistes dans la sphère publique est passé d’un quasi-monopole de l’information à un lien moins central, voire évitable, dans la chaîne de l’information (Bardoel, 1996). La légitimité de la profession peut être contestée par un public ayant maintenant accès à une diversité de sources de nouvelles (Heinonen, 1999). Avec la mise en cause du statut de « chien de garde » et la vitesse qui l’emporte souvent sur l’exactitude dans la transmission des informations, les journalistes doivent définir leur niche professionnelle, afin d’affronter la concurrence des professionnels des nouveaux médias (Singer, 2003). Sur quelles bases les journalistes peuvent-ils aujourd’hui obtenir l’attention et la confiance du public?

Les critères de qualité de la profession ont traditionnellement été tacites, intuitifs et variés, mais l’exactitude de l’information apparaît toujours d’une importance capitale en journalisme. Pour respecter cette norme, une méthode de travail axée sur la vérification s’impose. Mais quelle place tient exactement la vérification dans la pratique quotidienne des journalistes? Qu’est-ce qui constitue une vérification adéquate? Est-ce qu’un fait corroboré par deux sources faisant autorité est automatiquement plus valable qu’un autre fourni par une source anonyme? Combien de sources suffisent? Qu’est-ce qui constitue une source fiable?

Notre étude vise à apporter des clarifications sur ce que signifie la pratique du journalisme à un moment où la profession, et l’industrie qui la soutient, semblent être en crise (Brin, Charron et de Bonville, 2004). Nous souhaitons examiner les valeurs professionnelles des journalistes d’aujourd’hui et la façon dont elles se traduisent dans la pratique journalistique. En d’autres termes, quelles normes naissantes peuvent être déterminées d’après la conduite et les croyances des journalistes canadiens? Nous tentons également de savoir dans quelle mesure il existe une communauté de pratique, c’est-à-dire un groupe de personnes dont le travail commun et les interactions alimentent et améliorent leurs pratiques (Wenger, 1999), chez les journalistes d’aujourd’hui au Canada, tout en identifiant les normes tacites définies par cette communauté ou celles qui sont suffisamment évoluées pour être décrites comme les « meilleures pratiques ». Ces dernières se distinguent des routines par leur objectif d’améliorer la qualité de la production professionnelle plutôt que l’efficience organisationnelle et économique.

Problématique

La culture professionnelle des journalistes, qui s’articule autour d’une mission démocratique traditionnellement liée à la liberté de la presse, valorise l’autonomie et la diversité dans la pratique. Ce qui expliquerait pourquoi les critères de qualité ont toujours été tacites, intuitifs et variés plutôt que codifiés ou standardisés (Ruellan, 2007; Schultz, 2007; Shapiro, 2009; Shapiro, Albanese & Doyle, 2006; Soloski, 1989).

Cependant, les journalistes s’entendraient sur certaines valeurs professionnelles fondamentales, malgré des variations selon les groupes culturels et sociodémographiques (Beam, 2008; Pritchard et Sauvageau, 1999; Weaver & Wu, 1998). Parmi ces valeurs communes, l’exactitude apparaît comme la plus consensuelle parmi les journalistes (Bogart, 1989, 2004; Burgoon, Burgoon & Atkin, 1982; Gladney, 1990; Gladney, Shapiro & Castaldo, 2007; Shapiro et al, 2006 ; Cleghorn, 1990; Davies, 2008; Franklin, 2006; Meyer, 2004). Mais l’exactitude exige davantage que de bonnes intentions et des efforts : Kovach et Rosenstiel (2007) définissent même le journalisme comme une « discipline de la vérification » pour le distinguer « du divertissement, de la propagande, de la fiction, ou de l’art » (Kovach & Rosenstiel, 2007 : 79).

Il existe bien une tradition de la vérification, un ensemble de normes et de routines qu’on associe au « fact-checking » des grands magazines, suivant la règle que « tous les faits exigent vérification » (Brouse, 2007; Sheppard, 1998a, 1998b). En revanche, aucune règle écrite n’est connue pour la presse quotidienne. Selon Rosner, le journalisme quotidien serait « paralysé » si les journalistes attendaient de vérifier toutes les informations avant de les rapporter, et les articles de suivi deviennent ainsi une forme de vérification après publication. Il note cependant que plus les enjeux sont importants, plus la vérification est nécessaire avant la publication (Rosner, 2009). Il est donc surprenant de trouver de nombreux manuels de journalisme dépourvus de références à la vérification (Frost, 2002; Gaines, 1998; Harcup, 2004; Harris, 1997; Spark, 1999) ou qui se limitent à la seule mention de l’importance de la double vérification des faits de base (noms, âges, lieux), et de la nécessité d’avoir plus d’une source dans le cas d’une allégation d’inconduite (Lanson & Stephens, 2008). Il y a bien la soi-disant règle des « deux sources », qui aurait été instituée par l’enquête du Watergate du Washington Post (une thèse néanmoins contestée par au moins un journaliste du Post) qui est parfois, mais pas toujours, associée aux informations provenant de sources anonymes (Boeyink, 1990; Lanson & Stephens, 2008; Sussman, 2009). Ward, quant à lui, offre 15 brèves lignes directrices pour la vérification, y compris « Check every fact », « Compare sources », mais aussi « Beware of slavishly following predetermined verification rules » (Ward, 1991).

La culture professionnelle des journalistes préconise une attitude sceptique, dans l’esprit du vieil adage : « Si votre mère vous dit qu’elle vous aime, vérifiez-le » (Chepesiuk, Howell & Lee, 1997). Mais, dans la pratique quotidienne, autant la recherche que l’expérience personnelle des auteurs indiquent que ce ne sont pas tous les faits qui sont contre-vérifiés. En outre, un fait contesté sera considéré comme vérifié s’il est confirmé par un témoignage indépendant de la source originelle ; seuls certains faits seront soumis au “rituel stratégique de l’objectivité” (Tuchman, 1978). Et ce, non pas en vertu de la signification ou de l’importance sociale des faits, mais plutôt en raison des risques de poursuite en diffamation, de la force des intérêts politiques ou sociaux en jeu, ou parce que les faits contredisent les idées reçues (voir aussi Sessions, 2003; Tuchman, 1972).

La question se pose donc : à quelle fréquence, et avec quelle intensité, la vérification méthodique fait-elle partie du travail quotidien des journalistes de nouvelles? Depuis les travaux ethnographiques d’Ericson, Chan et Baranek (1987, 1989, 1991), aucune étude canadienne n’a répondu à cette question. Ces études, ainsi que les travaux américains et européens sur les pratiques de recherche des journalistes, suggèrent que les journalistes affectés à la couverture de l’actualité quotidienne s’appuient le plus souvent sur des sources habituelles d’information (O’Neill & O’Connor, 2008).

Selon une récente analyse de contenu des journaux britanniques, moins de la moitié des articles comportaient des marques de contextualisation et de vérification de l’information; 87 % d’entre eux étaient basés sur une seule source primaire (Lewis, Williams, Franklin, James & Mosdell, 2008). Une autre enquête réalisée auprès de journalistes allemands a permis de constater que s’ils consacrent 43 % de leur temps de travail à la recherche, ils passent seulement environ 11 minutes par jour à vérifier la plausibilité et l’exactitude des informations (Machill & Beiler, 2009). Plusieurs auteurs observent que les journalistes ne vérifient pas les informations obtenues en ligne et de la part des acteurs de la nouvelle (Jones, 2009; Owen, 2003; Ryan, 2004; Stepp, 2009).

Au Canada, des travaux empiriques récents suggèrent que la vérification est davantage associée au journalisme d’investigation, bien que plusieurs journalistes d’enquête considèrent que le journalisme de qualité, y compris les nouvelles, implique nécessairement un travail d’investigation (Ruvinsky, 2008). Mais en pratique, les règles tacites et verbales de la salle de rédaction évoquent plus vaguement l’équilibre, l’équité et une hiérarchie de « sources fiables », avec les sources officielles au sommet et les sources anonymes en bas (Chepesiuk et al., 1997; Ericson et al., 1987; Ericson, 1998; Rosner, 2008).

Les journalistes d’enquête disent adopter une approche quasi scientifique consistant à vérifier une hypothèse en utilisant la triangulation des informations provenant de sources variées (Cribb, Jobb, McKie & Vallance-Jones, 2006). À partir d’un entretien en profondeur avec un journaliste d’enquête, Ettema et Glasser proposent de considérer le travail d’enquête comme épistémologiquement spécifique. Alors que les journalistes de nouvelles considèrent les bureaucrates comme des sources fiables et compétentes, le journaliste d’enquête évalue les informations, obtenues grâce à des conseils ou « tuyaux », par un processus méthodique. L’information est évaluée selon une hiérarchie considérant les sources documentaires comme les plus crédibles et l’appel téléphonique anonyme comme le moins crédible. Mais il n’y a pas de normes claires pour déterminer la quantité de preuve nécessaire et les journalistes privilégient toujours l’équilibre des points de vue, en incluant par exemple dans l’article le déni du présumé malfaiteur, même quand ils sont sûrs que l’information est fausse (Ettema & Glasser, 2006).

Malgré l’absence de normes explicites, la présente étude vise à dégager des normes naissantes ou en émergence à partir des témoignages des journalistes liés à leurs pratiques et croyances en matière de vérification. Plus généralement, nous souhaitons identifier les éléments d’une méthode commune pour produire une information exacte et ultimement  contribuer à définir les « bonnes pratiques » en journalisme, c’est-à-dire un processus visant l’amélioration de la qualité professionnelle, fondé sur des études scientifiques d’évaluation d’impact (Perleth, Jakubowski & Busse, 2001).

Méthodologie

Notre étude comprend deux phases d’entrevues en profondeur, auprès de deux groupes distincts de journalistes de la presse écrite quotidienne: un groupe de journalistes primés qui représente une influence « d’élite » (Dunwoody, 1979), et un groupe témoin de journalistes. Pour le premier échantillon, nous avons sélectionné les auteurs d’articles de journaux lauréats aux National Newspaper Awards et au prix Judith-Jasmin de la Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec, de 2008 à 2010. À cause du nombre restreint de journalistes francophones primés, nous avons inclus les finalistes et ajouté le Prix d’excellence en journalisme économique et financier de la Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec – Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Nous présentons ici pour la première fois les propos recueillis lors des quatre premières entrevues auprès de journalistes primés.

Avant chaque entrevue en profondeur, nous avons procédé à une analyse du contenu de l’article sélectionné. Nous avons identifié chacun des faits contenus dans l’article, grâce à une grille d’analyse inspirée par la méthode de fact-checking en presse magazine décrite par Brouse (2007). Les entretiens visent ainsi à reconstruire les procédures de vérification pour l’ensemble des faits ainsi recensés, à savoir où, quand, comment et pourquoi le journaliste a vérifié l’information.

Nous avons demandé à chaque journaliste de nous donner ses impressions générales sur l’exactitude et la vérification, ainsi que certaines informations biographiques, avant d’aborder les moyens de vérification employés habituellement dans le cadre de son travail. Nous avons posé certaines questions particulières à propos de l’enregistrement des entrevues et du recours aux sources anonymes. Ensuite, nous avons dirigé le journaliste vers le texte choisi (dans le cas de dossiers primés, nous avons retenu soit le texte principal, soit le premier article publié de la série), d’abord en l’interrogeant sur les pratiques globales de vérification et sur la vérification de faits spécifiques. Il s’agit là du noyau de l’entrevue. Enfin, nous avons demandé au journaliste de commenter son propre travail de vérification des faits dans cet article, ainsi que les aspects particuliers de sa démarche, par exemple les raisons pour lesquelles certains faits ont été vérifiés et pas d’autres, et comment les divers types d’éléments de preuve ont été pesés.

Au moment d’écrire ces lignes, 47 % des journalistes francophones contactés (9/19) ont accepté de nous accorder un entretien ; du côté anglophone, 56 % des personnes contactées (5/9) ont consenti à participer à l’étude. Ce taux de réponse nous apparaît satisfaisant, compte tenu de l’emploi du temps chargé et souvent imprévisible des journalistes, de même que de la nature de l’entretien qui exige de révéler certains « trucs du métier ». Il est fort possible que les journalistes qui ont accepté de nous parler soient particulièrement intéressés par la recherche et la réflexion sur la pratique ; comme il s’agit par ailleurs d’un très petit échantillon, il serait hasardeux de généraliser à l’ensemble de la communauté professionnelle les propos recueillis. Il s’agit cependant d’une limite incontournable pour ce type de recherche, largement compensée, espérons-nous, par la richesse et la profondeur des observations.

Dans la prochaine phase de notre étude, nous interrogerons des journalistes d’un groupe témoin,  qui proviendront des mêmes quotidiens que ceux de l’échantillon des journalistes primés et dont les articles seront jugés comparables aux textes primés. Nous comparerons ensuite les résultats des deux groupes, ainsi que les échantillons anglophones et francophones. Nous pourrons ainsi vérifier s’il y a bel et bien divergence entre les journalistes des deux grands groupes linguistiques relativement à la norme d’exactitude, comme l’ont suggéré Pritchard, Brewer & Sauvageau (2005). Selon leur étude, les journalistes francophones accorderaient une plus grande importance à l’exactitude que les journalistes anglophones.

Alors que nous en sommes à la première phase d’entrevues avec les journalistes primés, nous présentons ici les résultats les plus intéressants provenant des quatre premiers entretiens (deux en français et deux en anglais). Conformément à la pratique habituelle, les répondants ne sont pas identifiés. Le générique féminin sera utilisé pour préserver l’anonymat des participants. À ce stade de notre recherche, nous avons décidé de ne pas spécifier la langue d’usage des participants, le nombre restreint d’entrevues ne nous permettant pas de faire des comparaisons. Les citations ont été traduites par les auteurs.

Résultats

Réflexions générales sur la vérification

En début et en fin d’entrevue, nous avons posé des questions d’ordre général aux journalistes à propos de leurs pratiques de vérification. Tous les journalistes s’entendaient sur l’importance de cet aspect de leur travail : une journaliste a dit que la vérification représente « 99 % du travail » (Entrevue 2), alors qu’une autre a insisté sur la nécessité de vérifier chacun des faits « aux moins deux fois » (Entrevue 3). Toutefois, les journalistes ont souligné que la vérification représente parfois un défi dans la pratique quotidienne. Chacun d’entre eux a identifié des obstacles à la vérification adéquate. Deux journalistes ont mentionné la difficulté d’obtenir des informations de la police. Une autre a dit qu’elle n’avait pas assez de temps pour atteindre les standards des magazines :

« Idéalement, quelqu’un, comme on le fait dans les magazines, regarderait l’article avec une source et lui demanderait : ‘Je dis que vous avez dit ça, croyez-vous que ce soit correct?’ Mais comme journaliste de quotidien, tu n’as simplement pas le temps de faire  ça » (Entrevue 1).

La même journaliste mentionnait aussi qu’il était difficile de trouver des personnes fiables à interviewer et que vérifier ce qu’ils affirment est une partie difficile de son travail. Une autre a dit préférer consulter des documents officiels, notamment ceux produits par des instances gouvernementales, les jugeant plus fiables (Entrevue 2). Cette dernière souligne toutefois l’importance de mener également des entrevues avec des intervenants compétents, afin d’éviter de faire des erreurs en interprétant les sources documentaires. Les journalistes ont aussi nommé certains types de faits plus difficiles à vérifier, par exemple les chiffres.

Après ces considérations d’ordre général, nous avons demandé aux journalistes ce qu’ils pensent de l’utilisation de sources anonymes. En comparant leurs réponses, nous avons remarqué une disparité entre leur définition du mot « anonyme ». En spécifiant qu’elle est « absolument » à l’aise d’utiliser des sources anonymes, une journaliste précise qu’elle se doit de connaître elle-même l’identité de la source[i]. Elle garde simplement son anonymat en n’attribuant pas l’information dans le texte (Entrevue 3). Seulement une des journalistes a déjà utilisé des sources dont elle ne connaissait pas elle-même l’identité, alors qu’elle faisait un reportage incognito (Entrevue 4).

Les journalistes ont identifié quelques raisons qui les poussent à ne pas attribuer l’information dans leur article. Trois journalistes ont dit ne pas révéler le nom d’une source dans leur texte si cela peut mettre l’emploi de celle-ci en danger. Une seule de ces journalistes a mentionné la nécessité de protéger la vie d’une source en gardant son anonymat (Entrevue 2). Une autre a parlé de l’importance de protéger la réputation d’une personne qui accepte de parler à la presse, en citant en exemple le cas d’une source qui a dénoncé plusieurs situations portant à controverse dans sa petite communauté rurale. Elle a accordé l’anonymat à cette source pour ne pas lui causer de problèmes avec ses concitoyens (Entrevue 1). Dans tous ces cas, la journaliste et son supérieur immédiat connaissait l’identité de la source, et ils connaissaient la façon dont cette dernière avait obtenu les informations (généralement, grâce à leur emploi). Finalement, une journaliste a affirmé toujours écrire dans l’article les raisons qui la poussent à garder la confidentialité de la source, par souci de transparence envers les lecteurs (Entrevue 3). Une autre a dit qu’elle préfère plutôt trouver une autre source qui accepte d’être citée, pour ainsi attribuer l’information à quelqu’un dans le texte (Entrevue 1). Une journaliste nous a parlé des motivations des sources anonymes, qu’elle croit altruistes pour la plupart : « ils prennent un risque, et je l’apprécie. J’ai du respect pour ça […] La plupart des fois c’est juste que quelqu’un s’aperçoit qu’il y a quelque chose d’injuste qui se passe » (Entrevue 2).

Questions relatives aux articles analysés

Après avoir parcouru les articles choisis avec les participants, des pratiques de vérification communes se distinguent. Par exemple, les journalistes mentionnent l’importance de croiser les sources dont ils disposent. Ici, dans ce cas complexe où la journaliste d’enquête cherche des liens entre des entreprises obtenant des contrats de la Ville et des personnes aux pratiques d’affaires controversées, la journaliste effectue une recherche documentaire sur le site Internet gouvernemental d’enregistrement des entreprises et sur microfilm, en plus de réaliser des entrevues avec les personnes en cause, afin d’éviter les erreurs d’interprétation des documents : « Et j’ai appelé [l’entreprise X] […] et ils ont confirmé qu’il s’agissait d’une filiale, parce que je ne m’aventurerai pas à dire quelque chose comme ça sans vérifier. Et j’ai vérifié, avec [l’entreprise X] et [l’entreprise Y], je pense, pour confirmer verbalement » (Entrevue 2). Une autre journaliste mentionne qu’il n’est pas toujours possible d’obtenir des données officielles et précises, comme ce fut le cas pour son reportage de type ethnographique dans lequel elle témoigne de la vie quotidienne dans d’un quartier difficile de sa métropole. En voulant délimiter un secteur hautement criminalisé, elle s’est butée à l’absence de limites géographiques claires et documentées. Dans ces cas particuliers où des données officielles n’existent pas, elle dit appliquer la règle des trois sources. Elle a donc interrogé les résidents du quartier pour tracer les frontières du secteur « chaud » qu’elle décrit dans son reportage: « Moi, à partir de trois personnes qui m’expliquent une affaire comme ça, c’est digne de foi. Et puis j’avais trois personnes » (Entrevue 4).

On remarque aussi avec quelle confiance les journalistes se fient aux sources officielles, par exemple les données émises par Statistique Canada et l’Institut de la statistique du Québec. De son côté, une journaliste spécialisée en économie s’appuie également sur les documents officiels publics d’une compagnie, notamment leurs communiqués, pour connaître les activités de l’entreprise (Entrevue 3). Pour trouver des données fiables, elle se sert aussi de sources spécialisées, telles que les agences d’information comme Bloomberg, des rapports d’analystes de son secteur, ainsi que des journaux et des revues, par exemple le Global Mining Finance. Lorsque les informations se font rares, l’expertise de sa source prime parfois sur sa neutralité, mais elle en avertit les lecteurs : « […] je précisais que l’Association nucléaire mondiale c’est un regroupement de l’industrie […] Pour que les gens sachent un peu d’où ça vient ces chiffres-là. Ce n’est pas indépendant. C’est quand même une source crédible » (Entrevue 3).

Observation du journaliste

Un peu à l’exemple des méthodes qualitatives en sciences sociales, l’observation sur le terrain peut être considérée comme une méthode de vérification, selon une des journalistes rencontrées (sur les influences réciproques entre le reportage ethnographique ou naturaliste et l’observation sociologique, voir Lindner (1999) et Harrington (2003)). En parlant de sa démarche de type ethnographique, elle affirme que « … ça permet d’être sûr que c’est vrai aussi. […] ce n’est pas juste basé sur ce que tout le monde avait raconté depuis deux ans. J’avais interviewé souvent des gens de ce coin-là ou des policiers qui travaillaient là. Mais là, c’était pas de seconde main » (Entrevue 4).

Comme il n’est pas toujours possible de se rendre sur le terrain, les informations disponibles grâce à Google Maps permettent parfois aux journalistes de situer et de voir les lieux à distance. C’est le cas pour une des participantes (Entrevue 1), une journaliste d’un grand centre urbain qui devait faire un article sur une disparition survenue dans une région éloignée. Cette journaliste a également eu recours à la collaboration d’un photographe pigiste sur les lieux de l’événement pour l’aider à situer et à décrire certains endroits et, ainsi, relater d’une façon qui se voulait imagée et précise les derniers déplacements et les dernières actions de la personne disparue.

Dans ce même article, la journaliste choisit d’utiliser certaines informations sans citer leur source pour des raisons de style, de lisibilité et de rythme. Ici, la journaliste fait un choix réfléchi entre son souci d’esthétisme et la transparence d’une part et la précision de l’information d’autre part : « Eh bien vous voyez, c’est une chose intéressante parce que j’avais une source à ce sujet qui était cette femme à l’Université [...], mais le fait est que je ne voulais pas interrompre le récit » (Entrevue 1).

Analyse

Après ces quatre premières entrevues, nous remarquons plusieurs pistes intéressantes que nous chercherons à explorer de façon plus poussée lors des prochains entretiens. D’abord, nous avons observé chez les participants que ceux-ci se fient ultimement à leur propre évaluation subjective de la crédibilité de leur source. Déjà, nous savons que les journalistes primés de notre échantillon accordent de l’importance à l’expertise, comme le souligne une des répondantes à propos de sa source : « elle a écrit un livre au printemps dernier sur l’intimidation, je pense. Et elle a une bonne expertise » (Entrevue 1). Nos premières entrevues viennent aussi corroborer l’idée que les journalistes s’appuient le plus souvent sur des sources habituelles d’information (O’Neill & O’Connor, 2008). La relation de confiance établie entre le journaliste et sa source est importante, comme le mentionne la journaliste spécialisée en économie en parlant de ses sources anonymes : « On connaît les analystes, on sait pour qui ils travaillent. […] S’ils suivent la compagnie depuis trois ou quatre ans on sait quelle crédibilité ça a » (Entrevue 3).

Comme nous l’avons vu, la valorisation de l’expertise se fait parfois au détriment de la neutralité des sources, lorsque ces dernières sont peu nombreuses ou difficilement accessibles. Toutefois, on préfère des sources authentiques, voire impartiales, comme le montre cet extrait d’entrevue dans laquelle la journaliste affirme que les informations proviennent d’une source qui fait autorité dans son secteur : « Et on ne pouvait pas se tromper, dans le sens que c’est des images qui venaient de sources crédibles, parce que même la carte qui venait de la compagnie avait été faite à la base avec des données du ministère » (Entrevue 3). On comprendra que les données gouvernementales et celles des instituts de recherche publics sont considérées comme valides et crédibles, tout comme les données fournies par des organismes privés comme des associations professionnelles et industrielles, ainsi que des agences d’information.

