The Jeremiad Over Journalism

described by van Elteren which leads to increased commercial focus, and the actual journalistic
product as it is framed by reporters.
Utilizing secondary literature, public speeches and media content, Cook outlines three criteria that
must be fulfilled in order for different organizations to be considered an institution. According to
Cook, ―unspoken procedures, routines, and assumptions (…)[which] extend over space and endure
over time (…) [and preside] over a societal and/or political sector,‖ indicate an institutional
framework. 195 Moreover, Cook shows how journalism fits the three criteria outlined and argues that
individual journalists work within powerful institutional norms and settings. In Cook‘s words,
―Given how newsworthiness is inextricable from the journalistic methods that created the
news, given the wide consensus on news processes and content across a wide range of media
and modalities, and given the way in which both officials and the public turn to the media to
provide the social function of communication, it is clear that the news media are a social
institution.‖ 196
Though Cook at times offers an almost normative critique of journalism, 197 and seems to choose a
definition of institution, that fits well with his argument about journalism‘s role in American
politics, Cook‘s study has been widely praised, and is corroborated by the late French sociologist
Pierre Bourdieu‘s book On Television. Bourdieu argues that, consciously or unconsciously,
journalists ―censor themselves." 198 Though Cook and Bourdieu did not credit each other‘s work as
part of the foundation for their own, there are notable similarities between Cook‘s work on
journalism as an institution, and Bourdieu‘s understanding of habitus and by extension field. 199
According to Bourdieu,
195
Cook, Governing with the News: The New Media as a Political Institution. Page 70-71.
196
Ibid. Page 84.
197
According to Cook the news media are more concerned with style than substance which is evidenced by the
following quotes, ―Standards of importance now pale next to the storytelling imperative for local television news,‖ ―in
pursuing objectivity, reporters end up implicitly adding a particular bias to the news – a structural bias,‖ also ―issues
and occurrences that do not easily become a narrative are likely to be neglected in favor of those that do,‖ and ―I find
the news media, as they are presently structured, to be ill-suited for such a task [enhancing the quality of American
government].‖ Ibid. Page 98, 111-112 and 208.
198
Pierre Bourdieu, On Television, trans. Priscilla Parkhurst Ferguson (New York: The New Press, 1998). Page 15.
199
Rodney Benson, "News Media as a 'Journalistic Field': What Bourdieu Adds to New Institutionalism and Vice
Versa," Political Communication 23, no. 2 (2006). Page 188-189.
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