The use of Internet in newsgathering among European science journalists

António Maria Salvado Coxito Granado

The use of Internet in newsgathering
among European science journalists

Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
The University of Leeds
Institute of Communications Studies

July 2008

The candidate confirms that the work submitted is his own and that appropriate credit has
been given where reference has been made to the work of others.

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This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no
quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgment.

This research work was supported by a grant from

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Acknowledgements

This thesis is the culmination of a project that involved a lot of people whose
support was essential to the final result. I am grateful to all of them.
First of all, I would like to thank Dr. Stephen Lax for all the advice and
knowledgeable insights during the supervision of this thesis. His guidance was
crucial to the outcome.
From the Institute of Communications Studies, I would also like to thank Dr.
Richard Howells, whose words and opinion were always encouraging. Dr.
Stephen Sobol’s expertise was crucial in the developing and the building of the
website for the survey of European science journalists.
I would like to thank Drs. António Firmino da Costa, Helena Carvalho and
Patrícia Ávila for their helpful advice and expertise, and to Drs. Jane Gregory and
Stephen Sobol for their comments and guidance.
Thanks to my fellow PhD students for their help and support. I am especially
thankful to Rebecca and Joaquim, for their friendship.
Thanks to all the colleagues who helped me with the preparation and testing of the
survey and also to those who reviewed the manuscript in its multiple versions.
I would also like to express my appreciation for all the European science
journalists who helped me during this research, providing me with the contacts of
other science journalists and responding to the survey and the interviews.
From Público, my employee, I would like to thank José Manuel Fernandes, the
editor-in-chief, who approved this adventure and the leave of absence for the first
two years. Also to João Carlos Silva and Luciano Alvarez, who filled in while I
was out.
Finally, I would also like to thank my family for their support. To Ana, Mateus,
Mafalda and Bárbara for accepting the forced exile, that kept them away from
their friends and schools. To my wife Isabel, for everything else. Which is a lot.

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Abstract

The communication of science through the media is considered an important social
activity, as scientific awareness has previously been described as a fundamental pillar of a
democratic society. In this activity, science journalists play a crucial role, standing
between scientists – who do science – and the general public – who supports them
through taxes.
Even though these professionals play such a vital role, most of the research on the
socialization of science journalists is decades old and reflects mainly a United States
perspective. With the arrival of the Internet in newsrooms, it is essential to understand
how this new technology is shaping the newsgathering routines of science journalists and
changing the attitudes of these professionals.
To answer these questions, I conducted the first survey of European science journalists
working for general national print media and news agencies in 14 different countries of
the European Union. This survey was carried out through the Internet and calls for
participation were sent to 208 journalists from 102 different media. Answers were
received from 97 science journalists, a response rate of 46.6 percent. After the survey,
interviews with 12 of the respondents were conducted.
The main conclusion of this project was that not only science journalists are becoming
more dependent on scientific journals in their daily reporting, they are also spending a lot
of time on the Internet – 3.5 hours a day, on average –, an activity that increases the
concentration on breaking news and prevents them from going outside the newsroom to
write more feature stories. In consequence, readers are receiving a distorted image of
science as a series of “discoveries” or “breakthroughs”, distant from the real daily world
of scientists and the scientific process.
This dependency on the Internet, and on “ready-to-write” press releases from scientific
journals, is threatening science journalism, as professionals are controlled by the same
embargoes, are using the same sources and visiting the same sites, no matter what country
they are working in. This loss of information diversity is a consequence of the
introduction of the Internet in newsrooms, but also a result of the increasing media
awareness of science sources. Once considered to live inside an ivory tower, scientists are
now closer to society and able to control the media agenda for their own purposes.

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Contents

List of Figures ......................................................................................................... 7
List of Tables .......................................................................................................... 9

1. Introduction....................................................................................................... 11
2. The construction of news .................................................................................. 20

2.1. Studies on the constraints of journalists..................................................... 25
2.1.1. Sources’ influence on the news........................................................... 25
2.1.2. Other influences on the news - organization, competition, audiences
and personal background............................................................................... 35

2.2. Journalists and the Internet......................................................................... 42
2.3. Public understanding of science and the media ......................................... 47
3. Methodology ..................................................................................................... 51

3.1. The survey.................................................................................................. 54
3.2. The interviews............................................................................................ 62
4. Survey results.................................................................................................... 66

4.1. Characterisation of the respondents ........................................................... 67
4.2. Sources used by European science journalists ........................................... 79
4.3. European science journalists relations’ with other journalists................... 85
4.4. Organizational pressures on European science journalists ........................ 88
4.5. Science journalists and their audiences...................................................... 94
4.6. Self-evaluation among science journalists................................................. 97
4.7. Use of Internet among European science journalists ............................... 105

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5. Results of the interviews ................................................................................. 119
5.1. The Internet as a tool for science journalists............................................ 120
5.2. The Internet and the daily routines of European science journalists ....... 126
6. Discussion of the results ................................................................................. 131

6.1. The problems of survey research ............................................................. 132
6.2. Can an insider be and outsider? ............................................................... 136
6.3. Who are the European Union science journalists working in national print
media and news agencies? .............................................................................. 139
6.4. What are their beliefs and expectations?.................................................. 142
6.5. How is Internet transforming science journalism in Europe?.................. 153
6.6. Directions for further research ................................................................. 162
7. Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 165

Appendixes.......................................................................................................... 173
Bibliography........................................................................................................ 190