Mais les journalistes ne donnent pas seulement voix aux sources faisant autorité. Dans un texte à teneur judiciaire, une des participantes souligne l’importance d’équilibrer les points de vue, ce qui vient faire écho aux conclusions d’Ettema et Glasser (2006). Elle parle de sa persistance à contacter des gens potentiellement incriminés par ses articles d’enquête, afin d’obtenir leur version des faits : « Bien, je suis persévérante aussi. Je laisse quelques messages, mais je pense que c’est dans leur intérêt […] — je veux dire que je vais rapporter ce qu’ils ont à dire et essayer de rendre ça équilibré » (Entrevue 2).

Les quatre participantes à l’étude soulignent toutes l’existence de limites à la vérification, une autre des pistes que nous espérons approfondir dans les prochaines étapes de cette étude. Deux d’entre elles parlent de leur difficulté à obtenir des informations de la part de la police; une autre évoque l’inévitable dépendance à l’égard de certaines sources, en l’occurrence les porte-parole des entreprises (Entrevue 3).

En plus de nous pencher sur les limites de la vérification, nous chercherons à en apprendre davantage sur les diverses stratégies employées par les journalistes afin de contourner les problèmes qu’ils rencontrent. Lorsque des informations ne sont pas accessibles et que la contre-vérification est impossible, une journaliste attribue les propos à une source, par exemple dans ce cas particulier où un actionnaire tente de minimiser sa responsabilité relativement à des pratiques douteuses dans son entreprise en évoquant des faits que la journaliste ne peut pas vérifier : « Je veux dire qu’il s’agit d’entreprises privées […] je ne peux prouver que c’est un actionnaire minoritaire, donc je dois l’attribuer. Il dit qu’il est actionnaire minoritaire, et qu’à son avis, ça veut dire qu’il s’en distancie dans un sens » (Entrevue 2). Une autre journaliste adopte une stratégie que l’on pourrait qualifier de pragmatique, c’est-à-dire qu’elle adapte son approche à chaque situation : « il y a tellement d’obstacles dans la recherche d’informations qu’il est difficile pour moi de dire : je fais toujours ceci et je fais toujours cela, parce que fondamentalement, peu importe les sources disponibles, j’essaie de les amener à me parler » (Entrevue 1).

Conclusion

Nous remarquons chez les journalistes primés une forte réflexivité envers leur propre pratique, ainsi qu’une grande capacité à expliciter la démarche et à reconnaître ses limites. Nous observons dans leurs discours la trace de ces pratiques d’« excellence » que nous avons évoquées plus haut. Ces « bonnes pratiques » sont visibles à la fois dans le caractère procédural ou méthodologique de leur travail et dans leur souci de rigueur. Un parallèle peut également être fait entre leur pratique et les méthodes qualitatives des sciences sociales, dont la démarche ethnographique et la triangulation (alliage de sources expertes, de sources documentaires institutionnelles et de témoignages directs). Les journalistes adaptent ces méthodes et ces principes à leur travail dans une perspective qui demeure pragmatique, peut-être en raison des contraintes de temps intrinsèques au journalisme.

Toutefois, les reportages dont il est ici question ici ont tous été réalisés sur plusieurs semaines, ce qui, pour des journalistes de quotidiens, est une période relativement longue. En un sens, ces cas primés de journalisme sont assurément différents du journalisme quotidien typique. En effet, il s’agirait plutôt de « faux quotidien », car les articles primés, par leur genre particulier (dossier, enquête, grand reportage), exigent plus de temps de la part des journalistes, un peu à l’image de ce qui se fait dans les grands magazines. Il sera intéressant, pour la suite de nos travaux, de voir de quelle façon cette différence se traduit, en comparant nos deux échantillons.

Au terme de notre analyse, des questions restent sans réponse. Par exemple, dans quelle mesure y a-t-il bel et bien eu triangulation de l’information? Combien de sources, combien de preuves, sont nécessaires avant de publier? Est-ce qu’un seul document suffit? Les résultats préliminaires présentés ici ne nous permettent pas d’apporter des réponses claires, d’autant plus que les participants n’ont pas abordé directement ces aspects de la vérification.

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[i] Il s’agirait donc plutôt de source confidentielle. Sur la distinction entre les deux termes, voir Bernier (2000: 1).

By Gabriela Capurro

About the author

Gabriela Capurro is an M.A. student in the Department of Journalism at Concordia University, 7141 Sherbrooke St. West, CJ- 3.245, Montréal, Québec, H4B 1R6

gabrielacapurro@gmail.com

Abstract:

This paper explores the coverage by one anglophone and one francophone newspaper in Montreal of an event involving a visible minority—the fatal shooting of Fredy Villanueva by city police—in order to elucidate the complex power relations between the city’s ethnic groups and the role of the media in reinforcing those power relations. The assessment of coverage in The Gazette and La Presse shows that minority misrepresentation was present in both newspapers.  However, The Gazette showed more equitable representation of the victim, his family and his community. The differences found suggest that Montreal’s French and English communities regard visible minorities differently because of the former’s need to legitimate itself as the dominant majority and the latter’s need to defend itself from the dominating discourse.

***

Introduction

On the night of Aug. 9, 2008, Fredy Villanueva, 18, was throwing dice with his older brother Dany, 22, and some friends in the Henri-Bourassa Park in Montreal North, next to a soccer field where children were playing. Two police officers, one male and one female, approached them and arrested Dany. When Fredy tried to intervene, the male police officer shot his gun four times, killing Fredy, who died hours later in hospital, and wounding two other young men.  What exactly happened that night is still under investigation, but according to witnesses who made declarations to La Presse, Dany “Villanueva et le policier ont échangé des mots aigres-doux. Le ton a monté. Villanueva a été arrêté de façon musclée, refusant de collaborer.”

According to The Gazette story, “the police officers singled out Dany Villanueva. They tried to search him and when he resisted, a male officer pushed him to the ground and arrested him.”  While Dany was on the ground, Fredy, who was unarmed, approached the female officer. A story cited a police statement that said the officer “felt threatened” by him. The Gazette story added that “witnesses at the scene told a different story—one in which Fredy was shot after little provocation.”

Meanwhile La Presse reported that witnesses saw “l’un des jeunes a sauté au cou d’un policier.” Whether Fredy attacked the female officer or just approached her without posing any threat remains unclear.  What has been established is that when the male officer, still holding Dany to the ground, saw Fredy approach the female officer, he fired four times, killing Fredy. Villanueva’s death sparked riots in Montreal North; these were also covered by the press.

After the shooting, two versions of the event began circulating in both the English and French press; thus readers were exposed to different accounts of the shooting: in one, a group of teenagers fell victim to racial profiling and abuse by police; in the other, a group of youths, immigrant members of street gangs, threatened the police and the public order. The coverage of the shooting of Villanueva also revealed the different discourses implicit in La Presse and The Gazette involving visible minorities who live in Montreal North, a working-class neighbourhood populated mainly by immigrants.

Representation of minorities in mainstream media has been a recurrent concern among researchers (Van Dijk, 1988; Nancoo and Nancoo, 1996; Fleras and Kunz, 2001; Henry and Tator, 2002), who have for the most part concluded that these groups are underrepresented and misrepresented. The case of newspapers in Quebec becomes more complicated because the anglophone population is a minority in a province dominated by francophones, while the rest of Canada is mainly anglophone. Thus, the comparison of the coverage of stories involving visible minority individuals in English-language and French-language newspapers in Quebec is important for understanding the power relations between these two linguistic communities and their interactions with other groups.

The coverage of the shooting of Fredy Villanueva in The Gazette and La Presse from Aug. 11 to Aug. 20 was analyzed to determine how the victim, a Honduran immigrant, his family, and the Montreal North community were depicted in the press. The anglophone and francophone coverage of the events was compared in terms of minority representation. This research found noticeable differences in the way the story was reported and in how the people involved were represented in the two newspapers cited.  Anglophones and francophones in Montreal were exposed to different versions of the same event. The Gazette was expected to have a more critical approach toward police actions and to give a closer and more sympathetic view of the victim’s family and friends. It was also expected to be less critical about the riots that occurred in the neighbourhood after the killing.  La Presse, on the other hand, was expected in its coverage to express opinions more supportive of police, more distant toward the victim’s family, and more negative toward the victim’s Montreal North community.

Minorities in the press

Minority representation in the press influences reader perceptions of minorities beyond their everyday experience; for example, the press influences how the dominant majority perceives immigrant minorities—such as those of Montreal North—with whom it does not regularly interact. However, discourses in newspapers about minority groups can vary and can affect in different ways how these communities are perceived. Journalism does not simply reflect the world; public discourses are shaped by a series of decision making processes and collective action in the newsrooms (Zelitzer, 2004, p. 17); thus journalistic coverage of an event may vary depending on the news organization and the audience it caters to. This can lead to misrepresentation and underrepresentation of minorities in the media, a situation that gives voice to racism while effectively silencing targeted ethnic groups (Henry and Tator, 2002). In that sense, the media repeat the same dominant discourses, conceived as “unquestioned assumptions, values, norms, and practices that are rooted in the dominant culture’s ideology and in the subcultures of media organizations” (Henry and Tator, 2002, p.6). In their research, Frances

Henry and Carol Tator conclude that dominant discourses in mainstream media are for the most part an unconscious process, and they identified nine common discourses of minority misrepresentation.

In his assessment of the depiction of ethnic minorities in the European press, Teun van Dijk explains how the media are used by dominant majorities to maintain an “intra-group information network” through which they legitimize and reproduce their dominant position. In that context, “because the press plays such an important role in what white people learn about ethnic minority groups and ethnic relations, it is important to assess its contents, structures, and strategies of (re-) production” (van Dijk, 1988, p.222). Van Dijk’s results also suggest that media representations of minorities are heavily stereotyped, portraying group members as “helpless, without initiative, [and] ignorant victims, unless they cause ‘trouble,’ such as crime” (p. 235). Then stereotypes are reinforced by the passive role of audiences who “simply have neither the time nor the opportunity to access different sources, and will tend to accept, broadly speaking, the pervasive interpretation framework as supplied by the media” (p. 229). Thus, the stereotype is an important concept in assessing coverage of minorities given that the stereotype is a form of misrepresentation that serves to legitimate a dominant perspective.

In their study of the role and functions of the media in Canada, Nancoo and Nancoo (1996) acknowledge the importance of representation in the press. This study is centered on the development of the media in a diverse society, and the authors signal the underrepresentation of minority groups in news content and newsrooms as a major problem, given that the media play a powerful role in society.  The study concludes that in Canada “visible minorities and aboriginals are underrepresented and underreported by the mass media, except in cases of conflict and crime and the sports pages” (p. 48).  Thus underrepresentation here is also linked to the use of stereotypes.

The stereotyping of minorities is recurrent in studies of representation in Canadian media; for instance, the idea is common that visible minority individuals are either good athletes or good criminals, and that these are the only reasons why they appear in the news (Miller, 1996). John Miller’s research on how Canadian newspapers silence minorities raises another important concept, that of “problematized minorities.”  Miller found a systematic use of stereotypes and routine problematization of ethnic groups in Canada’s largest newspapers, which depicted minorities as if “half are either athletes or entertainers, if they’re in the news; otherwise, they’re probably in trouble” (p. 135). The author suggests that “Canadian papers could benefit from policies being adopted by large American papers to promote social diversity in everyday news coverage” (p. 138).

A key study on Canadian media that further explored the notion of problematized minorities is that of  Fleras and Kunz (2001). The authors begin by stating that reality is mediated: “In absence of first-hand experience [...] mainstream news media often constitute the preliminary and often only point of contact with reality ‘out there’ ” (p. 65), thus emphasizing the fact that media accounts influence the public’s perception of minorities beyond their everyday experiences. The authors also suggest that audiences tend to believe that news organizations are impartial and objective and to disregard the decision-making processes involved in the creation of news that is framed by organizational values and to which Zelitzer (2004) refers.

Fleras and Kunz recognize the problems addressed by van Dijk, Miller and Nancoo et al. when they argue that newspapers tend to frame minorities as “people who are in a problem, who create problems, or who pose a threat to Canadian values” (p. 66).  The study raises concerns about stereotyping and problematizing, as well as concerns about the invisibilization of minorities. Mainstream media make minorities invisible “either by ignoring stories about them or silencing minority voices” (p.79); and when these groups actually appear in the news they are misrepresented, denounced or criticized; they are treated as the “other.” The authors conclude that “when not openly ignored as irrelevant or inferior, minorities have been reduced in status to stereotypes or problem people, thus reinforcing their status as the “other” (p.41).  But their study takes a step further by proposing patterns of how media misrepresent minorities and clearly identifies five ways of misrepresentation which lead to “otherizing” of minorities and then to marginalization and invisibility. These are as follows: invisibilizing, stereotyping, problematizing, ornamentalizing, and whitewashing.

Media coverage can influence identity construction in minority groups, and poor coverage or reiterated negative stereotypes in media images can affect their idea of self. In that sense, Ritva Levo-Henriksson (2007) asserts that minorities’ “lack of agency as social actors is deepened by the “very thin and disturbing material for identity construction” (p. 220) found in media discourses.

Taking as a starting point the idea suggested by Henry et al. that a democratic society needs a less biased and more inclusive media, and that there is a conflict in Canadian society between the belief that media are the basis of a democratic liberal society and the “actual role of the media as purveyors of  racialized discourses,” this study evaluates the coverage of the Villanueva case in an English-language newspaper and a French-language newspaper, in the context of a community where francophones are the dominant majority, inside a country where anglophones are the dominant majority.

Anglophone and francophone duality in Quebec

The differences in the coverage of the Villanueva case in La Presse and The Gazette will be best assessed by considering the relationship between anglophones and francophones in Quebec.  According to Will Kymlicka (cited in Theriault, 2007) the francophone population of Quebec is a community seeking to internalize ethnocultural diversity;  francophones want their province to become a place where “individuals can exercise personal choices about their identity” (p. 256). However, it is also a community looking for recognition as a space where a modern society can be built, “unlike ethnic groups, which do not make such claims or set such objectives” (p. 256).

Conversely, Frederick Fletcher (1998) argues that modern Quebec nationalism has been fuelled by the francophone media, “by focusing their attention inward,” ignoring social, political and cultural events in the rest of Canada. The author considers that media “played a major role in reinforcing the separateness of the two cultural groups.”

Therefore the francophone community in Quebec has a twofold nature: on the one hand, it aspires to be an open and diverse society; on the other, it has a strong nationalism that makes it want to preserve its identity intact.

The case of anglophones in Quebec is special given that they are in a unique position in

North America: “In the last 50 years, the English-speaking community has witnessed a gradual transition to minority status” (Theriault, 2007, p. 259).  During the nineteenth century, Anglophones were the dominant majority in the province. However, the minorization of this community was accentuated by the 1977 Bill 101, which stated that French was the only official language in Quebec. Nonetheless, Theriault considers that anglophones in Quebec “cannot be explained by their minority status” but by the “high status of English in North America” (p.261).

However, regarding anglophone community identity in Quebec, Jedwab and Maynard (2008) argue that while francophone Quebecers have a strong sense of community, “there is much debate about whether language is in fact a powerful expression of identity or a galvanizing force for Quebec’s English speakers” and suggest that “the community lacks a capacity to mobilize and only comes together when it feels its interests are threatened” (p.165).

The duality of anglophones-versus-francophones in Canada has been challenged by aboriginal and immigrant groups, and “because Canada lacks a powerful unifying myth” (Fletcher, 1998), it has been vulnerable to external cultural influences. Fletcher argues that multiculturalism in Canada, though vital for the integration of immigrants, has “exacerbated relations between English-speaking and French-speaking communities by relegating the latter to the status of “just another minority language group.”  In that sense, Nieguth and Lacassagne (2009) suggest that reasonable accommodation of ethnic minorities—a legal mechanism for reducing conflicts due to cultural differences—has “fostered resentment” in the francophone community, “considering that Quebec nationalism was, until recently, very much concerned with the survival of a distinct Quebec identity in the face of assimilative pressures from anglophone societies dominating the continent” (p. 13).

With these tensions in mind, Fletcher asserted that there is little research on the elements that distinguish cultural products created for French audiences in Canada and argues that if “the consumption of popular media has significant political/attitudinal consequences, it is important to learn more about the messages consumed.”  Thus, the study of the coverage of the Villanueva case in anglophone and francophone newspapers is crucial for understanding how media messages about immigrant minorities influence power relations between them and among other groups.

Method

In order to determine how Fredy Villanueva and his family were depicted in The Gazette and La Presse, and how the riots provoked by his killing were covered, a critical discourse analysis of the news pieces published from Aug. 11 to 20, 2008, including columns, editorials, and letters to the editor, was carried out. According to Henry et al., critical discourse analysis is a method for analyzing “how dominance, inequality, and social power abuse are enacted by ‘text’ and ‘talk’ within systems of representation” (p. 35). Villanueva was killed on Saturday, Aug. 9, and the next day riots broke out in Montreal North, but these riots were not reported until Monday Aug. 11.  The story was not fully covered until the Aug. 20, by which time the amount of news published on the subject had decreased significantly.

The analysis of the news pieces was based on the five patterns of minority misrepresentation in the media identified by Fleras et al: minorities as invisible; minorities as stereotypes; minorities as a problem; minorities as adornments; and whitewashed minorities. Even though the authors warn that this classification is not “intended to be exhaustive or accurately reflect reality” and that the objective is “to provide an ideal-typical framework for improving our understanding of a complex issue” (p. 142), for the purposes of this research the categories suffice as a tool for critical discourse analysis. According to Fleras et al., invisibilization of minorities consists in under-representing them in important areas while over-representing them in frivolous ones.

Stereotyping refers to the use of generalizations that emphasize comical or grotesque aspects. Problematization implies the depiction of minorities in the media as social problems: as having problems or creating problems that demand political attention or costly solutions.  Ornamentalization refers to the characterization of minorities as trivial or ornamental features of society, instead of average, normal citizens; and it is achieved by casting minorities in amusing, exotic or ghettoized roles. Finally, whitewashing refers to the association in the media of whiteness with acceptability, and of non-whiteness with evocative images of danger, pollution and dirt; the phenomenon of media whitewashing results in the near exclusion of people of colour from mainstream cultural products, except as stereotypes.

The texts were analyzed to determine if the newspapers used misrepresenting language, or if they published opinion pieces in which the victim or the community was misrepresented. The five categories described above were used as a classification scheme for the analysis.

The Gazette is the only English-language daily newspaper in Montreal and its audience is the city’s anglophone minority. The daily is relevant for this research because the newspaper is directed to a minority readership and the way it represents other minority groups could also reveal a clear position towards the French majority. La Presse is a large circulation newspaper aimed at a middle-class francophone readership. Its coverage of the Villanueva killing is important for this investigation because the paper represents the French-speaking majority’s views on the way media depict minorities and police activity in marginal neighbourhoods. The sample is composed of 75 newspaper articles about or related to the shooting of Fredy Villanueva, published between the Aug. 11 and Aug. 20, 2008, in La Presse (40 articles) and in The Gazette (35 articles). The pieces published in La Presse were obtained via the Eureka database, and those published in The Gazette were retrieved from the Factiva database.

Findings

On Monday, Aug. 11,  the coverage of the Villanueva shooting in La Presse and The Gazette focused on the Saturday, Aug. 9 killing and on the riots that broke out the following night in Montreal North. The francophone newspaper put more emphasis on the violent acts, while the anglophone paper offered insight into the victim’s family and friends. La Presse published four stories related to the Villanueva killing and The Gazette published two. In the analysis of the French-language newspaper, stereotyping, problematizing and ornamentalizing of minorities was found. The community of Montreal North was described as resentful over the death of Villanueva and “le ressentiment d’une partie de la population a éclaté sous forme de brasiers, de voitures saccagées et de commerces pillés.”  This depiction of the community as problematic was complemented by a highly stereotyped vision of minority groups as criminals who are constantly followed by the police: “Plusiers habitants de ce secteur, frécuenté par les gangs de rue, s’insurgent contre ce qu’ils considerènt comme du harcèlement de la part des policies.”  La Presse’s coverage on that day focused mainly on the riots that broke out in Montreal North on Sunday night, and the victim’s family is referred to in only one news piece.

Meanwhile, The Gazette’s stories were more focused on providing a profile of Fredy Villanueva, his family, the neighbourhood, and what happened on the night he was shot. Montreal North is described as a fairly peaceful neighbourhood where, according to witnesses, “police arrived while the group (that included Fredy Villanueva) was calmly throwing dice behind the arena, next to a field were children were playing soccer.” This quote also describes the place where Villanueva was shot as a playground. Conversely, La Presse described the area as “le stationnement du parc Henri-Bourassa,” and does not make reference to the fact that children were playing nearby.  In both newspapers, we hear from the victim’s family, asking for justice. La Presse quotes Wendy Villanueva, Fredy’s sister, saying “On veut de la justice. On sait qu’il y a du racisme. Aujourd’hui on veut de la justice.” This is the first time that a race issue is mentioned, although there is no reference to Villanueva’s ethnic origin. The Gazette quotes another of Fredy’s sisters, Patricia, asking, “Why the police officer need to kill him,” and his mother, Lilian Villanueva, saying that they were not notified by the police about her son’s death: “A friend of Fredy’s called his aunt and then she called here—that’s how we found out.” The anglophone newspaper also quotes the family talking about the victim as a shy boy who liked video games and spent his time taking care of his disabled sister, and gives information on the family’s ethnic background: “The Villanuevas emigrated from Honduras in 1998 (…) Yesterday, they said their faith in their adopting country was shaken to its core.”

According to The Gazette, “Sûreté du Québec, which has taken over the investigation because it involves Montreal police, remained tight-lipped about the incident.” La Presse did not report on that .  The Gazette’s second story is an update of the one described above, and in this one the journalist refers to the riots in Montreal North. The neighbourhood is described as furious about

Villanueva’s death and very violent about it: “Their fury erupted into a riot in Montreal North, with knots of protesters roaming the streets and setting fire to cars and garbage barricades.” This depiction of the community marks a radical shift from the previous references, and it qualifies as a case of stereotyping because the actions of a few are generalized to the whole neighbourhood.

On the second day of coverage, Tuesday, Aug. 12, La Presse published four stories on the case and The Gazette, eight. The francophone newspaper does not place the story on the front page anymore; the first news article, on page A7, is the testimony of Villanueva’s brother Dany, who was at the scene of the shooting.  He is quoted saying, “Le policier est venu me voir et il m’a dit: ‘toi, viens ici,’ ” but the reporter immediately disqualified the testimony by referring to the criminal past of the victim’s brother:  “poursuit Dany Villanueva, qui est connu des services  policiers.” This disqualification of the source can be considered a form of invisibilization

because the impact of the quote is diminished by the citing of a fact irrelevant to the killing of Villanueva. The Gazette also reported on Dany’s testimony, but it highlighted different facts, noting that Dany “was charged with assault for having struggled with police during his arrest, but he has no idea why police wanted to take him into custody to begin with.” The reporter also writes about Villanueva’s parents who “are still in shock.”

