The Jeremiad Over Journalism

60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Descriptive news Ekstra Bladet
1971 1981 1990 2001
Table 39 – Percentage of descriptive news stories in Ekstra Bladet between 1971 and 2001.
The above results indicate unequivocal results regarding hypothesis H2a stipulating that ―from 1968
and forward news stories in Danish newspapers are increasingly characterized by descriptive
information instead of interpretation. This development is seen for Politiken, but not for Berlingske
Tidende and the results for Ekstra Bladet are not statistically significant. H2a can therefore not be
confirmed despite Politiken incorporating more descriptive coverage between 1971 and 2001.
5.4.1 The move from “Discount Journalism”
In Danish journalism, it has been a long-held view that news articles should incorporate more than
one source in order to achieve balance and avoid what Meilby has called ―discount journalism.‖
However, as we shall see Danish and American political journalists have not always lived up to the
ideal of using two sources. 567 The objectivity norm prescribes balancing ―sources with conflicting
viewpoints,‖ 568 and during election campaigns, stories with less than two sources do therefore not
afford room for more than one viewpoint. 569 As is apparent from Table 40 there is a significant
decline in the use of stories containing zero or only one source in The New York Times between
567 Mogens Meilby, "Discountjournalistik Med En Enkelt Kilde [Discount-Journalism with a Single Source],"
Update(1999), http://www.update.dk/cfje/VidBase.nsf/ID/VB00115402. Article accessed on November 13, 2010.
568 Sigal, "Who? Sources Make the News." Page 16.
569 The coders have only taken articles into account where sources are quoted directly in the text.
205
N(1971) = 25
N(1981) = 19
N(1990) = 12
N(2001)= 30
Ekstra Bladet