Standard stylebooks on news selection are not used in Flemish news organisations. The news organisations have their own “modus operandi” in selecting and producing news content, and the editor-in-chief checks if it suits the style of the brand. It is common practice to pitch a given subject and angle for an article to the editor-in-chief. After the article is written, it goes through an editing phase, and before publishing, it must be approved by the editor-in-chief yet again. With straightforward articles or breaking news, the process can be accelerated, and sometimes the editing even takes place after publishing. Meanwhile, articles written by early-career journalists are checked in more detail.
The procedures for the news selection and production of content are not rigid. Internally, news organisations regularly discuss which strategies to implement or change, with the higher-ranked journalists having a louder voice in these discussions. It is important to stress that news content is increasingly created at the level of the media company, and then disseminated to be published identically across its various brands. This appears to be the case particularly for sports and celebrity news. For example, Het Laatste Nieuws, one of commercial media company DPG Media’s news brands, has more journalists working on news about sports than their other brands. This way, they have an important voice in deciding which sports news will be selected and eventually published.
As stated previously, news content comes together mostly due to journalistic research and information from news agencies. Information originating from social media is very rarely used as the main source. Journalists comment that they always double-check their sources, but in case of information coming from social media, they “double-double-check it”. Although journalists seem to be aware of the possible pitfalls of retrieving information from social media, mistakes are often made, most times due to the urge to publish articles as quickly as possible.