In La Presse, an official source is quoted for the first time: it is the spokesperson of the Sûreté du Québec (provincial police). The source is quoted as saying, “Pour l’instant, on sait que les policiers ont volu procéder à la arrestation d’un individu dans le group.” The reporter then clarifies that the source could not tell if the police wanted to arrest the man before or after the shooting. The reporter refers one more time to Dany’s criminal record, disqualifying him again. A second story published by La Presse reports on the petition of the Ligue des Noirs for an independent probe: “La Ligue des Noirs exige une enquête, publique et independente, pour faire toute la lumière sur les circonstances de la mort de Fredy Villanueva.” Although Villanueva’s ethnicity so far has not been mentioned in La Presse, this article reports on an ethnic minority association demanding an independent investigation of the case. The piece quotes the president of the association saying, “les policiers qui commettent bravures n’obtiennent jamais le châtiment qu’ils méritent.  On leur donne toujours une petite tape sur la main.”  The reporter paraphrasing the community leader as saying that abusive cops never get what they deserve can be perceived as problematic, as a minority individual generating problems. But then the reporter writes that another black leader from Côte-des-Neiges, an upper-class neighbourhood that has little in common with Montreal North, “refuse … de stigmatiser les forces de l’ordre et de faire generalisations: La plupart des officiers de police sont corrects.” This immediately disqualifies the previous source and reinforces the dominant discourse shared by the francophone majority about police in their city being correct. The rest of the story focuses on what the reporter considers a problematic youth, alleviating police responsibility for the shooting death.

On the same day, La Presse published the complete declarations of the mayor of Montreal and eight letters to the editor on the Villanueva case. In his message, the mayor acknowledged the need for an investigation and severely condemned the riots in Montreal North. The fact that the mayor’s speech was not only covered but also fully reproduced in the newspaper was one way of supplying readers with the official version, which coincides with the dominant discourse. Seven of the eight letters to the editor published that day in La Presse defended the police Action against Villanueva with expressions like “Bravo aux policies!” and condemned the violent reaction of the Montreal North community.

The Gazette had on the front page the story with the mayor’s comments on the shooting, but according to the piece, he “fell short of calling for a public inquiry.” Another story was published on the pleas for peace after the riots from residents of Montreal North and the testimonies of people who witnessed them. A 12 year-old boy says, “I was really scared. It was out of control.” The news piece also accounts for residents who say they are “angry with the rioters for escalating the situation.”  Others are “angry with police,” who, they say, “showed an abuse of power by shooting Villanueva.” This is a way of ornamentalizing:  the minorities are explained to the reader, who is not aware of how they think or feel. However, it also shows a side of the community that did not agree with the violent reaction and in that sense is refusing the stereotype of violent immigrant minorities.

From Aug. 13, the coverage shifted its angle in both newspapers from centering the stories on the killing of Villanueva and the riots in Montreal North to focusing on the probe of the incident and the neighbourhood where it happened.  La Presse published nine stories that day; none of them made the front page.   Four of them contained stereotyping of minorities, two had ornamentalization, and one had problematization. In the story “C’est économique, stupide!” the journalist compares the death of Villanueva to that of an illegal Brazilian immigrant in the

United States killed by the police, and even though he explains that Villanueva was not an illegal immigrant, the comparison contributes to stereotyping: “Immigration illegal en moins, l’affaire de Yarmouth ressemble à celle de Montreal North.” The journalist explains in this piece the state of Montreal North as if it were a topic completely ignored by the readers, something happening in a remote place, and in that sense contributes to the ornamentalization of the visible minorities who live there:

“. . . les graines de la révolte germent depuis quelques années déjà dans quelques quartiers chauds de Montréal. Criminalité, gangs de rue, violence, rejet de l’autorité, tous ces phénomènes ne naissent pas par génération spontanée.  Ils prennent tous forme dans le même terreau: la pauvreté.”

On that same day (Aug. 13), The Gazette published five stories on the Villanueva case; one was on the front page, and only one had minority misrepresentation.  In “Stories from the hood,” reporter Christopher Maughan intended to do a profile of the neighbourhood by talking to people who live in Montreal North and identifying them by age and race. This is a case of ornamentalizing because even though the piece is made almost entirely of quotes and the reader does not get any direct commentary from the reporter, it still seeks to “explain” a place populated by visible minorities to a readership assumed never to have been to Montreal North.  Treating  this neighbourhood as an exotic place alienates its residents from the rest of society.

Another example of La Presse stereotyping and problematizing minorities is found in its Aug. 13 editorial, “Un minimum de confiance,” by André Pratte, in which Pratte asserts that the population of Montreal North has “la tendance à exiger des solutions rapides et spectaculaires” regarding the probe of the shooting. With this statement, the author is implies that the neighbours of Montreal North do not understand the normal legal procedure in such cases and are putting pressure on authorities who cannot do anything to get the investigation done sooner. Finally, a letter from a policeman published in La Presse is openly in favour of the shooting of Villanueva, and says that the investigation “démontrera sans aucun doute, selon moi, que la decision du policier de tirer était justifiée.”  The letter goes on to say that “pour être une menace à notre intégrité physique ou à celle d’un collègue, un individu n’a pas à être armé,” suggesting that an attitude or simply the way an individual looks can be taken as a threat by the police and therefore a shooting is justified. The newspaper did not publish another letter against the shooting, which might suggest that the coverage is biased.

The next day, Aug. 14, the coverage drove even further away from the Villanuevas and from the front pages. La Presse published seven stories focused on the policeman and policewoman involved in the shooting, while The Gazette published six in which it evaluated the causes and consequences of the shooting. The only case of misrepresentation found that day was in La Presse’s “Il était beau, tout le monde l’aimait,” a piece that narrated the funeral of Fredy Villanueva.

The depiction of the victim’s friends as gang members is highly stereotyped and pretends to reveal an unknown world to readers. The reporter writes about Villanueva’s friends:

“Ils portaient des chaînes en or, des casquettes et de larges pantalons noirs. Ils rendaient hommage à Fredy Villanueva à leur façon, en partageant bouteilles d’alcool et joints de marijuana.”

The phrase “Ils rendaient hommage à Fredy Villanueva à leur façon” is particularly problematic, not only because it otherizes these young men but also because “their way” turns out to be less than optimal in the next phrase: “en partageant bouteilles d’alcool et joints de marijuana.”

On Aug. 15, La Presse coverage focused on the problems posed by the Montreal North community, highlighting the presence of street gangs and death threats received by the police. The Gazette also covered police issues that day, but emphasized the way police are trained to deal with cultural and racial diversity.  A news article in La Presse explained the concern of the minister of Securité Publique over the mistrust and suspicion of cultural communities toward the police. According to this story the minister “s’inquiète de la méfiance des communautés culturelles envers le service de police de la Ville de Montreal.”  This is a case of ornamentalizing:  minorities are considered different and mysterious, and therefore it is necessary to explain to readers how minorities feel about the police. In the same news piece, the reporter criticizes the police, but in doing so he engages in stereotyping the minorities in Montreal North: “Ces policies, charges entre autres de lutter contre les gangs de rue, ne sont pas suffisamment formés pour faire la différence entre les jeunes Noirs et Latinos vêtus comme des members de gangs et les vrais members de gangs.” This depiction of young people from visible minority groups as emulating members of street gangs is stereotyping because it does not consider differences among community members.

Another story published by La Presse explained that policemen and policewomen are constantly threatened by the population of Montreal North, who are described as “éléments criminels.” This is a case of problematization of a minority because the whole community is blamed for a problem allegedly caused by only part of it. No information is given in the story about how many threats were received and no evidence is offered to show that the letters came from the people of Montreal North.

The next day both newspapers focused mainly on the political effects of the shooting. La Presse published the message of the mayor of Montreal, Gerald Tremblay. It also published a column in which authorities were criticized for their silence after the killing of Villanueva. However, in one letter to the editor, a reader asked the media to remember that “à l’origine des événemenmts de Montreal North a été l’interpellation par les policiers de Dany Villanueva, don’t le dossier criminal est trés éloquent.” The fact that pieces both for and against the police were published on the same day shows that in its opinion section this newspaper began to aim for impartiality, an attitude that differs from the one expressed in its early coverage of the incident. The Gazette also published a story on the comments of the mayor of Montreal, in which Villanueva is identified as a “young Latino man.” The allusion to race in this case seems irrelevant, as the investigation had not revealed any proof that the race of the deceased was a motive for the shooting. The reporter mentioned in the story that the mayor’s administration “will also investigate the possibility of building a new sport facility for the young people of Montreal North.” This information is irrelevant to the death of Villanueva or the probe about the circumstances of his death. But the fact that the mayor said it in a speech about the Villanueva case is striking, and the reporter’s motives for including it in the story could be either to criticize the impertinence of the mayor or to depict the population of Montreal North as one that settles for a sport facility when one of its  young men is killed by police. Either way, it is a case of invisibilization: the reader does not get the opinion or viewpoint of the community.

Another  interesting piece published on Aug. 16 by La Presse was “La vie dans le ghetto,” which resembled The Gazette’s Aug. 13 “Stories from the ‘hood’” and intended to do a profile of Montreal North. The reporter chose to talk with social workers instead of to people who live in the neighbourhood. Throughout the story, several cases of problematization, ornamentalization and stereotyping are found. The neighbourhood is depicted as a “ghetto,” as a dangerous problematic place were visible minorities live in terrible conditions in “des appartements miniscules superpuplés, où les petits n’ont nulle part où jouer.” The intention of this piece clearly is to explain to readers (presumably unfamiliar with Montreal North), how visible minorities live there. “Le travailleur social a recontré des centains de parents, souvent des haitiens, dépassés par ce que leur enfant était devenue dans les rues de Montréal Nord.”  In this case, the reporter is more specific and identifies Haitian immigrants in Montreal North as the most affected by the demeaning conditions in which they live. The reference to Haitian immigrants is completely irrelevant, considering that Villanueva was Honduran. And the depiction of Montreal North is seriously compromised, given that social workers are constantly in contact with problematic cases but not with regular families.

The editorial piece in La Presse that day argued that in the last twenty years “la grande majorité des personnes décédées lors d’altercations avec des policiers de Montréal étaient de race blanche,” a fact completely irrelevant to the shooting of Villanueva. Whether the police kill more white people than visible minorities does not justify or makes less shocking the killing of a Latino man. This is a case of whitewashing because the journalist tries to justify a case of aggression against a minority member with more cases of aggression against white people.

By Aug. 17, the number of news stories on the Villanueva case had decreased in both newspapers.  La Presse and The Gazette published three stories each. In the case of La Presse only one news piece was problematic in terms of representation: it refers to a community group asking for the resignation of the mayor of Montreal North as a “groupuscule,” a derogatory expression. The community group is described as non-representative of Montreal North and as causing trouble, a clear example of problematization of minorities. The Gazette also refers to this group in its piece, but calls it “a new voice” that “emerges from the grassroots,” thus legitimizing it.   On the following day, Aug. 18, La Presse published a single item on the Villanueva case: a picture with an explanatory paragraph, and The Gazette published none.

On Aug. 19, both newspapers published three stories each on the Villanueva shooting; however, as they focused more on the police’s actions and politicians’ reactions, and drove further away from the victim’s family and the community, the cases of misrepresentation were less frequent. In the first story in La Presse extra security measures taken by the police in Montreal North are explained, and the fact that “zéro commentaire sur les circonstances de la mort de Fredy Villanueva” from the police or authorities is stressed. The Gazette also published a story on the reinforcement of the police station at Montreal North.

La Presse ran that day a letter from a lawyer who represented the spouse of a man shot by police and who lost lawsuit against the institution. In the letter, the lawyer warns about the difficulty of winning a case of police abuse. Meanwhile, The Gazette published two pieces that criticized the actions of the police and authorities. In the first story, “Ontario’s ombudsman says he has zero confidence in the Sûreté du Québec’s ability to impartially investigate the recent fatal shooting by Montreal police of a young Latino man.” The second piece, an editorial, denounces City Hall, accusing it of manipulating the Villanuevas and community groups through a public relations strategy designed to avoid criticism.

Finally, on Aug. 20 La Presse published no stories related to the Villanueva shooting, and The Gazette published one, on a Haitian group asking for an independent probe. In this piece, there are no examples of misrepresentation of minorities; however, the article highlights the fact that witnesses of the shooting are consistent in their versions of what happened, while the police account gives a completely different version.

Conclusion

Throughout the coverage of the shooting of Fredy Villanueva, the riots in Montreal North and the aftermath of these events, La Presse and The Gazette showed different tendencies regarding minority representation. In both newspapers there were cases of misrepresentation and underrepresentation, but also cases where none of these was present. The focus of attention during the coverage followed the same pattern in the two publications: the first two days it centred on the victim, his family and the reaction from within the Montreal North community;  then it turned to the neighbourhood, its characteristics, and a search for explanations for its violent protests; and finally, during the second half of the coverage, the focus was on the police officers who were involved in the shooting, the training the institution gives, and the political aspects of the incident.

In general, La Presse had more cases of misrepresentation and the most common forms were invisibilizing, stereotyping, problematizing, and ornamentalizing. It also had one case of whitewashing. The Gazette had fewer cases of misrepresentation and they were stereotyping, problematizing, and ornamentalizing. During the ten days of coverage analyzed, The Gazette expressed more criticism of the police than of the Montreal North community.  La Presse was at first critical of the community, questioned the victim’s actions, and published pieces supporting the police, but it gradually became more neutral, allowing in its opinion page columns and letters that challenged the way in which the police and politicians acted in relation to the shooting.

Regarding coverage of the victim and his family, The Gazette had a personal approach. The stories quoted Fredy’s friends and family in an attempt to make the victim more familiar to the reader; they also do not characterize him only as a “Latino man.”  The family’s immigrant background was also explained in this newspaper.  La Presse had more impersonal coverage of the victim and his family, Dany Villanueva’s testimony was questioned, and the service and funeral were not comprehensively covered. This suggests a higher level of identification of The Gazette with the tragedy, with the people affected by it; La Presse was more distant and supportive of police actions. This tendency can be considered a case of minority self- identification: the anglophone newspaper was more sympathetic to the visible minority that allegedly suffered police abuse.

Coverage of the Montreal North community was more sympathetic in The Gazette. Although both newspapers condemned the riots, the anglophone press talked to the people of Montreal North and did a profile of the community, while the francophone newspaper covered the issue by talking to social workers and experts, who are more familiar with problematic cases. The depiction of visible minorities in Montreal North was more stereotyped in La Presse, which also tended to discredit visible minority sources. Villanueva’s friends were routinely referred to as gang members, but no evidence of that was given to the reader, and the neighbourhood was described in demeaning ways. Overall, The Gazette published more positive coverage of the community than La Presse. The police and several politicians were criticized in both newspapers, especially for their lack of action and the questionable procedures in the Villanueva shooting probe.  However, The Gazette had a stronger position against the official response to the killing than La Presse did; for example, it questioned the City Hall’s alleged manipulation of comments by community groups and the victim’s family.

Misrepresentation of ethnic minorities is a problem present both in anglophone and francophone press in Montreal. However, in the case of the Villanueva shooting, the anglophone press showed more equitable representation.  The immigration of different ethnic groups to Quebec had exacerbated tensions between English and French (Fletcher, 1998).  In the Villanueva affair, the anglophone community and the anglophone press largely identified with the visible minorities community, while their francophone counterparts resented these same minorities, seeing them as a threat to Quebec’s distinct identity (Nieguth and Lacassagne, 2009).   The attitudes of francophones and anglophones toward Quebec immigrants differ because of their different political positions within Quebec: a francophone majority with a perceived need to legitimate itself as the dominant majority, and an anglophone minority with a corresponding need to defend itself from the dominating discourse. The discursive differences between The Gazette and La Presse, produced from a different understanding of power relationships in the anglophone and the francophone communities, reinforce differences between them, because exposure to different media accounts of the same situation gives each group a different worldview.  Although this analysis addresses the coverage of a single event involving a visible minority in a single city, it reveals a tendency that should be explored in further research on the differences in minority representation in anglophone and francophone press in Quebec.

References

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Jedwab, J.  & Maynard, H. (2008).  Politics of community: The evolving challenge of representing English-speaking Quebecers.  In Richard Y. Bourhis (Ed.), The vitality of the English-speakingcommunities of Quebec: From community decline to revival (pp.165-184). Montreal, QC: CEETUM,Université de Montréal.

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Van Dijk, T. (1998). How “they” hit the headlines: Ethnic minorities in the press. In Geneva Smitherman-Donaldson and Teun van Dijk (Eds.), Discourse and discrimination (pp. 221-262). Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press.

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By Gabriela Gómez Rodríguez, Ph.D.

About the author

Gabriela Gómez Rodríguez is a Professor in the Departamento de Estudios de la Comunicación Socialat the University of Guadalajara.  Paseo Poniente 2093, Jardines del Country, Guadalajara, C.P. 44210, Mexico.

gabygomez79@gmail.com

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to offer a detailed view of the situation of violence related to organized crime as it is represented in the Mexican media. This work presents the results of an empirical study (using media analysis and interviews with journalists) about the coverage of violence in a variety of Mexican media.  In the study, I try to outline some factors that can help us to understand and improve the conditions for journalists in Mexico. I also try to show some of the main characteristics of the representation of violence by the media that  currently prevail in news stories about organized crime.

***

Introduction

In Mexico on Jan. 23, 2007, President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, then only a month and a half into his administration, declared war, on behalf of his government, on organized crime.

Since then, Mexican media have gradually increased their coverage of events related to this war to an almost blanket level. Every day, stories of drug-trafficking and kidnappings occupy the media to such an extent that each death, each image, has become one more statistic, a figure.  Between Jan. 23, 2007, and March 2010, there were 22,647 deaths related to this war (La Jornada, 2010), in addition to the deployment of more than 50,000 soldiers and marines, 30,000 federal police and many more municipal police (Reveles, 2010).  The first headline about a severed head hurled into a discotheque impacted on society. Now, this impact has been largely lost in the profusion of stories about quartered cadavers, corpses strung up from bridges, and bodies “binned” (buried in bins and filled with cement). Practically all the newspapers, the serious and the less so, have published these types of images; some even try to take advantage of such content to cash in.

In Mexico, people are becoming increasingly accustomed to the violence, but not all Mexicans are living it in the same way. Some are growing used to viewing it from a distance through the media, as if it were a film or a TV series, while others live it as a reality day by day, second by second. Many mothers mourn their lost children; others live under constant threat. The narrative of violence in the media is constructed and circulated in diverse ways in Mexico. The violence is lived and perceived according to the region of the country where one lives and the social conditions that prevail.  One study found that in Mexico, more than one in four citizens (27 per cent) said they or a family member had been the victim of crime in the previous three months.  In other words, more than a quarter of the country’s population has experienced a violent incident.  As well, about 78 per cent of Mexicans say they fear being victims of an armed robbery and 72 per cent say they fear being kidnapped.

To understand the situation of organized-crime violence in Mexico, it is necessary to first know something about the how the country’s drug-trafficking element evolved and the how it has been viewed and portrayed over time in the mass media.

• It is known that a legal exchange of marijuana, opium and other herbs has existed since the end of the 19^th century, for medicinal purposes.
• This legal exchange lasted only a few years; in 1916, then president Venustiano Carranza approved the first law that restricted the production and distribution of drugs, and Mexican drugs cartels began to stealthily expand.
• In the 1940s, the state of Sinaloa, because of its location and climate, was consolidated as the principal area for the traffic of drugs to the United States.  Foreigners lived in this state and it’s said that they instructed the locals in the use and properties of marijuana and opium; there are those who accuse Americans of having promoted the production of illegal drugs in Mexico.
• In the 1970s, Mexico became the main seller of marijuana and opium to the U.S.
• In that decade, the Mexican government implemented various measures to decommission drugs and from then on, counted on the support of the U.S. government,
• At that time, and in spite of the fact that the drug industry was growing by leaps and bounds, the communication media reserved little space for this subject, giving it scant coverage and mentioning it only in passing in the crime section, with few images.
• The business of the production and trafficking of narcotics proliferated, giving rise to other cartels that fought for control over production and distribution of drugs in some areas of Mexico through the use of violence, as well as through bribes and with the collusion of the authorities at all levels, federal as well as state.
• In the 1980s, the previously discreet presence of drug-trafficking began to become more overt, in particular, after the capture of drug baron Rafael Caro Quintero and the murder of DEA agent Enrique Camarena.  Local and national media increasingly covered stories of drug-related violence.
• The most internationally resonating and widely covered incident was that of Cardinal Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo, who was assassinated on May 24, 1993, at the city’s airport. It is said that the primate died in the “crossfire” of a shoot-out between rival cartels (those of Tijuana and Sinaloa). Still today, 17 years after his death, the case remains open; unfortunately in Mexico, impunity and corruption prevail.
• The conflicts and betrayals within the cartels, the alliances and collusions of the government and police institutions with organized crime, the greater use of drugs in the country and the globalization of the drug market in which Mexican drug-traffickers are involved have created the nine cartels that now exist.
• The most powerful is that of Sinaloa, better-known as the Pacific cartel, whose boss is Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán who, according to Forbes magazine, is one of the richest men in the world and according to many analysts, heads a cartel protected by the government of Felipe Calderón (Proceso, 2010).
• If this scenario were not sufficiently worrying and disheartening, what the communication media publish or transmit through their content does not help the population understand the problem, nor does it prevent or bring to attention any real threat or risk.
• Since Felipe Calderón declared war on drug-trafficking, the lives and tranquility of many citizens have been violated and disrupted.
• According to a survey by Harris Interactive (2010), 75 per cent of Mexicans believe drug traffickers are winning the war, and so do 80 per cent of Americans.

A negative image of Mexico has been built up at both the domestic and international levels, and although reports of the violence that occurs in the country are not false or unreal, they represent only a partial reality, poorly-told.

A few media groups that have alliances with the government control media information. Some of them possess TV channels, radio stations, newspapers, printing presses and even football clubs. In Mexico, the media with greatest penetration are those of radio and television; the latter is found in the hands of a private initiative—the “duopoly” of Televisa and Television Azteca. Through the channels of these broadcasters, a large proportion of the population is “informed” about the news from their locality and of the events in the country. With respect to the dailies, Mexicans have not been great readers of newspapers, even though over 300 exist in the country.  The great majority of these are controlled by a few media companies, but some independent newspapers and publications do exist, such as La Jornada, a daily newspaper, and Proceso, a weekly magazine (despite the crisis, both  have managed to survive).

In recent years, all the communication media have increased their coverage of organized crime.  To illustrate, I present the case of the political publication with the greatest prestige and tradition in Mexico: the magazine Proceso. It is practically the only medium in the country that undertakes investigative journalism on the subject of organized crime. This journal has increased the number of its front pages devoted to drug-trafficking and organized crime since Calderón declared war on the “narcos.”

The subject has continually returned to the front pages of this publication. From December 2006, when the president took office, to May 23, 2010, of 182 front pages of the Proceso, 65 (or nearly 36 per cent) highlighted organized crime as a weekly topic.  It should be noted that independent journals such as Proceso and provincial journalists have suffered greatly from the threats and aggressions of organized crime. It is precisely in the provinces where drugs are produced, circulated, stored and distributed. In Ciudad Juárez, in Tijuana, in Culiacán, in Tamaulipas, in Acapulco, and in other northern cities, the mainstream media currently publish very poor information on events related to organized crime. They have focused instead on portraying violence as yellow news, as a kind of tabloid journalism, with little or no contextual information. It is in these cities that the largest number of crimes and executions related to drug-trafficking happen.

The journalists in the north of Mexico face daily threats, aggression and intimidation; and they are stricken with fear and dread. Journalists in these regions have lost their lives because they published information that did not go down well in certain criminal sectors, or because they investigated and “didn’t pay heed to the threats” or, as some journalists say, because they colluded with organized crime. In this way, the criminals, as well as the government, “buy” the reporters.

