SOURCE CREDIBILITY AND JOURNALISM

Abstract

The extent to which information sources, that stand behind virtually all the news, are perceived by journalists as credible is a key determinant of the likelihood of their obtaining news access and public voice. The nature of source credibility judgment in journalism, however, is disputed between two major schools: while the “visceral” camp contends that it is highly subjective, intuitive and biased, the “discretional” camp perceives it as a far more reasonable and legitimate journalistic tool. The present study attempts to uncover evidence of both “visceral” and “discretional” judgment by studying the conceptual credibility (trustworthiness ratings) and practical credibility (practices indicating trust or skepticism, such as cross-checking and attribution) and the congruence between the two in a sample of 840 news items based on 1870 news sources. Findings were gleaned in face-to-face reconstruction interviews with reporters from nine leading Israeli news organizations, who reconstructed, source by source, the processes behind their items, shortly after their publication. Pro-discretional evidence shows that while journalists perceive their own experience as more credible than that of any other human agent, they do tend to stick with sources they perceive as more credible, the majority of which were relied on in the past, granting them more ready acceptance. Pro-visceral evidence, in turn, demonstrates that even the least credible sources receive substantial news space, some without any cross-checking. Furthermore, reporters ranked their sources' credibility even when they had no former record of trustworthiness. The paper suggests interpreting the composite of these findings as discretional logic with islands of visceral judgment.

Keywords:

• Israel
• journalism
• newsmaking
• news production
• source credibility
• trust

Acknowledgements

Research was supported by a grant from the Israel Foundations Trustees (2006–2008). The author thanks Sharon Ben-David, Oz Carmel and Alex Nirenburg for their help in compiling the data, Dr. Martin C. J. Elton of the Burda Center at Ben-Gurion University and Dr. Yariv Tsfati of the University of Haifa for their most beneficial remarks and Tali Avishay-Arbel for her statistical advice.

Notes

1. The criteria for choosing organizations were as follows: (1) national news organizations; (2) market leaders; and (3) employers of dedicated reporting staffs. Beats were selected from reporters full lists, prepared by following the reporters' bylines over a three-month period according to the following criteria: (a) mainstream beats in each of the nine news organizations; (b) output published primarily in news and business sections; (c) covered by full-time reporters; (d) reporters who publish at least 12 items per month. The fourth medium, television, was omitted to avoid overextending the scope of an already amply broad study and to eliminate the production and visual biases that television embodies (Bantz et al., 1980; Hemingway, 2008).

2. See Note 4.

3. Following the suggestion of the State of the News Media, 2006, http://www.stateofthenewsmedia.com/2006/narrative_online_contentanalysis.asp?cat=2&media=4, accessed 28 July 2009.

4. These sources comprise 97 percent of all contacts. The remainder consisted of contacts with sources exceeding four per item, the particulars of which were not detailed in the interviews because of time constraints.