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List of Figures

Figure 1 - Screenshot of the first page of the survey ............................................ 59
Figure 2 - Screenshot of the survey backend ........................................................ 60
Figure 3 - Age of respondents............................................................................... 72
Figure 4 - Respondents’ years of experience as journalist.................................... 74
Figure 5 - Respondents’ years of experience as science journalists ..................... 75
Figure 6 - Level of education of European science journalists............................. 76
Figure 7 - Journalists’ profile and country of origin............................................. 78
Figure 8- ‘Most science journalists give a positive view of their sources’........... 81
Figure 9 - Whose interests does the embargo serve? ............................................ 83
Figure 10 - ‘I discuss story ideas with science journalists working in other

organizations’................................................................................................ 86
Figure 11 - ‘When covering an event, science journalists cooperate with each

other’ ............................................................................................................. 86
Figure 12 - ‘Science journalists from different media help each other more than

journalists in other areas’ .............................................................................. 87
Figure 13 - ‘I feel pressure from management to be “more creative” in writing

science stories’ .............................................................................................. 88
Figure 14 - ‘My credibility is tested more often than the credibility of other

journalists at my organization’...................................................................... 89
Figure 15 - ‘Other journalists and editors at my organization do not take science

journalists seriously’ ..................................................................................... 90
Figure 16 - ‘What other journalists write is used by me to assess the quality of my

work’ ............................................................................................................. 92
Figure 17 - ‘What other journalists write is used by my superiors to assess the

quality of my work’....................................................................................... 92

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Figure 18 - ‘How frequently do you receive feedback from your audience?’...... 94
Figure 19 - ‘As a science journalist, I make a contribution to society by the type of

reporting I do’ ............................................................................................... 97
Figure 20 - ‘Science journalists are more accurate in their reporting than other

journalists’..................................................................................................... 99
Figure 21- ‘Science journalists have “more tenacity” than other journalists to

uncover fraud in their areas’ ....................................................................... 100
Figure 22 - ‘Science journalists should have a science background’.................. 101
Figure 23- ‘I prefer to write breaking news, instead of bigger, in-depth stories’ 103
Figure 24 - ‘As a whole, do you think the quality of science news is better or

worse than it was 10 years ago?’ ................................................................ 104
Figure 25 - ‘As a whole, do you think the quantity of science news produced by

the media has increased or decreased in the last 10 years?’ ....................... 104
Figure 26- ‘The Internet has made my job easier’ .............................................. 112
Figure 27 - ‘The Internet has improved the quality of my job’ .......................... 112
Figure 28 - ‘The Internet has improved science journalism in general’ ............. 113
Figure 29 - ‘The Internet is making science news more diverse’ ....................... 113
Figure 30 - ‘The Internet is making journalists go out of the newsroom more’ . 114
Figure 31 - ‘The Internet is making science journalism focus on breaking news’

..................................................................................................................... 114
Figure 32 - ‘The Internet is helping to publicize more European science’......... 115
Figure 33 - ‘The Internet is helping to publicize more American science’ ........ 116

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List of Tables

Table 1 - Contacts for the interviews in the three groups of respondents............. 65
Table 2 -Origin of the science journalists who responded to this survey ............. 67
Table 3 - GNI per capita of the countries of the respondents - World Bank (2005)

....................................................................................................................... 69
Table 4 - Number of respondents according to GNI per capita of their country .. 69
Table 5 - Sex of science journalists according to age ........................................... 70
Table 6 - Sex of science journalists according to GNI of the country per capita . 70
Table 7 - Number of respondents according to the type of media they work for . 72
Table 8 - Number of people writing about science in each of the surveyed media

....................................................................................................................... 73
Table 9 - Area of education of European science journalists................................ 76
Table 10 - Area of education of science journalists according to GNI per capita 77
Table 11 - Main sources of European science journalists..................................... 80
Table 12 - ‘Do you report on scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals?’ ....... 82
Table 13 - Journalistic experience and acceptance of the embargo...................... 83
Table 14- Journalistic experience and perception of the embargo system............ 84
Table 15 - Relations with science journalists from other media according to sex 85
Table 16- Pressure to be “more creative” according to GNI per capita................ 89
Table 17 - ‘Other journalists and editors at my organization do not take science

journalists seriously’ according to sex .......................................................... 91
Table 18 – ‘Other journalists and editors at my organization do not take science

journalists seriously’ according to GNI per capita........................................ 91
Table 19 - ‘What other journalists write is used by me to assess the quality of my

work’ according to GNI per capita ............................................................... 93

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Table 20 - ‘What other journalists write is used by my superiors to assess the

quality of my work’ according to GNI per capita......................................... 93
Table 21 - Frequency of contacts by the audience according to the age of

journalists ...................................................................................................... 95
Table 22 - ‘As a science journalist, I make a contribution to society by the type of

reporting I do’ according to journalistic experience ..................................... 98
Table 23- ‘Science journalists are more accurate in their reporting than other

journalists’ according to age ......................................................................... 99
Table 24 - ‘Science journalists should have a science background’ according to

level of education ........................................................................................ 102
Table 25 - What do you use the Internet for?...................................................... 106
Table 26 - Frequency of searching for information on-line................................ 107
Table 27 - Frequency of e-mail checking and sending ....................................... 107
Table 28 - Time spent on the Internet daily ........................................................ 108
Table 29 - Time spent on the Internet daily by age group .................................. 108
Table 30 - Favourite sites for science news ........................................................ 109
Table 31 - Mention of the three first sites (Eurekalert, Nature, BBC) according to

number of years as journalists..................................................................... 110
Table 32 - Most used search engine.................................................................... 110
Table 33 - Credibility of news sources on-line ................................................... 111
Table 34 - ‘The Internet is making science journalism focus on breaking news’

according to GNI per capita ........................................................................ 115
Table 35 - ‘The Internet is helping to publicize more American science’ according

to GNI per capita......................................................................................... 116
Table 36 (a and b) - Internet importance (Principal Component Analysis)........ 118
Table 37 - What American journalists use the Internet for, according to

Middleberg and Ross (2000)....................................................................... 156