In contrast, in Guadalajara, located in the central-west side of the country, the reality of the violence and its representation in the media is different. In this city, the violence by organized crime is seen from a certain distance (although that distance is closing).  It is known that the city belongs to the Culiacán Cartel, but executions have taken place increasingly closer to or even within the city. Recently, local media reported on the discovery of six dismembered bodies in some areas of the city.  In covering the story, local media, who had previously tended to be more careful in how they represented violence, now fell into temptation to “cash in” by providing detailed descriptions of the body parts found.  What do citizens gain from reading such descriptions?

The media coverage on organized crime in the south-east of Mexico is perceived differently; reportedly, this region feels furthest from the criminal activities of the central and northern parts, where the fear is greatest.

Representation of organized-crime violence in Mexican media

This study outlines the main characteristics¹ of the representation of organized-crime violence in Mexico as follows:

1) Sensationalism.  Some communication media have opted to cash in on the violence and publish cut-up bodies on their front pages; such images are excessively crude and offer little help in comprehending the extreme act. They serve only to invite the morbid consumption of what is called “red” information: that is to say, news stories in which market values prevail over journalistic ethics and responsibility. It is the type of journalism known as tabloid, and such tabloid media, using violent images and “colourful” language, have become the best-selling organs of information.

2) Over-exposure to violence.  Over-exposing people to violent content in media runs the risk of “normalizing” or “naturalizing” the violence in the public mind.  There is practically no medium or space in the media, especially in television, that does not “cover” or “inform” about the war against drug-trafficking and organized crime. For example, in one of the local newscasts of Guadalajara, I found that 75 per cent of the information that was broadcast was related to violent crimes. There was no contextual information, only facts and figures. The renowned writer and journalist Hector Aguilar Camín (2010) argues that the reporting of so many deaths ends up aiding the criminal element in a kind of “double-hit”: once with the facts and again with the re-presentation of the facts (in media accounts).

One of the dangers of over-exposure to violence is that it desensitizes and paralyzes people as citizens. Mexico is a nation where more than 90 per cent of the people have television sets; this is not good news because practically all that the populace has access to in the way of news is broadcast to them via the duopolies of television: Televisa and Television Azteca, both allies of the government and virtually official government organs; they are willing partners in this over-exposure.

3) External censorship.  In contrast to the government-allied media are the paralyzed and threatened media, which recognize their social function but which also face the threat of censorship.  In this type of censorship, the media, and even more so the journalists who work for these outlets, find themselves obliged by organized crime as well as by government officials and politicians to publish certain information—or not. A single call, a single threat, and the journalist is left without any alternative but to obey the order.  Journalists know that threats are carried out.  Not for nothing is Mexico considered a most dangerous country for journalists.

4) Self-protection/censorship.  Mexican journalists are obliged to engage in some form of self-protection with regard to what they publish. Some media analysts would call this phenomenon self-censorship. Certainly, fear is the greatest social controller and clearly the journalists have reason to fear for their lives. In the last 10 years, 56 journalists have been murdered in Mexico, ranked the most dangerous country for journalists on the American Continent (Sociedad Interamericana de Prensa, 2010).

Attacks on Journalists
State	Total cases in 2008	State	Total cases in 2009
Chihuahua	14	Oaxaca	17
Oaxaca	13	Veracruz	15
Veracruz	12	Chihuahua	15
Distrito Federal	12	Distrito Federal	9
Puebla	8	Tamaulipas	8

Source: Centro de Periodismo y Ética Periodística. Annual report, 2009.

To clarify, not all the aggression comes from organized crime. If 15 years ago a correspondent for an important national newspaper “fought” for the exclusive news about drug trafficking , nowadays he or she would prefer not to broach the subject, as if that reality didn’t exist—out of fear. This is natural, considering that journalists in the north of the country suffer daily threats; they have seen their colleagues assaulted and killed.

Aggressor	Cases
Law enforcement/Security teams	50
Officials	36
Unknown	17
Organized crime	12
Private	10
Union/political groups	8
Party members	7
Media owners and managers	5
Party Readers	4
Ministers of religion	2

Source: Centro de Periodismo y Ética Periodística. Annual report, 2009.

As if this weren’t enough, in a city considered one of the most violent in the world, Ciudad Juárez, a journalist from whatever medium who tries to acquire life insurance will find that this is impossible, given his or her profession. The insurance companies have denied to all media professionals the right to buy insurance.  This situation represents a violation of human rights, including the right to know.  In the absence of any counter-action or guarantee of safety on the part of the State, the people feel unprotected. The people of Ciudad Juárez have nevertheless found a way to spread alerts or information through virtual social networks. Even organized crime groups have used these networks to issue “warnings” to the populace not to leave their homes on a given day; they will open fire, and those who don’t heed the warnings could die a violent death. In various cities, principally in the north, one lives with the sense of being under siege.

Professsional role	Attacks
Reporters	75
Cameramen/photographers	38
Mass media	19
Editors/Media directors/news editor	18
Tv and radio journalists hosts	7
Newsboys
Cartoonists/Columnists	5
Community media	2
Members of community radio	2
Undefined	11

Source: Centro de Periodismo y Ética Periodística. Annual report, 2009.

5) Strategic use of mass media by organized crime groups.  The communication media are commonly used as part of the media strategy of organized crime to send messages to the people and/or the government, and even to other cartels.  I find that the new forms of violence employed by drug-traffickers and organized crime, so shocking and crude, have much in parallel with international terrorism, in the sense that the intent in both cases is to cause fear, terror and fright; and both groups have achieved this.  In this sense, the media have served, albeit in an involuntary or unwitting manner, as messengers for the drug traffickers.  It is increasingly common for criminal groups to send messages through the so-called narco-banners (“news” items issued by organized crime figures to emit warning messages or to establish postures against another criminal group or the government). These banners are displayed in public places; for example, suspended from pedestrian bridges. In this way, the criminal groups have imposed an agenda on the media and on the people, as consumers of media.  Evidently, organized crime has a strong media impact and if it is headline-making, it is because it is newsworthy. It is well-known that the bloodier and more shocking an act, the more likely it is to be promoted to the front pages and headlines of the media.  It is necessary then to ask: What would organized crime be without public media of communication?  The question also works in reverse because we cannot deny that to publish something linked to organized crime maximizes the sensationalist nature of the piece, and that is good business, above all when the media companies suffer from an economic downturn or crisis.

A relevant case came to light recently and became the subject of various interpretations and critiques, many of them negative. It involved the founder of the journal Proceso, one of the most respected journalists in Mexico, Julio Scherer García. A widely sought drug baron  with the nickname “El Mayo Zambada,” contacted the journalist through third parties with a request to meet, and Scherer agreed. The result of this was the publication of a photo of the journalist with the drug baron on the front page of the journal. This urges the following considerations: How far was the journalist used? Up to what point do the media contribute to organized crime?

6) Blinkered information.  Blinkered information (information that is incomplete or out of context and so misleading) abounds for journalists and the media from government institutions, the police and others.  This situation makes it difficult for journalists to be able to offer the people facts and information that allow for their contextualization; in other words, the media and the people are denied access to the all the relevant facts; they are only  partially informed.

Proposals

In the face of these difficulties, what can be done to improve the situation (with regard to both social safety and the free flow of information through public media of communication)?  I believe that the following measures are indispensible:

1)    Journalists union.  The country’s journalists need to unite in order to be better-prepared to cover risky situations, such as those connected to organized crime. There have been attempts to group together, but the race for the exclusive has always taken precedence. Journalists are understandably reluctant to risk their lives for a story and they unfortunately find no protection where they work. As if that weren’t bad enough, the salaries and working conditions of the journalists are hardly optimum. Mexican journalists are not prepared to cover such violent situations; it is the international organizations, such as Artículo 19 and others, that have prepared manuals with recommendations on how to cover high-risk situations, given their experience in other countries such as Colombia.

A policy response implemented in Colombia is one that I consider worthy of emulation:  There, the media created a network of newspapers and broadcast outlets to share and publish information-reports, in this way shielding the various media outlets from drug-gang retribution against any one for authoring the articles.  This network allowed for the monitoring of media reports with regard to the armed conflict.  Finally, the newsrooms of the local press were visited and advice was given on how to draft the text and how to avoid pitfalls.

In Mexico, awareness is growing of the danger that reporters live under and the importance of the information published about organized crime. Some media directors are organizing journalistic forums to discuss the type of information and image that should or should not be published and the social function that should be assumed by the media, as well as the protections that should be implemented to provide security for journalists and to guarantee freedom of the press.

2) Self-regulation of the media.  Self-regulation is preferable to external regulation; it has to appeal to the media outlet’s sense of social commitment and discretion: to publish all relevant information and to refrain from publishing violent images or other information about organized-crime violence without full context.

3) Power of citizens.  In the face of this scenario that appears to have no solution, it is only the citizens who can rescue the country from the abyss: a more participative and critical citizenry that demands better content in the media; that does not ‘consume’ the morbid, tabloid press; that turns off the television that airs an excess of banal information about violence; that demands more from its government; that demands its right to information and social safety; that mobilizes itself through social networking and the like. The only viable and realistic solution that I can see in the face of such a situation is collective action (along with collective action in other countries) to allow Mexican society to live in peace and with the guarantee that human rights not be not violated each day.

The media provide only a partial or incomplete reflection of the reality of organized violence, and the hope of the Mexican people for positive change, like the warmth of the sun that embraces the nation every day, is an element that no one, neither organized crime nor government, can ever destroy.

Notes

1. Some of these characteristics were developed for the work El protagonismo de la violencia en los medios de la ZMG, by Gómez G. & Rodelo F. (2010), which work will be part of the document “La violencia social de la ZMG,” organized by the CONAVIM, Segob.

References

Aguilar, H. (2010). La Indefensión periodística frente al narco. URL: www.saladeprensa.org [May 20, 2010].

Artículo 19 (2010). Prevenir para después informar. Guía práctica de seguridad para la cobertura en zonas de riesgo. URL: http://www.articulo19.org/images/stories/publicaciones/manual%20de%20seguridad.pdf

Centro de Periodismo y Ética Periodística. (2009). Gobierno y narco; la lucha por imponer la agenda periodística Situación de la libertad de expresión en México 2009.  Informe anual.

Mitofsky, C. (2010). Encuesta nacional sobre la percepción de seguridad ciudadana en México.  URL:  http://www.consulta.mx/Estudio.aspx?Estudio=seguridad-mexico-mucd, [May 25, 2010].

La Jornada (2010). 22,743 muertos en guerra antinarco de Mexico. La Jornada, 18 April 2010. URL: http://www.jornada.unam.mx [May 22, 2010].

Proceso (2010). Radio de EU difunde que Calderón protégé al Chapo; Segob lo niega. Proceso. 18 May 2010.  URL: http://www.proceso.com.mx/rv/modHome/detalleExclusiva/79493 [June 1, 2010].

Reporteros Sin Fronteras, (2005). Autoridad, impunidad, y autocensura: las duras condiciones de los periodistas fronterizos, USL: www.rsf.org [May 15, 2010].

Reveles, J. (2010) El cártel incómodo. México: Grijalbo.

Sociedad Interamericana de Prensa (2010). URL: http://www.sipiapa.org/v4/

By Ross Perigoe

About the author

Ross Perigoe is an Associate Professor of Journalism at Concordia University.

Room 4.303, C/J Building, 7141 Sherbrooke St. W., Montreal, QC, H4B 1R6

Email: perigoer@hotmail.com

Abstract

Visible minority journalists in Canada account for only a small fraction of the reporting community. Their absence in Canadian media caused the federal government in 2007 and 2008 to underwrite a series of day long workshops at five universities oriented to this group.  Results at Concordia University indicate that 6.5 per cent of the students who started their course work in the years immediately after the workshops were visible minorities who had attended one of the workshops. University of Regina and Ryerson University continue to reach out to First Nations and at-risk youth respectively.  However, there is no long-term support for visible minority journalism candidates at either the provincial or federal level, despite their growing population base nationally.

***

One of the important elements in the creation of the Canadian myth is its professed openness to “the other.”  There is a general sense in this country that Canada takes a degree of pride in extending itself to visible minorities.  This can be seen in Canada’s immigration policy, which accepts more than a quarter of a million new arrivals each year (Government of Canada, 2009), and in the general acknowledgement that the country is largely composed of immigrants.  In Canada’s federal government, the minister in charge of immigration is also responsible for two other areas: citizenship and multiculturalism.  Clearly, the integration of new citizens and the celebration of difference is a priority at the federal level.  The vast majority of new immigrants are visible minorities, causing Laxer to describe the country as “a nation of multiple identities and two main languages” (2003, p. 36).  According to the census of 2006, 15.2 per cent of Canadians are visible minorities (Statistics Canada, 2009) and 3.6 per cent of Canadians are aboriginal or First Nations peoples (Statistics Canada, 2006).

Despite the comparatively large number of visible minority and aboriginal citizens, surveys of the staffing of Canada’s newsrooms in 1994 and 2004 indicated that journalism, and most particularly print journalism, had a disproportionately low number of visible minorities working as reporters, editors and managers.  In 1994, Canada’s print newsrooms were comprised of only 2.1 per cent visible minorities, including aboriginal peoples (Miller, 1994; Miller & Prince, 1994).   In 2004, Canada’s print newsrooms were comprised of 3.4 per cent visible minorities, again including aboriginals (Miller & Court, 2005).  While this more recent finding reflects an increase in the number and proportion of visible minority journalists, the growth is slower than the rate of their growth in the population at large.

The situation in broadcast is somewhat more reflective of the community. The reason is, at least in part, that the Canadian Radio and Television/telecommunications Commission requires radio and television stations and networks to outline their visible minority hiring policy as part of the licence-renewal process.

In 2006, the federal government, in co-ordination with the Young People’s Press, initiated a series of outreaches to the visible minority community in collaboration with five university journalism departments across Canada (King’s College [Dalhousie], Ryerson, Regina, Carleton, and Concordia) in an effort to sensitize visible minority students to the possibility of journalism as a field of study and a career.¹ Most were one-day events that combined hands-on training; meeting with visible minority graduates of the program; and discussing with department representatives when and how to apply to the program.

The hands-on training included attending a mock press conference and writing a story; writing and reading scripts on radio and television; and learning how to write for Internet users. Each school had a slightly different approach to the workshops. Concordia University held a community forum the evening before the first workshop that involved approximately 40 people discussing diversity issues in journalism with the editor of the Montreal Gazette and Professor John Miller of Ryerson University. Miller has written extensively on the topic.  Concordia held three, one-day symposiums over a three-year period, with students who were in junior college or registered at university in other programs.  Ryerson University put participants’ work created during the workshop on a website at www.versecity.com. The University of Regina invited students from First Nation communities and an aboriginal cook prepared the lunch; it continues to offer an introductory program each year.  Dalhousie University’s King’s College worked with adult minority mentors in high school, and bused students in from across the province. The Carleton University workshops included a trip to the Ottawa Citizen to see a newspaper in operation and to talk to journalists.

Over the two years of the funded gatherings at the five universities, over 300 students attended workshops.  Of that number, 82 attended the Concordia workshops.   Concordia continued the program for one more year, following the students who attended to see how many applied to the journalism program, how many were accepted, and how many began their studies.  Students entered in 2008 and in 2009.  None of these students has graduated.

Data on Students Attending the Young Journalists Workshops at Concordia University ²

Number of students                                    April 2007            January 2008          January 2009

Attended a Workshop                                     39                              53                  56 (+ 5 in p.m.)³

Applied to Journalism program                    21                              10                                    15

Accepted into Journalism program               15                              7                                       8

Were refused admission                                    6⁴ 3                                       7

Accepted our invitation                                      3                               7                                       8

Attended Workshop; did not apply                 18                             43                                    41

Visible minority students                                  16                              19                                      7

Visible minority applications                             5                               3                                       7

Visible minority students admitted                  5⁵ 3                                       6

Visible minority students attending                 1⁶ 3                                       6

Commentary: April 2007

To reach out to the potential communities, Concordia sent posters to guidance teachers at our junior colleges (known as CEGEPS), mounted posters on bulletin boards at McGill and Concordia, and spoke to classes that produced the student newspaper at several CEGEPS. For the first symposium there were 16 applicants who self-described their minority status as Afro-American/African (8), South East Asian (2), Chinese (2), Lebanese (1), Arabic (1) Jewish (1).  One described himself as “mixed.”  They spoke Vietnamese (1), Chinese (2), Italian (3), Spanish (6), Portuguese (1), Polish (1), Hebrew and Yiddish (1), Armenian (1), Creole (1), Oriya (1), and Arabic (3).   The day concluded, as it did with each of the sessions, with students being given guidance on the process of applying to the department.  But it was made clear to the applicants that they would be evaluated on the basis of their skill, knowledge and motivation, without reference to ethnicity.

Concordia’s Journalism Department invited 15 of 21 students who applied to the program after attending the workshop.  Nine opted to go to Concordia, but in other disciplines.  In that sense, the university benefited from the workshop even if the department did not.  Three students accepted our invitation, and two of them self-identified as visible minorities.  One identified herself as “Black-African.”  A second Arabic student later opted for Communication Studies alone. The department ended up with one visible-minority student who started the program as a result of the workshop.

January 2008

The posters were re-designed for the second year, and once again, they were delivered to guidance counsellors at five CEGEP colleges (Dawson, John Abbott, Vanier, Marianopolis, and Champlain) and mounted on bulletin boards at both McGill and Concordia universities.  There were also interviews on Kahnawake Radio CKRK-FM and Global TV’s multilingual cable channel in English and French in an effort to spur interest.

In 2008, there was a larger group of students (58), of whom five were Muslim high-school girls who attended for the afternoon.  The 19 self-described “minority” students, who attended all day, spoke 23 languages other than English or French: Arabic (2); Armenian (2); Chinese (2); Farsi (1); Greek  (2); Hebrew (1); Italian (3); Polish (3); Slovak (1); Spanish (5); and Urdu (1).

Seven of 10 students who applied to the program after attending the workshop were invited.  All accepted the invitation.  Three were members of visible minorities.  They all began the program.

January 2009

A total of 56 attended, and of that group, 15 applied to the program, including seven visible minorities.  We invited eight of the 15 applicants who had attended the workshop. Six of the eight were minority students (1 Chinese, 1 Vietnamese, 2 Hispanic, 2 Arabic). Sixty-five students started the program in the fall of 2009.  Thus, 12.3 % of the students who started the program in September 2009 had attended the workshop, and three-quarters of that number were visible minorities.  Put another way, nine per cent of the entire student population who started in the fall were visible minorities who attended the one-day workshop.

This is not to say that without the workshop, these students would not have applied or been accepted.  Nevertheless, of the 10 visible minority students who were enrolled to start in the fall, six had attended the workshop.

Comparison of those attending the symposiums versus those selected: 2007 – 2009

# Total attending the entire day                           148

# Attending who applied                                       46 (or 31%)

# Attending who were accepted                           30 (or 20.3%)

# Visible minorities who attended                       42 (or 28%)

# Visible minorities accepted                                11 (or 7.4%)

# Visible minorities started                                   10 (or 7%)

Comparison with all entry level students in Journalism

In the fall of 2008, four visible minority students who attended the workshops in either April 2007 or January 2008 began their studies. That year, 88 students were accepted.  Thus, visible minorities who had attended a workshop accounted for 4.5 per cent of the first-year student body. The following year, the department reduced its intake of first year students.  Sixty-five students began the program, of which six were visible minorities who had attended the one-day course.  They accounted for just over nine per cent of the first-year class.  While the raw number of visible minorities attending had dropped, they were seen as more desirable by the department and chose to attend in greater numbers.

These results should be viewed with caution. It would be unwise to try to draw a direct causal relationship between the Young Journalists Workshop and the success the department had in attracting minority students.  We cannot state categorically that there was a direct relationship between those who attended the workshops and the number of visible minorities who applied and were accepted.  Would these students have applied and been accepted without the workshops?  We cannot say definitively that the Young Journalists Workshop alone directly increased the numbers of minority students who began their studies.

Furthermore, despite efforts to engage the local Mohawk community of Kahnawake, just a 30-minute drive from the Loyola campus of Concordia University’s journalism department, no First Nations students attended the weekend sessions and none was admitted during this two-year period.

There were concerns expressed within the Journalism Department that the workshop, which was open to all potential applicants of the Journalism program, would appear to be exclusionary.  This is why the title Young Journalists Workshop was chosen rather than something more limiting, such as Visible Minority Journalism Workshop.   The organizers made it clear in the literature that all were welcome and that we would be discussing visible minority participation in the journalistic process throughout the seminar. Department spokespersons also assured all students that candidates for the program would be evaluated on the basis of their ability, not their ethnicity.

The reaction of the department’s students is worthy of note.  No student objected to the orientation of the seminars. It is possible that these students were being politically correct in order to be polite, so as not to appear biased toward their fellow students.  But it is equally possible that our country’s youth have made an important, embracing philosophical change.  Many students said they appreciated getting a greater understanding of the current under- representation of visible minorities in the media.   Some went further, suggesting that if journalism contains elements of social change, the craft itself has to change demographically to reflect the population more closely.

One final element deserves a brief mention: these events created an unexpected outpouring of goodwill on the part of current visible minority students in the department.  Given an opportunity to reach out to other prospective students of colour, they spoke passionately and eloquently about their experiences in the department.  While it now seems like an obvious by-product of the workshops, it surprised some of us in the faculty who simply did not expect to hear such warmth associated with studying in the department.

So, where does it leave the outreach program?  It continues in varying forms, in at least two of the departments.  The University of Regina continues its one-day workshop for First Nations students.  Ryerson continues to have an outreach program, specifically targeted at the east end of Toronto.  According to John Miller (now retired), two applicants from that program have already started their degree in journalism as a result.   Concordia did not hold a program oriented to visible minorities this past year, choosing instead to return to a sports workshop funded by Sportsnet.  Four visible minorities attended.  They were either Sportsnet employees (2) or students already enrolled in the program (2).

Summary

The outreach to visible minorities had a significant, measurable impact, in the case of Concordia University.  But a single two-year funding formula cannot be expected to develop a long-term commitment toward achieving a more representative body of students.  In particular, First Nations students may well require specific, targeted and long-term underwriting in order to be

able to develop into writers and journalists who can reflect the concerns of their community.

Notes

1. Funding of $105,324 was underwritten by the federal government’s Ministry of Canadian Heritage and Status of Women. Between January 2007 and February of 2008, each of the universities hosted two sessions.
2. My thanks to Dr. David Secko, who shared the duties of organizing the second workshop with me and followed it up the next year alone while I was on sabbatical; and to Fred Francis and Sandra Cochrane for their provision of registration data.
3. Five female high-school students from a Muslim private school in Montreal attended for the afternoon.
4. One visible minority student was refused at Graduate level.  Another minority student applied for 2009 but was not accepted.
5. Five minority students were accepted.  Three went on to other programs at Concordia.
6. One Arabic language student who was accepted by both Journalism and Communication Studies in the Joint Specialization program chose Communication Studies.

References

Government of Canada. (2009). Facts and figures 2009 – Immigration overview: Permanent and temporary residents Canada – Permanent residents by category, 2005-2009. URL : http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/statistics/facts2009/permanent/01.asp [June 15, 2010].

Laxer, J. (2003). The border:  Canada, the US and dispatches from the 49^th parallel. Toronto, ON: Doubleday.

