Summary
Contents
The SAGE Key Concepts series provide students with accessible and authoritative knowledge of the essential topics in a variety of disciplines. Cross-referenced throughout, the format encourages critical evaluation through understanding. Written by experienced and respected academics, the books are indispensable study aids and guides to comprehension. Key Concepts in Journalism offers a systematic and accessible introduction to the terms, processes, and effects of journalism;a combination of practical considerations with theoretical issues; and further reading suggestions. The authors bring an enormous range of experience in newspaper and broadcast journalism, at national and regional level, as well as their teaching expertise. This book will be essential reading for students in journalism, and an invaluable reference tool for their professional careers.
Chequebook Journalism
Chequebook Journalism
The practice of journalists paying for information or for exclusive interviews dates from the earliest origins of the modern press. Exclusive stories have a market value in circulation wars, or in battles for television ratings.
When pursuing major stories, tabloid newspapers and popular magazines will authorize journalists to produce cheques on door-steps and carry contracts to sign up the individual concerned. Reporters may become ‘minders’, hiding the contracted individual at a secret location to thwart rival journalists. Britain's regional press is usually too mean to make such payments, leaving it scope to take a high moral stand against them.
The ethical argument against such payments is that they may encourage people to lie or embellish facts to gain money, or impede the free flow ...