Miller, J. (1994). Report on minorities in Canadian newsrooms.  Toronto, ON: Canadian Daily Newspaper Association.

Miller, J., & Prince, K. (1994). The imperfect mirror. Toronto, ON:  School of Journalism, Ryerson Polytechnic University.

Miller, J., & Court, C. (2005). Who’s telling the news? Race and gender representation in Canada’s daily newsrooms. URL: http://www.diversitywatch.ryerson.ca/ [June 15, 2005]

Statistics Canada. (2006) Topic-based tabulations, Aboriginal identity.  URL: http://www12.statcan.ca/census-recensement/index-eng.cfm  [June 13, 2010]

Statistics Canada (2006). Labour force activity (8) URL:  http://www12.statcan.ca/census-recensement/index-eng.cfm [June 13, 2010]

By Fred Vallance-Jones

About the author

Fred Vallance-Jones is an Assistant Professor of Journalism at University of King’s College.

6350 Coburg Rd, Halifax NS, B3M 3H4.

Fvjones@dal.ca

902-422-1271 x 147

Latest King’s investigation:

http://gambling.kingsjournalism.com

Abstract

Investigative journalism plays an important role in keeping the government and the private sector accountable but is threatened by cost pressures that are forcing newsrooms to cut back on staff.

While non-profit investigate centres have been established in the United States, growth of alternative funding models has been much slower in Canada. University schools of journalism, with motivated students and significant resources, can play an important role in strengthening investigative journalism. For the past two years, students at the University of King’s College in Halifax have worked as a team to produce large investigative projects that are published in a local paper and online.  The results have been encouraging, and the model could be adapted to the specific conditions in other schools and communities.

***

Background

Investigative reporting, which has been defined as “in-depth reporting that discloses something that someone wants to keep secret,” (Cribb, Jobb, McKie, Vallance-Jones, 2006, p. 3) helps inform and educate the public while keeping businesses and governments accountable for their actions (Houston, 2009, p. 3). It acts as a counterweight to those who seek to control the flow of information (Cribb et al, 2006, p. 3). In May 2010, in its judgment in R. v. National Post—best known as a case about confidential sources—the Supreme Court of Canada endorsed the importance of this work:

The role of investigative journalism has expanded over the years to help fill what has been described as a democratic deficit in the transparency and accountability of our public institutions. There is a demonstrated need, as well, to shine the light of public scrutiny on the dark corners of some private institutions (R. v. National Post, 2010).

But investigative reporting is expensive. And that makes it difficult for news managers to justify it, especially in difficult times such as these. Committing a reporter to a story for more than a day or two may be seen as a luxury (Rosner, 2008, p. 217). There are only a handful of long-lived investigative-reporting units in Canada, most notably at the CBC and Toronto Star. Other units have been formed, only to be disbanded later. For example, an effort to establish an investigative unit at the Halifax Chronicle Herald foundered after criticism by management the unit wasn’t producing enough material (Lester, 2005). Beyond dedicated units, investigative reporting is often pursued by motivated reporters who see it almost as a mission (Houston, 2010, p. 47) and a number of Canadian newspapers are known for investigative work done by individual reporters. Many news outlets do little or any investigative work.

Add to this economically driven reluctance the very real problem of the declining fortunes of newspapers, and waning public interest in “the news”, and “governments and other powerful entities [are] freer to evade accountability . . . the long-term effects of such wholesale abandonment pose threats to democracy itself” (Ruvinsky, 2008, p. xix).

Alternative funding models

But there are alternative ways of paying for and doing investigative journalism that may find a place in a time when profits at traditional media are shrinking and disappearing. Some of the most promising have appeared in the United States, where enterprising journalism has experienced significant setbacks: “Even those with the best intentions have been unable to maintain investigative reporting at previous levels, papers have closed, declared bankruptcy, or slashed staffs to stay in business” (Houston, 2010, p. 45). Advertisers have abandoned newspapers and magazines [for the Internet], resulting in much lower profits, and expensive investigative journalists have often been the first to go (Feldstein, 2009). A 2007 survey of staff at 20 larger papers found more than half the papers had “eliminated or sharply cut” investigative teams (Houston, 2010, p. 47). Partly in response, non-profit investigative centres have appeared at universities, as well as independently, the most prominent of which is ProPublica, which has a staff of 20 and a $10 million annual budget (Houston, 2010, pp. 47, 52). In 2009, a number of these non-profits banded together to form a new investigative news network to provide a central place to see, hear and read the best investigative work (Lewis, 2009).

Canada has not been immune from these pressures, with ongoing declines in paid circulation and advertising revenues for daily newspapers (Canadian Media Research Consortium, 2009), a number of high-profile layoffs at CBC, Sun Media, Canwest, Torstar, and others (Ray, 2008), and the closure or near closure of some local television outlets. Nonetheless, alternative models for investigative work have been slower to gain a footing here. The only investigative centre of any note is the fledgling Canadian Centre for Investigative Reporting (see http://www.canadiancentreinvestigates.org/).

In this environment, universities, and in particular schools of journalism, have an opportunity to play a significant role, just as they have done in the United States. Tom Fielder, dean of the College of Communications at Boston University, notes that journalism schools have some inherent advantages, including motivated students, experienced faculty, many experts and other resources within the university environment, access to funding from foundations, infrastructure such as office space and legal assistance, and the ability to use the university’s good reputation to forge relationships with media partners and gain the trust of sources (Houston, 2010, p. 50). Add to this the fact that good investigative journalism demands trained specialists, a critical/analytical approach, and (because of the stakes and potential harms), a high ethical standard, and it is clear that universities have the potential to foster a new generation of investigative journalists while contributing to the growth of investigative work at the community level.

For the past two years, the investigative workshop at the University of King’s College in Halifax has explored such possibilities, although the approach was as much a response to practical problems as it was an exploration of a new way of doing journalism.

Birth of an approach

King’s has had an investigative workshop for many years—in fact, several schools of journalism in Canada offer investigative journalism training—and until the 2007-2008 academic year it was run on a one-student, one-story model. This model had real advantages, especially in that each student was able to pursue a story of his or her own interest, and succeeded or failed partly on the strength of his or her initiative and effort. The biggest challenge to the model was time. Investigative journalism consumes a lot of it and even in a six-week workshop, once one or two weeks of instruction were completed, there wasn’t much time for one student to do extensive research, hunt down elusive sources, or chase new leads. The student needed to be focused on getting the essential elements for the story within the period allowed. Some stories ended up being of near publication quality, while others fell well short of that mark. There was a resulting need to keep the projects narrow in scope in order to give the students a decent opportunity to complete them.

These challenges, as well as an unexpected change in the media landscape in Halifax and a fortuitous trip to a conference in Miami, all contributed to the decision to try the one-project model. The newspaper that had published a number of the individual stories in previous years, the Daily News, was closed by its owner Transcontinental in February 2008, just before the 2008 workshop was to begin. While a last-minute arrangement was worked out with the Halifax Chronicle-Herald, most students weren’t able to have their stories published that year. Against this backdrop, the author attended a U.S. meeting that discussed group projects that had been done there. This became the immediate spark for the idea to do the same at King’s. The author approached the Coast, a local weekly that had published some individual stories previously, and proposed a partnership that would see the paper involved in a single project from the beginning. The Coast has an edgy style, favours investigator work, and aims for a younger demographic in its audience. The Coast agreed to publish the students’ work, as well as link to a student-built website with further stories and multimedia features.

The single-project model offered a solution to the time problem inherent in the one-student, one-story model. Some aspects of investigative work can’t be accelerated, such as how quickly governments respond to freedom of information requests, but what a team can greatly improve upon is the volume of material that can be researched, the number of interviews that can be done, and the speed with which one can respond to developments such as new story leads. With many minds contributing to the effort there is also a greater diversity of approaches and styles, all of which can contribute to a successful project. The new model was particularly feasible at King’s because of the workshop system that sees students committed to the workshop all day, every day for the full five or six weeks. A team working full-time in this manner, if led effectively, can engage with a significant subject and do work that rivals that of major news organizations. In getting there, students can learn specific investigative techniques and gain experience of what it is like to be part of a piece of high-stakes journalism.

Goals

In adopting the single project model, the author wanted to ensure three things:

• That the new workshop model would be an effective learning experience for the students;
• That the students would be central to the work and not merely low-cost research assistants; and
• That the story chosen would be significantly important to the community and contain elements allowing for effective teaching of investigative techniques.

Steps were taken to achieve each of these goals.

1. An effective learning experience

In order to produce the most effective learning experience possible, the workshop was structured to allow the students to take on all of the tasks that would engage a professional investigative reporter. This required a great deal of planning, organization and follow-through. It became demanding for everyone, not least the instructor who must be at times teacher and editor, mentor and sergeant-major.  The strongest students have to be given the opportunity to do their best work, while weaker or less motivated students can work to their own best potentials.

To maximize use of the workshop time, a student assistant was hired to conduct initial research, particularly documenting previous coverage from news databases, finding contextual material from other places, searching for and cataloguing documents and other resources, building a chronology of past events in Excel, and so on.  Besides creating a baseline of knowledge about the proposed story, this practice gives a third-year student the opportunity to do in-depth research that complements the school’s research methods course.

For the workshop itself, a certain amount of general instruction is required, and in order to maximize the time for the actual project, this is concentrated in the first week of the workshop. The classes cover basic principles, the process of an investigation, use of public records, and fundamentals of investigative writing, all over four mornings. The students, meantime, start reviewing the material collected by the student assistant. For the 2010 workshop, that meant reading documents, previous news stories and old debates from the legislative assembly. Along with the general instruction, there were also smaller classes with subgroups of students, and sometimes one student at a time, to teach more specialized skills such as data analysis or mapping.

The workshop itself was set up along a newsroom model, with students taking on key editorial roles, including a deputy editor, an assignment editor, a photographer/visuals editor, and a web editor. The remainder of the students were divided into reporting teams, each team taking responsibility for one aspect of the story.  The idea behind the latter arrangement was to prevent anyone from having to work in too large a group, to give the students ownership of part of the story, and to encourage group cohesion.

Formal story meetings were held on Friday mornings and in both years ad-hoc meetings were held as required in order to deal with specific issues as they came up.  There were also guest lectures, as required, and in 2010, full-class briefings from subject-matter experts.

Keeping track of all of the material being unearthed by such a large team requires a system. Each reporting team was required to write a memo on its daily work, briefly outlining tasks completed and information unearthed. These were then available for review by the editors and other reporters. The students were also required to transcribe their interviews word-for-word to ensure everyone had access to all of the important material and to provide authoritative access to all of the interviews at the writing stage. The important interviews were all recorded and the sound files saved on a central King’s server.

Everything collected went into a big pool available to everyone on the project. In 2010, a Google Documents account was used to store all documents, including paper documents that were scanned and posted, and spreadsheets of summary information. Google documents allows up to a gigabyte of storage for documents of any file type. The documents can be organized into folders and unless they are images, are fully searchable. The most sensitive information was not stored on the Google Docs site but on a King’s server to protect against a security breach and expose the material to the world. This measure meant the material was not searchable, but it offered greater assurance that security would not be breached. Finally, a Google Group was used to post memos and as a group mailing list, allowing anyone to email the whole group by sending a message to the group address.

1. Keeping students central to the work

In order for a project of this size, involving 10 to 15 students, to provide the best possible learning opportunity, including the opportunity to learn how not to perform certain tasks, students need to perform all roles related to the investigation. Some have suggested students act as researchers for professional journalists who would then do the actual stories (Rosner, 2009). That model is likely to be attractive to some schools, but a different direction was chosen for this workshop because employing students as unpaid researchers would deprive them of the experience of bringing a project to fruition and because the extent of the students’ accomplishment would be invisible to the audience and to potential employers. A key guiding principle is that this is a learning exercise as much as a professional exercise.

1. Choosing the right story

The choice of story is crucial.  Ideally, it should be something of significant public importance and interest. One of the goals of the workshop is to do public-service journalism for the entire Nova Scotia community, so the author seeks stories that affect significant numbers of people, have people at their core and raise important issues of accountability. These are the same kinds of story selection criteria that anyone doing a serious investigative project would apply. The instructor also looks for projects that will benefit from the large-team approach, stories that have many elements or aspects and that merit a deep and expansive look. The value of the story as a teaching tool is also crucial: by researching the story, students gain experience with key aspects of investigative reporting, including searching for and using public documents, doing in-depth personal interviews, obtaining good art, employing computer-assisted reporting techniques, and compiling and organizing the results. Therefore, stories that are process oriented, dominated by people talking in official capacities or totally interview-driven are avoided. The key is to find a balance between the story and the learning experience.

Even though the workshop doesn’t begin until late February, meetings of students are held in the fall, to start looking for project ideas. For the first year, in 2009, it was one of the student ideas that became the preferred choice of the group. One of the students had attended a protest rally on an unrelated issue and heard about pollution problems at Boat Harbour near Pictou, Nova Scotia. From this germ developed the Boat Harbour Story, a tale of pollution and official mendacity, and a toxic legacy that lives on without solution today. The story for this year’s workshop emerged when the author received an email from a public relations person with the Nova Scotia Gaming Foundation, an organization funded by a small percentage of video lottery revenues to provide information to the public about problem gambling. In a later telephone conversation, the public relations person provided numbers on problem gambling that were so compelling that the students endorsed the story with enthusiasm. Both of these stories had significant histories, a tremendous amount of potential documentation, and real potential for gritty, human interviews.

Assessment model

The assessment model for this workshop has been a work in progress. The goal has been to find a balance between assessing the students as a group, and assessing the efforts of individuals. Three-fifths of the individual mark is a traditional assessment of individual performance that takes into account individual effort, contribution to the project, quality of work and so on. The other two-fifths is based on reflections that the students write weekly about the experience, what they are learning, the challenges they face and what they have accomplished.  The main purpose of these reflections is to get the students thinking about what they are doing and how they might do it better next time. They also help the instructor see the project from the students’ point of view and this can help in refining the workshop for future years.

Results

Given that we were trying something completely new, these two projects have been immensely successful, showing that the model of completing a single, significant story for publication can be a successful way of both teaching investigative journalism and contributing investigative journalism to the community.

Boat Harbour is a huge problem, an environmental catastrophe spawned in another time when nobody paid much attention to the effects of development. The students book-ended the story, revealing for the first time the closed-door meetings and decision-making that resulted in an enormous re-engineering of the environment in the 1960s, while demonstrating forcefully that the provincial government had misled the public for years, saying a clean-up was well underway when in fact it had been quietly abandoned as unworkable.  (For more see http://boatharbour.kingsjournalism.com.)

The VLT gambling story had similar themes. The provincial government and its gaming corporation position themselves as leaders in what is called “responsible gambling.” Government finds itself in a tough spot, providing ubiquitous gambling opportunities that lead some people to deep financial difficulties and personal trauma. Rather than act decisively to prevent these effects, it promotes responsible gambling, putting the onus on people who are drawn to the government’s gambling machines to know when to stop so as to avoid problems.  But after five years promoting this strategy, VLTs seem to be causing as many problems as ever in Nova Scotia.  The government PR machine presents a benign public image that is belied by the stories of personal ruin and by the government’s own research. The students also uncovered an enormous growth in First Nations VLTs that not only undermines the government’s strategy but has caused misery and addictions in the native communities themselves. There has been ongoing coverage in mainstream media since the King’s stories were published. The Herald ran a lead editorial based on one of the students’ stories. For 2010, CBC also broadcast stories based on the students’ work, while giving the students full credit. (For more see http://gambling.kingsjournalism.com.)

Student experience

First and foremost, the workshop is for the students. For many, it is a highlight of their time in journalism school. They work on a major investigative project and experience everything that comes with that: the intensive tedium of reading long, technical documents, the challenge of tracking down elusive sources and the elation of securing interviews with them, the pressure of having to nail key elements of the story with time winding down, and the excitement of seeing the story come together. The students acquire new discipline, refine their research skills, and learn to be interdependent as well as independent. They have gained experience mining a wide range of public documents, including archival records, bankruptcy filings, land titles records, and company and government annual reports and business plans, naming just a few. They have done interviews with sources ranging from vulnerable victims to the premier. Those interested have learned specialized skills in computer-assisted reporting and web development. Less- motivated students have found the process difficult as they rely more on receiving direction. This matter is addressed in the next section.

Main lessons so far

Based on two completed workshops, some conclusions can be drawn that may be of assistance to others attempting a similar model:

• It can work. A group of students can pull together to produce a thorough piece of investigative journalism.  The two workshops so far have confirmed that having many people working on the story means much ground can be covered in a short period of time and you have people available to do basic shoe-leather work such as searching for businesses on reserves with video lottery terminals. In the gambling story, the students were exposed to a wide range of experiences, including tense and emotional interviews and last-minute accountability interviews conducted at the provincial legislature.

• The media partner should be involved from the beginning. Getting early and continued buy-in for the story from your media partner(s) is extremely important. For the past two years the author met with the editorial team at the Coast before the project began, and the Coast’s news editor came to some of our story meetings, offering suggestions and support. The goal here is to avoid surprises at the end of the project that could lessen the commitment of your partner(s) to the project.

• Strong leadership is essential. It is absolutely important to have someone at the centre of the project who sees the larger picture and has a clear view of how the story is developing. He or she needs to be ready to step in and offer clear direction to keep the project moving. The students need enough freedom to be able to work independently and take ownership of the story, but at the same time, their collective interest in the broader project needs to be preserved, and that’s the job of the project leaders.  It is also important that the lines of authority be clear. For many good reasons, including possible legal liability, the final word has to go to the instructor. He or she also needs to set the overall daily agenda.  Students don’t generally have highly developed skills in synthesizing large amounts of information, seeing the patterns and making judgment calls under pressure. There is a real opportunity, however, to have a student work closely with the instructor as a kind of apprentice editor. It goes without saying that the project leader needs to be an expert in doing this kind of work.

• Team building is equally important. Regular team-building elements are built into the design of the workshop, including a movie night and a social evening at the end of the workshop. During the workshop, certificates are awarded to students making the week’s most important breakthroughs.

• Regular review and reassessment is necessary to keep a project this big from veering off course, especially when you are dealing with a fixed deadline to complete most of the work.  Leads have to be followed and “brick walls” scaled. The most effective approach at King’s was to call ad-hoc meetings of the reporting groups to brainstorm specific problems. Large, overall group meetings were less effective because students tended to treat them as classes and those not directly involved in an issue tended to sit back.

• Keeping track of information is crucial, as is impressing upon the students the need to do so.  During the second project, this year, Google Docs service worked extremely well as a place to store documents and was especially valuable at the writing stage because everything was in one place, and searchable.  This was really useful for extracting key facts and numbers when students were working with the final copy.  Memos may be less useful. Getting all of the students to prepare them faithfully and thoroughly was a challenge and maybe more trouble than it was worth. The students didn’t like having to write or read them. Another approach, such as a single memo added to each day, may work more effectively. This would not only help students contextualize their daily progress, but would avoid the tedium of having to open and read memo after memo.

• It is important to find ways for everyone to play a role in the project. For the most motivated of students, this may simply be a case of identifying the problem and saying “go!” For others, more frequent direction will be required, and some may need daily intervention to stay on track.  Sometimes, a student may simply be unable to accomplish a task, and in these instances one must consider whether the student simply needs some encouragement and direction, or whether that student needs to be given other work to do and the task reassigned. In this way, you try to match the students’ different capabilities and levels of motivation with the work that needs to be done and the education you are trying to deliver.

• Perhaps the biggest challenge was getting the writing started. In both of the initial projects, editing and publishing of copy occurred after the workshop was officially over, partly because of delays in the writing process and partly because in classic investigative project style, some of the most important information emerged near the end.  Journalists who are used to amassing large amounts of evidence develop skill in “zoning in” on the important material and setting the rest aside, but this is much more difficult for novice writers. The need to marshal evidence for every point made, to have a story that builds that evidence to a conclusion driven by the facts, and to combine this discipline with narrative story-telling, makes investigative writing challenging. The author’s conclusion after doing this twice is that the  most effective way to teach the writing is in a small workshop environment with the instructor or other experienced investigative writer regularly sitting down with the project writers to provide guidance and supervision. Otherwise the students can be overwhelmed by the sheer mass of information. There should also be several drafts starting quite early in the project to give the writers the opportunity to see how copy improves with rewriting.

• Fact checking is important. Despite their best efforts, students will make mistakes in fact, misidentify sources, and make unsupported statements in copy. A fact-checking step needs to be built into the process and the instructor needs to guide this process.

• It is important to find the right balance between group and individual performance in the assessment scheme. The final mark distribution needs to reflect individual performance while giving the students appropriate credit for their collective effort.

• Finally, it is really important to get feedback from the students. In something as dynamic as this, each project will be a little different. But student comments can be very useful in assessing the effectiveness of various structures and workflows.

Discussion and conclusion

Journalism in North America is facing unprecedented challenges, from a shrinking advertising and circulation base for newspapers to pressures for ever speedier, superficial content on the Internet. Investigative journalism is often seen as an expensive endeavour with uncertain results. It can be hard to justify and may be nearly non-existent in smaller communities. Yet it serves an important role in democratic society, and can help differentiate professional journalism from reporting done by citizens.

The experiment with community investigative journalism at the University of King’s College demonstrates that students can play a role in maintaining and strengthening investigative journalism in their communities. With effective guidance, they can learn about investigative journalism while practising it in a realistic and challenging setting.  With local modification and access to experienced investigators to lead the effort, this is a model that could work elsewhere.

Consideration, however, would have to be given to local conditions. Issues might include the availability of suitable media partners and their willingness to co-operate, the degree to which the university administration is willing to have the school’s name attached to journalism that can be controversial and may result in negative feedback from institutions and individuals that become the focus of coverage, the suitability of the particular student body as participants in such a project, and considerations specific to the institution and its faculty. Another key consideration is the structure of individual programs. The King’s workshop model is ideally suited to such a project. An instructor running a course that meets once or twice a week while students take other courses would have to adapt the model to account for the reduced availability of the students to work on a project as well as for the interruption in students’ focus on the material. The Kings’ project, however, has shown that students can take on a large investigative project, and if led effectively, can succeed. There is no question that student work of this kind can be one part of the answer to the question of what happens to investigative journalism in the current changing media environment.

References

Canadian Media Research Consortium. (2009). The state of the media in Canada: A work in progress. PDF of PowerPoint presentation. URL: http://www.cmrcccrm.ca/en/projects/StateoftheMediainCanada.htm

Cribb, R., Jobb, D., McKie, D., & Vallance-Jones, F.  (2006). Digging deeper: A Canadian reporter’s research guide. Toronto: Oxford University Press.

Feldstein, M. (2009). The challenges and opportunities of 21^st century muckraking.  In Nieman Reports. Summer 2009. URL: http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reportsitem.aspx?id=101554.

Houston, B. (2009). The investigative reporter’s handbook. 5th edn. Bedford/St. Martins.

Houston, B. (2010). The future of investigative journalism.” Daedalus 139(2), 45-54.

Lester, J. (2005). Herald sets up investigative team. King’s Journalism Review, Vol. 11. URL: http://journalism.ukings.ca/journalism_3673_6492.html

Lewis, C. (2009).  The future of watchdog reporting brightens as nonprofit groups organize a new network.  In Nieman Watchdog, 3 July 2009.  URL: http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Showcase.view&showcaseid=00110&emailthis=sendtoafriend&forumaction=post

R. v. National Post (2010) SCC 16.

Ray, R. (2008). Newsroom cuts and closures: An ‘08 rundown.  The Canadian Journalism Project. 27 Nov. 2008.  URL: http://j-source.ca/english_new/detail.php?id=3072&PHPSESSID=d4eb5358ac3a3a29663a9d897a41d7aa.

Rosner, C. (2008). Behind the headlines: A history of investigative journalism in Canada. Toronto: Oxford University Press.

Rosner, C. (2009). Free student support for investigative work.  Investigative journalism in Canada (blog). 15 Sept. 2009. URL: http://canadianmuckraking.blogspot.com/.

Ruvinsky, M. (2008). Investigative reporting in Canada. Toronto: Oxford University Press.

Thompson, K.  (2008). The future of investigative journalism, Part 1-Interview: Flat Earth News’ author Nick Davies. Editors Weblog.org. URL: http://www.editorsweblog.org/analysis/2008/08/the_future_of_investigative_journalism_p.php

By Elyse Amend and David M. Secko

About the authors

David M. Secko is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Journalism at Concordia University in Montreal (7141 Sherbrooke St. West, CJ-3.245, Montreal, Quebec, H4B 1R6). He currently runs the Concordia Science Journalism Project (www.csjp.ca) and his research covers the analysis of new models of science journalism.                                               dsecko@alcor.concordia.ca.

Elyse Amend is an MA student in the Department of Journalism at Concordia University and a member of the Concordia Science Journalism Project. Her research interests include science journalism, examining how news media “translate” scientific reports and the effects science journalism has on the public’s attitudes and behaviours.                                     elysera@yahoo.com.

Abstract

In this paper, we report on the research method used to produce a qualitative meta-synthesis of the experiences of journalists covering health and science. Journalists covering health and science are often bombarded with critique. The literature that aims to study their practices abounds with allegations of inaccuracy, sensationalism and a failure to engage publics in meaningful dialogue. Amongst this mass of research are small islands of study that aim to better understand the experiences of science journalists in the face of such critiques, yet these qualitative studies have so far been left adrift, with little effort directed at generalizing the findings. This paper explores the process of collecting, selecting and synthesizing such qualitative studies so as to remain faithful to the lives narrated in them.

***

Introduction

Qualitative research synthesis comprises a family of methods that have been at once championed as a way to improve the ability of qualitative studies to make an impact on their field of study (Bondas & Hall, 2007) and rebuked for simply being critical literature reviews in disguise or undertaken by the novice to avoid “the time-consuming and messy business of original data collection with human participants” (Thorne, Jensen, Kearney, Noblit & Sandelowski, 2004, p. 1343).  Paterson, Thorne, Canam and Jilings have further argued that such meta-study approaches “are not for the faint-hearted and are not for the beginner” (2001, p. ix) since they require combined theoretical, methodological, and contextual analysis of a body of literature. Nevertheless, interest continues to grow in approaches to research synthesis that combine systematic review of qualitative literature with the interpretative integration of findings from identified studies. This has given rise to diverse approaches, such as meta-ethnography, thematic synthesis, critical interpretive synthesis, meta-study, meta-narrative and qualitative meta-synthesis (see, for example, Noblit & Hare, 1988; Sandelowski, Docherty & Emden, 1997; Paterson et al., 2001; Sandelowski & Barroso, 2003; Thorne et al., 2004; Dixon-Woods, Agarwhal, Jones, Young, Sutton, 2005; Walsh & Downe, 2005; Bondas & Hall, 2007; Barnett-Page & Thomas, 2009). However, when we consider this evolution of divergent methods and views on their application against the above cautions, an important question emerges: How can the interested, but inexperienced, research synthesist undertake such a project and emerge faithful to the primary studies?

In this paper, we draw on a qualitative meta-synthesis project on the experiences of journalists covering health and science to enact a deeper conversation with this question. Qualitative meta-synthesis is seen as one approach to pushing forward the emergence of disciplinary knowledge in journalism studies and to developing mid-range theory from journalistic experiences in the hotly debated field of science and health communication. Such research synthesis approaches are by no means a replacement for primary qualitative research, but instead are meant to further it by the interpretative clarification of concepts and patterns in aggregated data. But exactly how such a unique endeavour is to be accomplished is a challenging question, and one that is magnified for the novice synthesist. Such factors provide a strong motivation for the reflexive production of an audit trail.

This paper describes such an audit trail from a qualitative meta-synthesis undertaken over the past 11 months. Our particular interest is in science and health journalism, which as a profession is often approached practically as opposed to informed by evidence-based or theoretical research. This is despite inherent debates about the practice of science and health journalism that have been difficult to resolve (Secko & Smith, 2010; Bubela, Nisbet, Borchelt, Brunger, Critchley, et al., 2009). Here, we focus on our methodology and a few illustrative examples, with the wider results of the qualitative meta-synthesis to be reported elsewhere (Amend & Secko, 2010). In outlining our methodology more fully than would be possible in a paper focusing on results, we work to take seriously the considerations of the above methodologists and their concerns over novice synthesists. This is our first meta-synthesis project, so it is with some humility that we enter into the discussion over qualitative meta-synthesis in this regard, but we hope this endeavour will help other novices engage with this exciting approach to knowledge development.

Focus on Method

As noted, a diversity of methods has developed since Noblit and Hare’s (1988) classic text on meta-ethnography, methods that seek to enable qualitative research synthesis (Barnett-Page & Thomas, 2009). Here we focus on an adaption of the qualitative meta-synthesis and meta-study approaches of Sandelowski and Barroso (Sandelowski & Barroso, 2003a; Sandelowski & Barroso, 2003b; Sandelowski & Barroso, 2003c; Barroso, Gollop, Sandelowsk, Meynell, Pearce, et al., 2003) and Paterson et al. (2001), respectively. However, before describing our adaptation of these approaches to journalism studies, it is important to briefly set the context for our work in both the science/health journalism and methodological literature.

Considerations of science and health journalism

There is a rich body of literature studying science and health journalism, much of which is outside the scope of our focus on methodology in this paper (for those interested, see Logan, 2001, or Weigold, 2001). It is, however, worth noting that a renewed urgency has recently emerged over the need to more fully and openly discuss the fields of science and health journalism (Bubela et al., 2009; Dentzer, 2009). In our mind, this renewed urgency can in part be read as a desire for actionable knowledge, however provisional and modest, that meaningfully speaks to long-standing debates over journalistic practice (Secko & Smith, 2010; Russell, 2006) and rapidly evolving contexts such as the online environment (Secko, 2009; Brumfiel, 2009).

Scholars, scientists and journalists have long argued for the importance of science and health journalism, particularly as one form of communication that can enable people to keep apprised of scientific advancements, assess the appropriateness of research, and make judgments related to their environment, health and wellbeing (Nelkin, 1995). Health and science journalists perform this task by turning scientific research into understandable, engaging and entertaining stories accessible to audiences that often do not have the scientific backgrounds to make sense of research in its original form. To do this, journalists often heavily rely on scientists and academic journals. They may not have degrees in science, but instead have educational backgrounds in the arts, social science and in journalism. Thus, science and health journalists may occupy specialist positions at their news organizations, but can be seen as generalists in health and science (Conrad, 1999). Indeed, even those with advanced degrees in genetics cannot be considered experts in specialties such as microfluidics or paleobiology, although they may be more familiar with the scientific enterprise.

In this context, some studies have shown science and health coverage to be accurate (Bubela & Caulfield, 2004; Caulfield, 2004). But more often the literature has alleged inaccuracy, sensationalism and a failure to engage publics in a meaningful dialogue about scientific issues (see, for example, Dentzer, 2009; Bubela et al., 2009; Racine et al., 2006; Russell, 2006; Holtzman et al., 2005; Schwartz & Woloshin, 2004; Cassels et al., 2003; Nisbet and Lewenstein, 2002; Logan, 2001; Weigold, 2001; Hartz & Chappell, 1997; Nelkin, 1995). Science and health journalists have also been critiqued for being complicit in the production of a “cycle of hype” (Caulfield, 2004), which for journalists is argued to be linked to a desire to make dry science more newsworthy, as well as driven by passionate researchers, university funding pressures and the reality of profit-driven media organizations.

Amongst the mass of research exist small islands of qualitative study that aim to better understand the experiences of science and health journalists in the face of such critiques. This type of research often relies on in-depth, open-ended interviews, and the results are typically detailed first-person reactions, opinions and narratives that provide a subjective perspective on a topic. Such qualitative studies are undertaken for numerous reasons, but can be argued (for example) as important for understanding of what counts as science and health journalism, unearthing the logic behind the seemingly ad hoc judgments of journalists, and helping researchers gain first-person narratives on the complex relationship between journalists and the scientific actors and enterprises they cover. Furthermore, as Hinnant and Len-Rios (2009, p. 85) suggest, such qualitative inquiry can help unearth journalists’ tacit knowledge or the “unexpressed, but closely adhered to, ideas of how to do their work.”

However, the qualitative studies aimed at investigating the lived experiences of health and science journalists have so far been left adrift, with little effort directed at generalizing their findings. We therefore do not have comprehensive summaries of what has been found through such methods of inquiry. Thus, we set out to produce a qualitative meta-synthesis relating to the experiences of health and science journalists. We were aware of no previous attempts to complete such a study.

Considerations of qualitative meta-synthesis

Qualitative meta-synthesis is an approach to building more generalize-able knowledge from a set of qualitative literature on a particular topic. Many of the current discussions surrounding it are rooted in the qualitative health research community and nursing science (Paterson et al., 2001; Bondas & Hall, 2007), but several authors also locate its prior origins in a desire to systematically analyze sociological knowledge from distinct perspectives (Zhao, 1991), to synthesize diverse field research in anthropology (Noblit & Hare, 1988), and as derived from the context of quantitative meta-analysis (Thorne et al., 2004). Yet the current focus on health research means that, based on our knowledge, the use of qualitative meta-synthesis has not significantly penetrated the journalism studies literature.

Nevertheless, qualitative meta-synthesis is well suited to the theory/practice tensions that exist in journalism studies. In fact, interest in developing approaches to qualitative meta-synthesis was not only to enable researchers to go beyond a set of qualitative literature and thereby aid theoretical or methodological development, but also to answer increasing calls for how qualitative studies could better inform policy and practice in a field of inquiry. For instance, Bondas and Hall (2007, p. 113) argue that while qualitative studies are well recognized in their field of nursing science, they have had little impact for evidence-based practice. We carry a similar concern for the field of journalism studies related to health and science, where despite insightful past qualitative research, there exists a lack of connecting threads between studies. Hence, we risk studying the same health and science journalism topics over and over again—essentially “reinventing the wheel” (Sandelowski et al., 1997, p. 366) with each new study—while having little impact on journalistic practice. And herein lies one assumption about this approach: that qualitative meta-synthesis can help address these critiques and advance knowledge. In the words of Thorne, the motivation is to meet the charge “not only to publicly account for what we know, but also to account for how we know it” (2004, p. 572).

To meet such a charge, qualitative meta-synthesis has been envisioned as an analytic process by which primary studies are combined, compared and contrasted to generate meaning that extends beyond any individual study. This analytic process is held in contrast to a critical literature review, a quantitative meta-analysis that is used to aggregate quantitative results, or a secondary analysis of qualitative data sets (Paterson et al., 2001). Instead, as Sandelowski and Barroso (2003a) outline, a qualitative meta-synthesis is an interpretative product that involves three basic steps: (1) a systematic search and collection of qualitative studies; (2) a focus on, and extraction of, the results of the collected studies; and (3) the use of qualitative methods to synthesize the identified results. Importantly, such synthesizing has the goal of amplifying the results of multiple studies, as opposed to data reduction. In this way, qualitative meta-synthesis is “research of research” (Paterson et al., 2001, p. 5) where the “reviewers,” to borrow this term from Sandelowski (2006), must be aware that they are synthesizing constructions of constructions (i.e. they are several steps removed from the primary data and lived experience).

Such distance from data and lived experience, and the issues of representation this raises between “lived and narrated lives” (Sandelowski, 2006), is only one of the challenges and complexities of qualitative meta-synthesis. Other examples include the following: (a) how to comprehensively locate qualitative studies on a topic (Barroso et al., 2003); (b) how to choose studies, how many studies to choose, and whether to separate studies utilizing differing qualitative methods (Estabrooks, Field & Morse, 1994; Sandelowski et al, 1997); (c) how to determine what is to be considered “data” in a primary study and how to extract this data along a common scale (Thorne et al., 2004); (d) whether to set a broad or narrow scope to a meta-synthesis and how to thereby frame the use of meta-analytic techniques to ensure insight, manageability and transferability (Sandelowski & Barroso, 2003a; Walsh & Downe, 2005); (e) how to avoid recreating the aggregative logic that a qualitative meta-synthesis aims to replace through interpretive synthesis (Reid, Sinclair & Barr, 2009); (f) whether to assess the quality of studies (Sandelowski & Barroso, 2003b); (g) how to preserve and analyze the context, methods and theoretical stances of studies and researchers (Paterson et al., 2001); and (h) questions of epistemology and whether we need to balance empirical/analytical and critical/discursive readings of studies (Sandelowski, 2006; Barnett-Page & Thomas, 2009), among other issues.

While it is outside the scope of this paper to discuss all of these challenges, we now turn to our approach to addressing some of them from a journalism studies perspective. We frame this discussion along the three basic steps to a qualitative meta-synthesis as outlined by Sandelowski and Barroso (2003a).

Systematic searching and collection of qualitative studies

Since a qualitative meta-synthesis takes primary literature as its “data” source, the identification of appropriate qualitative studies is of key concern. While it is difficult, if not impossible, to locate every single study related to the experiences of science and health journalists, we nevertheless attempted to build a comprehensive strategy that would maximize our search results. Bondas & Hall (2007) have noted the wisdom of making use of a librarian, suggesting that search specialists often find 50 per cent more references than researchers. We therefore consulted with a subject librarian in journalism and communication at Concordia University while developing the search strategy described below.

Search strategy

We selected five core databases that would provide us with the most relevant articles for our purposes. The core databases searched were Communication and Mass Media Complete (CMMC), Communication Abstracts, Academic Search Premier, PubMed and Web of Science. The use of bibliographic database searches was deemed appropriate due to the decision to focus only on the peer-reviewed literature. This decision was initially made for two reasons: (1) so as to provide a clearly focused and manageable data set, and (2) to make use of the “quality” screening employed by journals in the publication of qualitative studies. We are aware that the non-peer reviewed literature and, in particular, dissertations and theses (see Estabrooks et al., 1994), may form an additional set of useful documents that can be searched in future work. A third retrospective reason for not expanding beyond the peer-reviewed literature was the conceptual richness of the studies identified, which were deemed sufficient to provide insight into our research questions.

With these points in mind, the data set uncovered by our search strategy should be viewed as a representative sample of the studies relating to the experience of health and science journalists. Paterson et al. (2001) note that researchers are unlikely to move beyond the capture of such a representative sample due to the difficulty inherent to the process (cf. Barroso et al., 2003), so instead must document their diligence so that others can assess the breadth of their data retrieval.

In July 2009, we began developing our search terms, which needed to be tailored to each individual database. We began with the CMMC database and used a “building block” approach to develop our search terms for three main concepts: “journalism,” “science,” and the “qualitative filter.” The CMMC thesaurus system was used to locate specific subject terms. For the “journalism” concept, for example, subject terms such as “journalism,” “mass media,” “news,” “newspaper” and “broadcast” were used to isolate studies that focused on journalism and journalists. The same approach was taken for the “science” concept, which for the purposes of this study, included science, health/medical and environmental subjects. CMMC’s thesaurus was used to find appropriate subject terms, such as “mass media and the environment,” “science,” “health,” and “medical.” Lastly, the two concepts were combined with the “qualitative filter,” a concept made up of numerous keywords related to qualitative research. The purpose of combining the “qualitative filter” with the “journalism” and “science” concepts in the final search was to exclude quantitative studies (e.g. surveys), qualitative studies with no human beings as participants (e.g. content analysis and discourse analysis), and qualitative studies with no journalists as participants (e.g. audience focus groups).

Our final search strategy for CMMC yielded 390 results. Both the CMMC and Academic Search Premier databases are hosted by EBSCO, and we were therefore able to use the same search strategy for Academic Search Premier. This second database search yielded 733 results. See Appendix 1 for the complete CMMC and Academic Search Premier search strategy. The search strategies for the final three databases were developed in a manner similar to those used for CMMC, but with the unique indexing system of each database taken into account. These searches yielded 45 (Communication Abstracts), 218 (PubMed) and 504 (Web of Science) results. In total, 1,890 studies were identified by this method.

To further increase the comprehensiveness of our strategy, additional searches were performed on Google Scholar and in the online databases of key journals (e.g. Journalism, Journalism Studies, Science Communication, Public Understanding of Science, Health Communication, the Canadian Journal of Communication, and J&MC Quarterly) to retrieve articles that might not have been found in the databases. We also performed citation, footnote and author searches as related to identified studies (see Barroso et al., 2003, for a fuller description of these techniques). Lastly, since bibliographic databases are not fixed entities but evolve over time, we searched the above databases a second time in January, 2010.   

Selecting studies: Inclusion/exclusion criteria

After the primary searches were completed, we proceeded to review the results in order to exclude articles that were irrelevant to our purpose. As one of the goals was to identify the peer-reviewed literature that explores the lived experience of science journalists, we undertook several inclusion/exclusion phases to ensure the final studies selected for this study met this objective. Inclusion criteria for this process included studies that: (a) made use of qualitative research methods, such as qualitative interviews, focus groups, ethnographic work, etc.; (b) sought to obtain the experiences of science, health and environmental journalists by including journalists as research participants; and (c) were peer-reviewed.

In turn, we excluded the following kinds of studies: (a) studies with no human participants;  (b) studies not dealing with science and health; (b) studies not dealing with journalism or not involving journalists; (c) qualitative studies with no identifiable results; (d) mixed methods studies where qualitative results could not be differentiated from other results; (e) studies where the reporting on a mixture of participants (journalists and others) did not allow the separation of these different groups; (f) non-peer reviewed studies or other non-research accounts.

The first inclusion/exclusion phase involved scanning the articles’ titles and abstracts, focusing on whether or not they involved health and science journalism or journalists. Articles that had nothing to do with journalism or science were excluded. At this stage, we did not exclude articles based on whether they were qualitative studies. This first exclusion phase considerably reduced our pool of articles, reducing the CMMC results from 390 to 104, the Academic Search Premier results from 733 to 66, the Communication Abstract results from 45 to 17, the PubMed results from 218 to 17, and the Web of Science results from 504 to 43, for a total set of 247 articles.

A second exclusion phase involved scanning the full articles to see if they were valuable for the purposes of this study, excluding those that did not involve qualitative research methods. “Qualitative research” was generously defined as empirical research with human participants that used commonly identified qualitative methods within any theoretical orientation (Sandelowski & Barroso, 2003a). There is debate in the methodological literature over whether a quality appraisal should also form part of the inclusion/exclusion criteria during a meta-synthesis (Paterson et al., 2001; Reid et al., 2009). On this point, we agree with Sandelowski and Barroso (2002) that it is problematic to exclude for reasons of quality since consensus does not exist on quality criteria for qualitative research, and for this reason, such exclusions risk removing valuable data that only some would view as containing methodological mistakes. This second exclusion left us with 41 articles.

The final exclusion phase involved in-depth reads of each of the 41 articles, carried out independently by the two researchers, who recorded their reviews of the studies. The researchers then met to discuss their reviews and come to agreements on which articles to include and exclude. This left us with 21 articles included in the final data set for analysis (See Appendix 2).

There is little direction provided in existing literature on exactly how many studies should be included in such a meta-synthesis, or alternatively, how many studies is enough to produce a saturated and transferable product of synthesis. Sandelowski et al. (1997) and Paterson et al. (2001) suggested a minimum of 10 to 12 primary studies, but shied away from strict rules since each study can provide a wealth of information. We see the question of sample size as related to both the comparability of identified studies and matters of narrow versus broad research interest. Comparability relates to asking whether findings in the identified studies can be compared to allow synthesis (Bondas & Hall, 2007), which can help set sample size parameters through the removal of incompatible studies. It has been suggested that comparing research questions across studies can help decide comparability (Sandelowski et al., 1997). The second element relates to a desire for saturation or depth, in that, more studies many lead to a broader or higher level of theorizing, while a large sample can nevertheless diminish the ability to create a narrow or deep analysis of themes (Bondas & Hall, 2007). We regarded our 21 articles as providing a wealth of comparable information via common research questions that would allow a deep analysis of themes.

Data extraction from ccollected studies

Use of the Meta-study approach

To extract qualitative data from the 21 included studies, we chose to use the meta-study approach developed by Paterson et al. (2001), which extracts and analyzes data on three levels—meta-method, meta-theory and meta-data—for subsequent synthesis. We decided upon this approach for two main reasons: (1) the meta-study approach requires that the contexts and underlying assumptions behind each included study be taken into account, as well as their possible effects on the findings, and (2) the approach is comprehensive and complex in nature, thus ensuring each included article is examined in-depth and that generalizations and conclusions are drawn with caution (Thorne et al., 2004, p. 1354). The goal of meta-study is to produce deeper understanding about the phenomenon in question by using the three components of the “analytic sequence” to produce the meta-synthesis (Bondas & Hall, 2007, p. 115). The meta-method analysis investigates the methodological processes used to collect data and the research practices that are driving the field. It seeks to shed light on the impacts these methodological features may have on the research findings. Meta-theory analysis explores the theoretical frameworks and underlying assumptions in the research, linking them to the studies’ findings and conclusions. Finally, the meta-data analysis aggregates the actual findings from included studies and re-analyzes this “processed data.” This step allows the data from individual studies to be compared and makes its reinterpretation possible (Paterson et al., 2001).

Throughout the meta-study process, we remained aware of two important limitations. First, the process de-contextualizes data, removing it from the context in which it was originally created. Our access to this original context is also severely limited by the primary research report which may omit important contextual factors. Second, as a meta-synthesis of this type does not analyze original data, the synthesis is only as good as the articulation given to the data by the primary researchers. Additionally, as previously mentioned, a qualitative meta-synthesis is a construction of a construction (Paterson et al., 2001) and its interpretive nature means it cannot be thought of as the only possible synthesis that could be created from the studies.

How data was extracted

In order to ensure the preservation of the context of each study, we began the data extraction process by producing structured summaries of the studies across a common scale. This was accomplished with the use of a reading grid inspired by Paterson et al.’s (2001, p. 135-139) “primary research appraisal tool” (see Appendix 3). The reading grids recorded details for discussion, such as the studies’ research questions and approach, the participants, the major findings, as well as conclusions drawn, implications and limitations. This extraction of data was descriptive and not evaluative.

Structured summaries were used to discuss what was to be considered a “unit of data,” and to ensure that we remained faithful to the meaning and context of the data as presented in the original study. We then undertook a formal data extraction phase, recording processed data into spreadsheets along Paterson et al.’s (2001) meta-method, meta-theory and meta-data categories. For the purposes of this study, we defined “processed data” as text, from one word to full paragraphs, contained in each study on the experiences of journalists (specialist and general) covering health and science. Claims as to what was a finding by the primary researcher were subject to our interpretation.

What follows in this section is a brief illustration of the results of this process. More extensive reporting of these results will appear elsewhere (Amend & Secko, 2010).

Meta-method

In order to shed light on how the qualitative data in the included studies were collected, we recorded data in the meta-method category that revealed what research questions the studies sought to address, how many participants were used, what types of journalists were involved (specialist, generalists, print, broadcast, experienced, new to the field, etc.), what geographic location or locations the study was conducted in, what year the research was carried out, and what descriptions the studies’ authors used to explain their research methods. Briefly, the meta-method analysis revealed qualitative research on the lived experiences of health and science journalists to be largely collected from a North American perspective, with the majority of studies originating in Canada and the United States. The main research method driving this field of inquiry was qualitative interviews (structured, semi-structured and open-ended) with participant pool sizes mostly ranging between 10 and 50. However, most studies used a mixed-methods approach, for example by complementing surveys with qualitative interviews. This does allude to qualitative inquiry in this field being seen as a supporting method, which is undertaken to add a personal perspective to quantitative data.

Meta-theory

Data in the meta-theory category was used to investigate the studies’ underlying research designs and structures. In this category, we recorded the major paradigms and schools of thought present in the studies, the underlying assumptions (implicit or explicit) of the researchers, and our interpretation of theories used in the studies. Here it became apparent that few studies explicitly noted a theoretical orientation. However, three implicit orientations did emerge. First, many studies were descriptive in nature, investigating the lived experiences of health and science journalists to gain information that could help improve certain practices, such as enhancing accuracy in health and science journalism or improving journalists’ relationships with their sources. Descriptive studies simply reported the contents of interviews and focus groups with the assumption that doing so could lead to improvements in practice, while often ignoring the discussion of underlying contexts that drive/impact these practices. In contrast, a number of studies fell into a second category that we termed social construction. These studies aimed at understanding the inherent subjectivity in journalistic practice and how journalists construct versions of reality. These studies paid close attention to how culture drives journalism and science/health. Thirdly, a small number of studies took on more of an advocacy role, promoting a specific change in practice or agenda (such as focusing more on the social determinants of health in journalistic articles) and aimed at understanding how best to make such changes. We deemed this category social change.

Meta-data

The goal of the meta-data analysis was to investigate what the research revealed about the lived experiences of health and science journalists. We were particularly interested in how the included studies were similar and tied certain phenomena together, and in whether individual research reports presented divergent interpretations of experiences and practices of health and science journalists. As many of the studies were descriptive in nature, much of the text extracted contained the reported quotes of interviews and focus groups. Extracted data also included research findings presented in the researchers’ “own language” and qualitative interpretations thereof. This extraction produced 40 pages of processed data, supporting the notion that the selected studies contained enough data richness to amplify the results of each study and to provide the first available synthesis on the topic, which we turn to in the last section.

Qualitative methods used to synthesize results

The final step in the qualitative meta-synthesis was the reconstruction and synthesis of the extracted data, a process that is not simply aggregative but interpretive. For the novice synthesist, this is by far the most daunting step. But it is an essential component if the researcher wants to move beyond a critical literature review to synthesize the findings of identified studies and work to profit from their combined power to inform and improve journalistic theory and practice. As Thorne et al. note, this process requires not only attention to interpretive matters, but also embracing the “creative nature of any attempt to build generalizations from other people’s material” (2004, p. 1362).  For us, this creativity involved moving from individual studies to a “terrain” perspective, first via the use of meta-summaries that provide a thematic summary of re-occurring themes, and then via exploring taxonomies and the use of sustained comparisons (Sandelowski & Barroso, 2003a).

Use of meta-summary

Sandelowski and Barroso have argued that qualitative meta-summaries are “useful end products of systematic reviews of qualitative research because they allow the inclusion of studies with valuable findings that some researchers would argue either are weak examples of qualitative research or not qualitative research at all” (2003, p.156). However, such thematic summary can also provide an important step in the creation of a qualitative meta-synthesis by summarizing studies so that re-occurring themes can be identified. In our process, units of meta-data were freely coded and organized into themes according to the topics addressed in each unit. This process did not transform the data. Instead, it organized the meta-data into 14 distinct meta-themes, with the majority of these themes also further split into a number of sub-themes (Table 1).

Through this process, it became apparent that the included studies shared a number of major themes, such as sourcing practices and story selection processes, as well as a number of common themes, such as journalistic tools and routines, constraints, and training and education. Thus, we were able to assess the frequency of these themes in comparison to the entire data set (see Table 1). With this process, the qualitative meta-summary is “equal to the sum of its parts” (Thorne et al., 2004, p. 1358) and remains true to the original research reports. It also reveals the frequency of themes across the data set, which some have argued to be indicative of the validity (i.e., a higher frequency indicating higher validity of the finding; Barnett-Page & Thomas, 2009).

Overall, the qualitative meta-summary provides a “map” of the qualitative data contained in the included studies. This serves as an empirical foundation for further interpretive tasks, and in particular, as a clear summary from which further linkages can emerge (Thorne et al., 2004).

Table 1: Select meta-summary themes from 21 qualitative studies on science and health journalism

Meta-theme	Frequency (N = 21)
Major Themes
Sourcing Practices	14 out of 21
Story Selection	13 out of 21
Common Themes
Journalistic Tools and Routines	6 out of 21
Journalistic Constraints	4 out of 21
Audience	4 out of 21
Journalistic Training/Education	4 out of 21
Autonomy	4 out of 21
Science Literacy	4 out of 21
Journalist/Journalism’s Role	3 out of 21
Specialist vs. Generalist	3 out of 21

Use of taxonomies

With the meta-summary “map” in hand, we proceeded to create a taxonomy of the findings. As the purpose of this meta-synthesis was to reveal similarities and differences in existing research and inform future theory so as to improve practice, the goal of the taxonomy was to transform the findings into a conceptual form (Sandelowski & Barroso, 2003c) in order to aid in further synthesis. To do this, we clustered themes from the meta-summary that were similar or went together (LeCompte, 2000) by constantly moving between the meta-summary and an evolving taxonomy that compared themes and sub-themes. Through taxonomic analysis, as described by Spradley (1979), we grouped together themes according to their “semantic relations” (Spradley, 1979, p. 117-118), specifically “X is part of Y” (X being the themes that emerged in the meta-summary, and Y being the taxonomic names evolving out of our interpretative groupings).

Four taxonomic categories emerged through this process: Story construction elements, external factors, journalistic identity and science literacy. These categories served to group the meta-summary themes according to their similarities and differences, essentially providing interpretive categories that described the organization of the data in our set of studies. For example, meta-summary themes such as sourcing practices, story selection and journalistic tools and routines emerged as connected to each other under the category of story construction elements (Table 2). In contrast, themes such as audience, journalistic constraints and autonomy congregated as part of the external factors that may affect journalistic practice. Journalists’ training and education, perceived roles and position as specialist health and science or generalist reporter were part of the factors that determine journalistic identity. Science literacy was the only taxonomic category that contained one sole theme, that of science literacy itself.

Table 2: Taxonomic Grouping for Story Construction Elements

Taxonomic names (Y items)	Grouped Themes (X items)
	Sourcing practices
	Story selection
Story construction elements	Language
	Media format
	Tools and routines
	Reporting conflicts of interest
	Omitting methodology

Unlike the meta-summary previously undertaken, the aim of the taxonomy was not to investigate which themes were most prevalent in the included literature, but instead to investigate the relationships between the themes as well as the principal concepts that may not be evident or expressed in the original findings (Sandelowski & Barroso, 2003a).

Synthesis of meta-method, meta-theory and meta-data

To give one example of how the taxonomy helps in drawing deeper connections between the included studies to synthesize data, we end by considering the “journalistic constraints” theme, which was present in four of the 21 studies (Table 1). Through the use of the meta-summary and taxonomy results as related to these four studies, in combination with meta-method and meta-theory results, we were able to consider the reported journalistic constraints as a whole (Sandelowski & Barroso, 2003a) to better understand how we know what we do about this topic from the qualitative literature.

The extracted data from the papers in this meta-summary theme revealed five sub-themes that health and science journalists experienced as constraints: time; lack of space; finding/reaching reliable sources; industry realities; competition and commercialization. However, the meta-method results pointed out that these constraints were drawn largely from interviews with Canadians and Australians. Furthermore, meta-theory results showed that three of the studies were descriptive in their theoretical orientation, simply reporting the content of the interviews and focus groups under the lens that documenting these constraints could lead to the improvement of practice. However, these studies did not consider the forces that drive these constraints, leaving a reader of these studies with little interpretive insight into them.

One study was oriented to a social construction lens, stressing the importance of power relationships and the power of scientific discourse in society. In part, it noted how these constraints were discussed in the interviews as things that weakened the ability of journalists to wield power to improve their craft. This distinction makes it clear how the journalistic constraints theme is related taxonomically to other themes in external factors category. Thus, combining the data from the four studies via our taxonomy provides a richer dataset that supports the theory that journalistic constraints are maintained by external factors, such as the power structures related to scientific discourse. For example, the scientific community may exert influence over journalists by controlling expert discourse, thus leading to feelings of lacking time, space and access to sources. This taxonomy also highlights that autonomy and the needs of audiences are connected to the constraints that journalists report in interviews and focus groups.

Overall, this final process made use of sustained comparisons (Sandelowski & Barroso, 2003a) that can generate hypotheses for future research or theories for further development. While novice synthesists are wise to continually reflect on their methodology and the literature throughout a meta-synthesis project, it is in this final synthesis step that additional care is needed to meet the goals of such a project. Thorne et al. (2004) have argued that it is here that the synthesist must strive to come to a point and present at set of inferences, conclusions, or generalizations that seek to advance knowledge on their chosen topic. “Of what use is a qualitative meta-synthesis in the practice disciplines if it does not advance a synthesis, however tentative and humble?” (Thorne et al., 2004, p. 1360). While an important goal, it is one that must be approached with “representational humility” (Sandelowski, 2006, p. 13), so as to avoid an excess of what Sandelowski terms both un-reflexive inquiry (findings being seen as non-problematic reflections of reality) and hyper-reflexive inquiry (in which nothing is studied but the research process). We must balance contact with empirical findings and our interpretive product.

Conclusion

In this paper, we have outlined an audit trail for a qualitative meta-synthesis project on the lived experiences of journalists covering science and health. In doing so, our purpose was methodological. We attempted to add to the discussion currently surrounding qualitative meta-synthesis by exploring some of the details of our method, and we plan to report more complete details of our results in a future paper. In addition, we wanted to encourage those in journalism studies to consider meta-synthesis as a way to advance the disciplinary knowledge in a young field.

It is clear that there are many challenges to overcome to ensure the rigour of such studies. But as journalism scholars interested in qualitative studies, we are struck by Paterson et al.’s observation that “although each study may be interesting, informative, and thought-provoking, the body of qualitative research from the insider perspective provides many individual pieces of a jigsaw puzzle” (2001, p. 4). We believe drawing connecting threads between the studies included in this research—the “pieces of the jigsaw puzzle”—can help illuminate underlying issues in science and health journalism that may not have been directly addressed by the existing research. Thus, the combined data obtained through this meta-synthesis provides a map of what we already know about health and science journalists’ lived experiences, as well as gaps that should be addressed in future research. Indeed, a key element of the qualitative data analyzed is that it alerts us to how much we know about story construction elements used in health and science journalism and many of the external factors that influence and affect journalists’ work, specifically print journalists. Conversely, it also alerts to how little we know about other elements. In saying this, we must return to a final awareness that this conclusion is draw from our contact with research reports, and not the lives lived by science and health journalists. Nevertheless, we continue to work to remain true to interpreting the lives they have narrated to others.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Sonia Poulin (Concordia University) for helping to develop our database search strategy and Linda Slater (University of Alberta) for developing the original qualitative filter. This work was supported by Genome Canada and Genome Quebec as part of the GE³LS component of the “Genozymes for Bioproducts and Bioprocesses Development” project.

Appendix 1: CMMC and Academic Search Premier Search Strategy

(SU journalis* OR mass media OR “reporting&reporters” OR “news” OR newspaper* OR press OR broadcast* OR blog* OR investigative reporting OR media spillover OR digital media OR photojournalis*) AND (SU mass media & the environment or SU ( scien* or health or medic* )) AND (TX ( qualitative OR ethnol* OR ethnog* OR ethnonurs* OR emic OR etic OR leininger OR noblit OR field OR fieldnote* OR participant observ* OR participant observation* OR hermaneutic* OR phenomenolog* OR lived experience* OR heidegger* OR husserl* OR merleau-pont* OR colaizzi OR giorgi OR ricoeur OR spiegelberg OR van kaam OR van manen OR grounded theory OR constant compar* OR theoretical sampl* OR (glaser AND strauss) OR content analy* OR thematic analy* OR narrative* OR unstructured categor* OR structured categor* OR interview* OR maximum variation* OR snowball OR audio* OR tape* OR video* OR metasynthes* OR meta-synthes* OR metasummar* OR meta-summar* OR metastud* OR meta-stud* OR meta-ethnograph* OR metaethnog* OR meta-narrative* OR metanarrat* OR meta-interpretation* OR metainterpret* OR qualitative meta-analy* OR qualitative metaanaly* OR qualitative metanaly* OR purposive sampl* OR action research OR focus group* )

Appendix 2: Bibliographic Sample for the Metasynthesis Project with Findings Related to the Experiences of Science and Health Journalists

1. Balasegaram, Mangai, Sooria Balasegaram, Denis Malvy and Pascal Millet. “Neglected Diseases in the News: A Content Analysis of Recent International Media Coverage Focussing on Leishmaniasis and Trypanosomiasis.” PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2.5 (2008): e234.

1. Chew, Fiona, Judith Mandelbaum-Schmid and Sue Kun Gao. “Can Health Journalists Bridge the State-of-the-Science Gap in Mammography Guidelines?” Science Communication. 27.3 (2006): 331-351.

1. Conrad, Peter. “Uses of Expertise: Sources, Quotes and Voices in the Reporting of Genetics in the News.” Public Understanding of Science 8 (1999): 285-302.

1. Gasher, Mike, Michael Hayes, Robert Hackett, Donald Gutstein, Ian Ross and James Dunn. “Spreading the News: Social Determinants of Health Reportage in Canadian Daily Newspapers.” Canadian Journal of Communications 32 (2007): 557-574.

1. Geller, Gail, Barbara A. Bernhardt, Mary Gardner, Joann Rodgers and Neil A. Holtzman. “Scientists’ and Science Writers’ Experiences Reporting Genetic Discoveries: Toward an Ethic of Trust in Science Journalism.” Genetics in Medicine 7.3 (2005): 198-205.

1. Hansen, Anders. “Journalistic Practices and Science Reporting in the British Press.” Public Understanding of Science 3(1994): 111-134.

1. Henderson, Lesley, and Jenny Kitzinger. “Orchestrating a Science ‘Event’: The Case of the Human Genome Project.  New Genetics and Society 26.1 (2007): 65-83.

1. Hijmans, Ellen, Alexander Pleijter, and Fred Wester. “Covering Scientific Research in Dutch Newspapers.” Science Communication. 25.2 (2003): 153-176.

1. Hinnant, Amanda, and Marie E. Len-Rios. “Tacit Understanding of Health Literacy: Interview and Survey Research with Health Journalists.” Science Communication. 31.1 (2009): 84-115.

1. Hodgetts, Darrin, Kerry Chamberlain, Margaret Scammell, Rolinda Karapu and Linda Waimarie Nikora.  “Constructing Health News: Possibilities for a Civic-Oriented Journalism.” Health 12.1 (2007): 43-66.

1. Larsson, Anne, Andrew D. Oxman, Cheryl Carling and Jeph Herrin. (2003). “Medical Messages in the Media—Barriers and Solutions to Improving Medical Journalism.” Health Expectations 6 (2003): 323-331.

1. Maillé, Marie-Ève, Johanne Saint-Charles and Marc Lucotte. “The Gap Between Scientists and Journalists: The Case of Mercury science in Quebec’s Press.” Public Understanding of Science. 19.1 (2010): 70-79.

1. Reed, Rosslyn.. “(Un-)Professional discourse?” Journalism 2.3 (2001): 279-298.

1. Roy, Stephanie C., Guy Faulkner and Sara-Jane Finlay. “Fit to Print: A Natural History of Obesity Research in the Canadian News Media.” Canadian Journal of Communication 32 (2007): 575-594.

1. Saari, Mary-Anne, Candace Gibson and Andrew Osler. “Endangered Species: science Writers in the Canadian Daily Press.”  Public Understanding of Science 7 (1998): 61-81.

1. Treise, Debbie, and Michael F. Weigold. “Advancing Science Communication: A Survey of Science Communicators.”  Science Communication 23.3 (2002): 310-322.

1. Trumbo, Craig W., Kim J. Spencer, Rebecca J. Dumlao, Gi Woong Yun and Shearlean Duke.  “Use of E-Mail and the Web by Science Writers.” Science Communication. 22.4 (2002): 347-378.

1. Van Trigt, Anke M., Lolkje T. W. Jong-van den Berg, Flora M. Haaijer-Ruskamp, Jaap Willems and T. (Dirk) F. J. Tromp.  “Medical Journalists and Expert Sources on Medicines.” Public Understanding of Science 3(1994): 309-321.

1. Waddel, Charlotte, Jonathan Lomas, John N. Lavis, Julia Abelson and Cody A. Shepherd.  “Joining the Conversation: Newspaper Journalists’ Views on Working with Researchers.” Healthcare Policy 1.1 (2005): 123-139.

1. Ward, Stephen J. A., and Eric Jandciu. “Challenges in Communicating Science to Canadians.” Media Development 3(2008): 12-16.

1. Wilkinson, Clare, Stuart Allan, Alison Anderson and Alan Peters. “From Uncertainty to Risk? Scientific and News Media Portrayals of Nanoparticle Safety.” Health, Risk & Society. 9.2 (2007): 145-157.

Appendix 3: Reading Grid Used for Initial Data Extraction

Study Number:                                                                    Date grid was completed on:
Reference: (Author Names, Year, Title, Journal Vol. X: Page Numbers)
A. Question Investigated and Approach to the question Reason for the study: Research question: Research approach: Theoretical orientation:	ß Crossoverà ß Pointsà	B. Nature of the Sample used in the Study Total number: Who was involved: Number of men = X; Number of women = X Type of journalists involved: Print, broadcast, radio, etc; general versus specialist Notes on the demographics and sample:
↑Crossover Points ↓	ã Crossoverä å Points æ	↑Crossover Points ↓
C. Major Findings xxxx xxxx xxxx Tools and approaches: Role of journalists:	ß Crossoverà ß Pointsà	D. Conclusions, Implications & Limitations xxxx xxxx xxxx
Key Quotes and other Considerations/thoughts xxxx xxxx xxxx

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Marc-Olivier Goyette-Côté

Présentation de l’auteur

Marc-Olivier Goyette-Côté est étudiant à la maîtrise en Communication à l’Université du Québec à Montréal et adjoint de recherche au GRICIS.                                                                  goyette-cote.marc-olivier@courrier.uqam.ca

***

Les mécanismes de circulation de l’information sur Internet ont permis l’éclosion d’acteurs dont la principale fonction n’est ni la production, ni l’édition, ni la diffusion, mais bien la ré-intermédiation d’informations produites par des tiers, les infomédiaires. Ces acteurs deviennent de plus en plus la porte d’accès aux contenus journalistiques tout en reposant sur des contenus produits par les acteurs traditionnels du journalisme. En assumant un nouveau rôle de ré-intermédiation, les infomédiaires se positionnent avantageusement dans les habitudes de navigation des internautes et jouent désormais un rôle central dans la chaîne de valorisation de l’information journalistique sur Internet, drainant une part importante des ressources publicitaires des producteurs vers les rediffuseurs en plus de contribuer à la circulation circulaire de l’information sur Internet.

Cette présentation d’ordre conceptuel se base sur des recherches menées dans le cadre de mon mémoire de maîtrise qui aborde la question du retraitement automatisé de l’information journalistique sur Internet et celles effectuées dans le cadre d’un projet de recherche conjoint entre la France et le Québec, financé par le FQRSC et l’ANR, et qui porte sur le pluralisme des sources sur Internet.

Ces travaux nous ont amené à se pencher sur les stratégies suivies par les acteurs de l’information journalistique dans l’implantation de leurs activités en ligne et plus particulièrement sur les nouveaux modèles socio-économiques de l’information journalistique qui sont en train de se constituer sur Internet sous l’impulsion des infomédiaires.

Il apparaît que les mécanismes de circulation de l’information sur Internet ont permis l’éclosion d’acteurs dont la principale fonction n’est ni la production, ni l’édition, ni la diffusion, mais bien la ré-intermédiation d’informations produites par des tiers. Ces acteurs, les infomédiaires, deviennent de plus en plus la porte d’accès aux contenus journalistiques tout en reposant sur des contenus produits par les acteurs traditionnels du journalisme (Rebillard, 2007; PEW, 2009). En mettant en relation une offre agrégée et très variée acquise à peu de frais, les infomédiaires se positionnent avantageusement dans les habitudes de navigation des internautes et par le fait même jouent désormais un rôle central dans la chaîne de valorisation de l’information journalistique sur Internet. Cela a pour conséquence de drainer une part importante des ressources publicitaires des producteurs vers les rediffuseurs en plus de contribuer à la circulation circulaire de l’information (Bourdieu, 1996) sur Internet.

L’infomédiation de l’information journalistique

Dans une étude sur les salles de rédaction des médias en ligne, Bourre et Smyrnaios identifient deux compétences différentes nécessaires à la production/diffusion de l’information journalistique en ligne, « une compétence éditoriale renvoyant largement aux médias et une compétence « technique », liée au support, qui renvoie à l’informatique » (Bourre et Smyrnaios, 2006, p. 1). Ce deuxième aspect fait en sorte que des acteurs fortement présents dans l’industrie d’internet et déjà imprégnés des savoirs techniques ont décidé de diversifier leurs activités en utilisant leur capital technique pour se lancer dans la redistribution de l’information journalistique. Aujourd’hui à l’heure dite du web 2.0, il apparaît que des acteurs comme Yahoo! Ou Google, que nous regroupons dans la catégorie des infomédiaires, sont devenus les premiers lieux de consultation d’informations journalistiques sur Internet aux États-Unis (PEW, 2010).

Les infomédiaires

Pour Rebillard et Smyrnaios, les infomédiaires comme Yahoo! ou Google « organisent la sélection, l’organisation, la hiérarchisation et la distribution de l’information éditée par des tiers, sur la base de critères thématiques, linguistiques ou géographiques » (Rebillard et Smyrnaios, 2007, p. 2). Nous pouvons donc dire que les infomédiaires ont structuré leurs activités autour de l’organisation et de la mise en circulation de documents numériques ayant trait à l’actualité, « triés et structurés par des algorithmes simulant une maîtrise de la sémantique » (Ibid.). Dans ce sens, nous pouvons les considérer comme des méta-éditeurs, puisqu’ils travaillent dans l’édition de matériel déjà édité. Les infomédiaires se poseraient ainsi en tant que spécialistes du « courtage informationnel » (Moeglin : 2003) en mettant en relation un nombre grandissant de demandes sur des domaines et sujets variés tout en offrant une information tout aussi complexe.

L’objectif des infomédiaires

L’objectif pour les acteurs de l’intermédiation est de se positionner favorablement dans la relation entre le producteur et le consommateur. « Il s’agit pour eux de maîtriser «le point nodal au cœur de l’architecture multi-réseaux, multi-services » afin de devenir le « guichet unique pour l’utilisateur » (Combès, 2004, p. 110). Selon Kocergin, ces acteurs tentent, « en offrant pour la plupart des services gratuits, de capter l’attention des usagers, d’avoir un accès direct au client, et de devenir ainsi l’intermédiaire privilégié et un passage obligé des usagers vers l’offre ou une partie spécifique d’offre sur Internet » (Kocergin, 2002, p. 3). Ce rôle de médiation pourrait s’apparenter à la fonction centrale de cette logique socio-économique intermédiaire. Nous distinguons deux catégories principales d’infomédiaires, soit les portails et les agrégateurs.

Le marché des infomédiaires

Google, Yahoo et les grands portails généralistes des fournisseurs de service Internet (FSI) se sont positionnés en tant que courtiers d’information, mettant en relation une production agrégée produite majoritairement par les acteurs traditionnels de la presse, à un public déjà constitué d’utilisateurs réguliers de leurs services. Ne produisant pas eux-mêmes de nouvelles, les infomédiaires ont dû développer un modèle d’affaire leur permettant d’obtenir la « matière informationnelle » à bas prix (voire gratuitement dans le cas des agrégateurs) et de la diffuser sur leur plateforme afin de compléter leur offre de service (Rebillard et Smyrnaios, 2007). En reprenant les contenus entiers ou simplement les flux de syndication ou RSS des acteurs institutionnalisés, les infomédiaires procèdent à une nouvelle mise en relation des contenus journalistiques et des consommateurs dans une logique de ré-intermédiation.

Les portails

Les portails sont souvent la vitrine de fournisseurs de services Internet (FSI), comme c’est le cas pour Yahoo (messagerie, moteur de recherche et annuaire de sites), Sympatico (messagerie et fournisseur d’accès Internet (FAI)) et MSN (FSI, messagerie, dépannage, etc). Un portail généraliste est un site marchand qui dispense une série de services directement auprès des internautes-consommateurs; ces services sont très variés, mais les principaux sont liés à l’utilisation d’Internet. Parmi ces services, l’on retrouve la messagerie Internet, la fourniture d’accès au réseau, la mise à disposition d’annuaires de sites, des moteurs de recherche, des horoscopes, la météo, des services de rencontre, des horaires de cinéma, des annonces classées, des cartes géographiques ou routières, des boutiques virtuelles, etc. Le grand avantage du portail est qu’il constitue un point nodal où se rejoint une pléthore de communautés d’usagers. Ces caractéristiques attirent vers les pages Web une clientèle nombreuse qui se reflète à travers les statistiques d’utilisation d’Internet.

Pour ce qui est de l’aspect de l’information journalistique, dans la majorité des cas les portails « se fournissent en informations d’actualité auprès des agences de presse, achetant des dépêches sous des formats tels que XML permettant l’adaptation à l’interface ergonomique de chaque site » (Rebillard : 2006, p. 4).  Au Québec, les principaux portails n’appartenant pas à des groupes de presse sont ceux de Sympatico, de MSN et de Yahoo! Pour ce qui est des sources mobilisées pour les sections « une », actualité, international, national et régional, elle sont sensiblement les mêmes pour Yahoo! (SRC, AFP et PC), MSN (PC, SRC, LCN, AFP) et Sympatico (SRC, AFP, PC et Métro).

Les agrégateurs

L’agrégateur le plus connu est certainement Google News. La compagnie utilise les capacités de son moteur de recherche, fonctionnant à l’aide de robots (crawlers) parcourant la toile, d’hyperlien en hyperlien, archivant les contenus parcourus. L’idée est de rendre disponible en un endroit, des résumés de nouvelles (titre, sous-titre, premier paragraphe (et parfois des photos)) menant vers des contenus hébergés par les acteurs éditoriaux. Son rôle est clairement méta-éditorial, dans le sens où il sélectionne et hiérarchise les informations publiées sur d’autres sites et classées en fonction de thématiques liées à des mots clefs préétablis.

L’agrégation fonctionne en deux temps. Premièrement, il s’agit de mettre en place des robots qui parcourent « en permanence l’ensemble de sources présélectionnées et recensent en temps réel les nouvelles publications » (Julia et Smyrnaios, 2007, p. 6). Deuxièmement, le service « restitue sur ses propres pages les titres et les premières lignes des articles ainsi qu’un lien vers l’emplacement où se trouve l’intégralité des documents, sur le site de l’éditeur » (Ibid.). L’agrégation peut également être volontaire, si le site met à la disposition des autres sites web un « fil de syndication » auxquels les sites de diffusion peuvent s’abonner.

La relation ambiguë entre les fournisseurs de contenus et les fournisseurs de clientèles que sont devenus les infomédiaires.

Dans leur étude sur les filiales françaises de Google et de Yahoo, Bourre et Smyrnaios (2006) identifient trois caractéristiques communes aux infomédiaires : « 1) la fonction d’infomédiation est largement financée par la publicité; 2) ils se placent en position d’intermédiaires valorisant leur maîtrise des outils de recherche afin de proposer des pages web rassemblant des liens vers des informations situées sur d’autres sites […]; 3) contrairement aux fournisseurs d’accès, leur activité ne nécessite pas, du moins au départ, d’importants et coûteux investissements matériels » (Bourre et Smyrnaios, 2006, p. 2). Ce dernier point est important puisqu’apparemment, la modification des modalités de production/diffusion sur Internet devait permettre une désintermédiation de l’information. En effet, puisque l’internaute peut entrer l’URL du site de presse dans son fureteur et y accéder directement sans intermédiaires.

Or, Bustamante souligne que parallèlement à cette désintermédiation, il y aurait un mouvement de ré-intermediation impulsé par le nouvel environnement numérique dans lequel « [o]n the Internet, portals, search engines, content providers and services providers (ISPs) concentrate and orientate the mass trafic, but also assume new functions of packaging and commercialization » (Bustamante, 2004, 807). Selon lui, « cette fonction apporte une valeur ajoutée, mais en même temps, absorbe une partie des profits, ce qui génère des tensions entre créateurs, producteurs et fournisseurs de contenus » (Ibid.).

Les différences entre les portails et les agrégateurs

Bien que les deux catégories d’infomédiaires, les agrégateurs et les portails, partagent une activité similaire au niveau de l’intermédiation de l’information journalistique, les deux adoptent des manières de faire qui les distinguent l’un de l’autre et sur lesquels reposent des modalités de valorisation différentes. Pour étudier ces différences, nous avons décidé d’étudier les cas de Yahoo! et de Google, puisqu’ils représentent deux acteurs dominants de l’infomédiation au Québec, qu’ils ont des activités dans plusieurs pays et qu’ils ont déjà fait l’objet d’analyses de la part de chercheurs avant nous. Parmi les différences importantes, l’on remarque 1) l’histoire de la compagnie, 2) le mode d’organisation de la salle de presse, 3) les sources privilégiées et ; 4) le type d’accord mis en place pour l’utilisation des contenus.

L’historique des deux entreprises

Au niveau de l’historique des compagnies, l’on retrouve deux acteurs qui ont débuté leurs activités commerciales sur Internet, bref, des pure players. Dans le cas de Google, il s’agit d’un moteur de recherche puissant qui s’est établi au fil des années comme le moteur le plus utilisé sur le web. Il fonctionne à l’aide de robots (crawlers) qui prennent en compte les liens hypertextes liant les pages entre elles. Un algorithme (nommé PageRank) calcule le nombre de liens entrant sur les sites (chaque lien entrant est vu comme un vote pour le site) et établie la crédibilité et le poids d’un site par rapport aux autres. Le site prend également en compte les mots-clefs, fournis par les webmestres via leurs sitemaps[CB1] , pour établir la pertinence d’une page par rapport à la recherche effectuée. D’autres caractéristiques entrent en compte, notamment la langue du texte, l’historicité du site (les sites déjà établis sont avantagés) et la crédibilité de l’entreprise (en fonction des « votes »). Google fonctionne également avec un système de vente de mots clefs permettant un meilleur référencement dans les résultats de recherche. De plus, Google s’est imposé ces dernières années comme un géant de la publicité sur Internet grâce à son logiciel AdSense qui est le leader de la publicité en ligne.

Pour ce qui est de Yahoo, le site a commencé d’abord comme un annuaire de sites Internet sous la forme d’un portail. Historiquement, la compagnie engageait des documentalistes chargés de répertorier les pages Internet à l’aide de mots-clefs puis de les ordonner dans des annuaires consultables depuis son portail. En 2002, suite au constat que ce mode d’indexation était insuffisamment puissant pour trouver et répertorier la pléthore de sites Internet voyant le jour quotidiennement, Yahoo a racheté le fournisseur de technologies de recherche Inktomi en 2002 (Bourre et Smyrnaios, 2006, p. 3). Aujourd’hui, Yahoo fonctionne de manière mixte, en utilisant une partie d’automatisation et une équipe éditoriale pour organiser la hiérarchisation des contenus et également pour produire des contenus. Nous pouvons donc dire que Google a opté pour un positionnement « moteur de recherche », alors que Yahoo aurait adopté un modèle tendant vers le positionnement « média » (Bourre et Smyrnaios, 2006. Ce constat est encore plus frappant lorsque nous nous penchons sur la composition des équipes de travail des deux groupes.

Les salles de rédaction

Bien que les deux acteurs favorisent l’automatisation pour plusieurs tâches, Yahoo et Google se distinguent par le nombre d’employés. Yahoo se distingue de Google par le fait qu’il produit lui-même de l’information. Bien que la grande majorité des informations journalistiques présentes sur son site proviennent de sources externes (notamment d’agences de presse), Yahoo engage également des journalistes pour sa production d’informations. « Par ailleurs, à sa direction américaine, mais aussi à la tête de ses filiales nationales, Yahoo emploie des salariés dont le parcours professionnel s’est essentiellement déroulé dans le secteur des industries de la culture et de la communication » (Bourre et Smyrnaios, 2006, p. 3). Dans cette optique, l’entreprise offre des articles, des vidéos, des images fixes et des clips audio originaux à ses visiteurs.

Par contre, comme souligné précédemment, Yahoo utilise un modèle mixte au niveau de l’approvisionnement des contenus. Ainsi, l’entreprise fait affaire avec des agences spécialisées pour la fourniture de contenus, à des journalistes indépendants et même à des intervenants ponctuels à qui Yahoo offre un espace pour traiter de sujets ponctuels. Ainsi, dans le cas de Yahoo France, l’entreprise employait plus de 70 salariés en 2005 (Ibid.) Nous n’avons pas les chiffres pour le Québec actuellement, mais nous les estimons à moins d’une quinzaine comme MSN.ca. De plus, comme nous l’avons souligné précédemment, l’équipe de Yahoo est chargée de hiérarchiser les articles en fonction de critères préétablis par la maison mère et par la filière nationale. Ce faisant, l’équipe nationale adapte une banque de sources internationales à une nouvelle sélection propre au pays d’accueil en plus d’organiser les sections et d’aménager des espaces plus ludiques, comme la section caricature pour la version québécoise de Yahoo actualités et des dessins pour la formule française. Cette « nationalisation » des contenus et des espaces est intéressante à souligner, car les pages Yahoo varient sensiblement d’un pays à l’autre, mais la formule reste la même et compte peu de production originale.

Dans le cas de Google, la majeure partie du travail est effectuée par un algorithme du nom de PageRank qui prend en compte le nombre de visites, le nombre de liens entrants et plusieurs autres facteurs. En fait, le système de Google, bien que se voulant un gage d’objectivité étant donné la supposée absence de traitement éditorial qu’auraient pu effectuer des agents humains, prend en compte certains facteurs déterminés par des employés. Une équipe réduite de personnes travaillant pour la société élabore des listes de sites web présélectionnés que les robots visiteront plus souvent. Ce fait est possible par le fonctionnement « matriciel » du moteur de recherche. En effet, le fonctionnement par algorithme constitue la base du système de Google actualité qui est par la suite modifiable par l’équipe nationale pour prendre en compte les particularités régionales (langue, adresse ip des diffuseurs, etc.). Parmi les autres critères retenus par le géant californien, l’on retrouve le critère de « crédibilité » qui prend en compte « l’histoire du site » et du média auquel il est rattaché (si c’est le cas) favorisant ainsi l’utilisation d’articles émanant de sites-médias disposant historiquement d’autres supports de diffusion (par exemple, Le Monde). Toutefois, la plus grande partie du personnel de Google travaille dans le secteur de la commercialisation. Comment le soulignent Bourre et Smyrnaios, « ainsi, Google Actualités a été lancé directement depuis les États-Unis et est toujours géré depuis ce pays, sans que la filiale française puisse exercer un réel contrôle sur son fonctionnement. En 2005, l’équipe française compte moins de 30 salariés, pour l’essentiel des commerciaux » (Bourre et Smyrnaios, 2006, p. 4).

Les sources privilégiées

Les modèles mis en place par Google et par Yahoo ont des conséquences différentes sur l’organisation des contenus et des sources. Alors que Yahoo favorise des sources fixes ou présélectionnées en nombre relativement restreint, Google fait appel à un nombre beaucoup plus vaste de sources d’information.

Yahoo favorise l’hébergement de contenus produits par des tiers sur les pages de son site. Dans la version québécoise, les rubriques sont classées par thèmes eux-mêmes subdivisés par sources. L’internaute a donc le choix des sources qu’il veut consulter par rubrique thématique. L’entreprise signe des ententes à courte ou moyenne durée avec des fournisseurs de contenus (AFP, PC et Radio-Canada), des journalistes pigistes ou des blogueurs pour maintenir une production quotidienne. Nous pouvons donc dire que Yahoo ne favorise pas la diversité de l’information, mais qu’il permet à un certain nombre de ressources éditoriales d’avoir plus de visibilité.

Dans le cas de Google, la stratégie est tout autre. En effet, bien qu’il existe un certain flou quant au fonctionnement de l’algorithme derrière Google Actualités (Ulken, 2005), le moteur de recherche sort un nombre impressionnant de sources différentes lors de son actualisation (500 pour la version québécoise francophone). Toutefois, l’algorithme ne semble pas différencier les différents traitements de l’actualité et diffuse des nouvelles provenant de sources non mainstream, notamment de weblogs collectifs. Par ailleurs, Google prend isolément les domaines et les sous-domaines, entraînant une sur-représentation (induite par la logique du PageRank) des portails qui sont organisés en sous-domaines. Ainsi, nous retrouvons des articles provenant des différentes filières d’un média (lcn.canoë, tva.canoë, 24heures.canoë, etc), comme étant de sources différentes, alors que parfois les contenus sont identiques.

Selon Bourre et Smyrnaios (2006), «  Les créateurs de Google News ont toujours valorisé l’aspect automatique et algorithmique du traitement, de la sélection et de la hiérarchisation de l’information. De leur point de vue, cette caractéristique confère au service un caractère « objectif » et « neutre » car elle permet d’éviter les biais médiatiques habituels ([…]) De plus, Google News serait un service apportant une certaine exhaustivité quant à la couverture de l’actualité, ce qu’aucun autre média ne peut faire (Ulken, 2005) » (Bourre et Smyrnaios, 2006, p.  5).

Le type d’accord mis en place pour l’utilisation des contenus

Comme le souligne Bouquillion, les plates-formes des industriels du web présentent au moins trois avantages par rapport aux plates-formes des producteurs de contenus : « – elle peuvent offrir plus aisément des produits issus de différents fournisseurs de contenus; – les industriels du web disposent de sites qui bénéficient déjà d’une forte notoriété; – ceux-ci maîtrisent différentes techniques qui sont centrales dans l’économie du web, notamment les techniques de guidage de l’internaute, mais aussi les logiciels de ciblage de la publicité, qui permettent de valoriser les produits à la fois par des financements directs (en provenance des consommateurs finaux) et par des financements publicitaires » (Bouquillion, 2008, p. 219)

Coopétition

De ce fait, les industriels du web, qui incluent Yahoo et Google (Ibid.) se retrouvent dans une position avantageuse pour mettre en place un service d’infomédiation puisqu’ils possèdent un vaste public, un capital technique important et une connaissance des mécanismes de publicité en ligne. Rebillard et Smyrnaios (2007) utilisent le terme de « coopétion » (contraction des termes compétition et coopération) lorsqu’ils décrivent la relation qu’entretiennent les acteurs éditoriaux et méta-éditoriaux. Ces deux catégories d’acteurs sont d’un côté producteur et de l’autre, diffuseurs. Cette relation ambiguë se fonde sur une nécessitée structurelle qui consiste à profiter des avantages que l’autre type d’acteur possède dans le but de complémentariser son offre de service. Bien que les deux retirent des avantages indéniables, il n’est pas certain que les éditeurs de presse et les agences de presse retirent des bénéfices comparables à ceux que les infomédiaires reçoivent dans la relation. Ignacio Muro Benayas (2006), ancien dirigeant de l’espagnole EFE souligne d’ailleurs que la relation avec les nouveaux acteurs de l’information journalistique en ligne est un des principaux défis pour la rentabilité des agences de presse.

Les infomédiaires utilisent les fonctions d’agrégation de leurs plateformes Internet pour aller chercher des contenus produits par des tiers et les diffuser sur leur propre page d’accueil à leur clientèle, puisqu’eux-mêmes ne produisent pas un volume suffisant de contenus pour maintenir un site actif. De leur côté, les diffuseurs de contenus se retrouvent plongés dans le cyberespace et tentent de s’y faire une place (l’Internet Content Syndication Council, estime qu’il y a plus de 46 milliards de pages web rattachées à plus de 146 millions sites Internet. (ICSC : 2008)). Selon les discours des infomédiaires (Bourre et Smyrnaios, 2006), les acteurs traditionnels de l’information journalistique tirent profit de cette relation, car ils tentent de trouver une manière d’augmenter leur visibilité, dans le but d’augmenter leur lectorat et donc, attirer davantage de ressources publicitaires. En mettant de l’avant des informations produites par un tiers sur leurs sites web et en mettant par la suite des hyperliens menant aux contenus originaux, les sites-médias bénéficieraient d’un flot important d’internautes en provenance des infomédiaires. Selon une étude menée en 2007 par Médiamétrie/NetRatings, la version française de Google Actualité accueille chaque mois entre 1,5 et 2 millions de visiteurs uniques par mois (Rebillard et Smyrnaios, 2007). Selon Rebillard et Smyrnaios « cela fait entre 50 000 et 75 000 lecteurs potentiels par jour que se disputent les éditeurs, ce qui constitue un enjeu économique non négligeable » (Ibid., 2007, p. 4).

Or, si l’on regarde la course à la rentabilité et le marché des publicités qui est le principal gagne-pain des sites d’information en ligne dans la double logique marchande — vente d’un produit à une audience, puis vente de cette audience aux annonceurs — qui structure l’économie du journalisme (Miège, 2007), l’on se rend compte que les sites sont effectivement en concurrence les uns avec les autres. En effet, après la crise des « point.com » de 2001, les investissements publicitaires se sont faits plus rares et se sont concentrés dans les mains d’un petit nombre d´acteurs Internet. Toutefois, le secteur de la publicité sur Internet est de nouveau en croissance tout comme les revenus, « le marché est toujours dominé par les FAI et les portails généralistes qui concentrent 62 % des dépenses globales » (Smyrnaios, 2004, p. 8). De plus, en utilisant les contenus possédés par les entreprises de presse et en les réutilisant sur leurs pages sans accords préalables (c’est le cas de la majorité des sources utilisées par Google Actualité), la fonction d’agrégation vient nuire aux éditeurs de presse dont la principale source de valeurs est constituée par la propriété intellectuelle des contenus (Tessier, 2007).

Full content syndication versus flux RSS

Il y a deux méthodes de syndication dominantes qui fonctionnent avec des logiques économiques différentes. Ces deux modèles sont ceux de « contenu entier » (full content syndication) et le modèle de « flux RSS » (ICSC : 2008). Le modèle « contenu entier » fonctionne dans une logique proche de celle mise en place entre les agences de presse et les entreprises de presse traditionnelles. C’est-à-dire que les sites Internet achètent un abonnement à un service qui les fournit en contenu pour remplir leurs espaces de publication. Les agences fournissent les nouvelles en format XML préformaté pour pouvoir intégrer les différents sites auxquels la nouvelle peut être vendue (Benayas, 2006). Les portails font généralement appel à ce service qui, bien que plus coûteux, est plus facile à gérer légalement. De l’autre côté, la version par flux RSS a l’avantage d’être complètement automatisée et de s’effectuer automatiquement selon un délai choisi par les programmateurs. En effet, le système RSS de Google, par exemple, fonctionne en parcourant systématiquement les différents sites Internet inscrits dans son répertoire et en agrégeant les contenus publiés sur sa propre page. Souvent, il s’agit d’une version abrégée de la nouvelle, ne contenant que certaines parties de l’article (titre, sous-titres, images (ou non) et premier paragraphe) qui est envoyé aux sites qui s’y abonnent ou aux sites diffusant les contenus trouvés par des robots. Le flux RSS est lui aussi sous format XML et peut être intégré automatiquement dans une section prédéfinie pour l’agrégation dans les pages web des infomédiaires. Il est à noter que dans le cas des flux RSS, la nouvelle n’est pas hébergée sur le site de l’infomédiaire, mais plutôt présentée comme un aperçu avec un lien menant au site qui l’a produit, déplaçant les frais d’hébergement et de serveurs vers le producteur.

La stratégie de Google est souvent interprétée dans la logique de la gratuité des débuts du Net. Pour Google la culture de syndication s’inspire de « l’idéologie « originelle » de l’Internet d’un accès libre aux données disponibles, sans prendre spécialement en compte les particularités de l’information journalistique (Rebillard, 2007). Ce faisant, les agrégateurs ont tendance à utiliser a priori les contenus avant de s’ajuster au cas par cas. Ainsi, l’AFP et la PC ont tous deux poursuivi le géant de l’Internet pour qu’ils paient des redevances eux aussi pour l’utilisation de leurs contenus. Ce faisant, lorsque Google actualité utilise des nouvelles en provenance de ces deux agences, elle utilise le modèle de « contenus entiers » et rémunère les producteurs ».

Conclusion

Il apparaît que les nouveaux mécanismes de circulation des contenus mis en place sur Internet contribuent à la redondance de l’actualité en reprenant sur plusieurs espaces de diffusion des contenus produits par des tiers généralement issus des médias traditionnels. Cette ré-intermédiation place les infomédiaires au centre d’une logique socio-économique favorisant la concentration des audiences et des ressources publicitaires et donc, par extension, les sources de revenus possibles dans les mains d’un groupe d’acteurs ne produisant pas d’information journalistique novatrice. Bien que les acteurs traditionnels de la presse bénéficient d’une augmentation de leur visibilité via le trafic généré par les infomédiaires, il n’en demeure pas moins que les entreprises médiatiques peinent à rentabiliser leurs services Internet dans un contexte où les grand noms d’internet s’approprient leurs contenus et draine leurs sources de revenus, la publicité et son corollaire, l’audience.

Reste à voir quels seront les impacts de cette nouvelle relation sur la qualité des contenus produits dans un contexte économique où les entreprises de presse peinent déjà à rentabiliser leurs services en ligne. En effet, ce glissement des ressources vers les re-diffuseurs pourrait-il avoir tendance à créer plus de pression sur les producteurs d’information journalistique et les pousser à réduire davantage la taille de leurs effectifs? Assisterons-nous à une reconfiguration des circuits de diffusion de la nouvelle dans laquelle la porte d’accès à l’information passera par des acteurs n’ayant pas une connaissance historique du métier de journalisme? Dans ce contexte, les gatekeeper de demain seront-ils des algorithmes ou des techniciens web? Il va sans dire que le secteur du journalisme est en profonde mutation et, qu’avec l’émergence des infomédiaires, nous assistons à une technicisation du métier de journaliste où l’accent est dorénavant mis sur la circulation d’informations déjà publiées aux dépens de la collecte, de l’édition et de la production de nouvelles originales.

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