Based on extensive insider experience of the UK news media, Davies (2009: 113-154) has described a set of ‘unwritten and unstated rules of production’ which determine the quality and content of much news output. The first rule is to ‘run cheap stories’. The pressure to keep costs down has served as a disincentive to conduct investigations and an incentive to produce what he terms ‘churnalism’6, second-hand news provided by press agencies and PR services. Another unstated rule encourages journalists to favour safe factual statements, especially those attributable to official sources which carry authority, provide quick copy, and protect journalists against being sued for defamation.7 Another rule is to extend ‘the rule of safe facts to an encouragement of deference to any organisation or individual with the power to hurt news organisations’. Accordingly, media content is determined by ‘electric fences’ such as the UK’s restrictive Official Secrets Act and the ‘chilling effect’ of UK libel law, widely regarded to have constrained free press reporting.8 Another rule, that news stories should increase readerships or audiences, has certainly always defined the UK’s popular newspapers, but many media commentators and scholars have become concerned that it has spread to the quality media (see e.g. Franklin 1997).
The publicly funded BBC is insulated from direct commercial pressures and the commercial public service broadcasters9 are strictly regulated. The House of Lords select committee on communications found that each of the latter framed their editorial requirements differently. In line with its statutory remit to cater to minorities, Channel 4 consciously looked for depth, range and perspectives ‘not pursued elsewhere’ and had a multiculturalist approach.
‘[E]ach news programme had a detailed editorial specification to achieve those aims….., although the day-today realisation of those aims was up to [Channel 4’s news provider] ITN. There was daily contact about the content of particular bulletins and a weekly meeting to discuss forward strategy. It is therefore clear that, while ITN is free to implement Channel 4’s news brief according to its own standards of journalistic professionalism and integrity, the overall news agenda and news framework is laid down by Channel 4. The channel, in turn, derives its approach to news from its statutory obligations laid down by the Communications Act 2003’ (House of Lords 2008a: 38-9).
For the more commercial ITV, with a lighter public service remit, it was important to be ‘accessible without being frivolous’, though editorial control remained with the editorial management with ITN and was ‘sacrosanct’. For Channel 5, with the lightest public service remit, there was no ambition to do long-form investigative reports, and the channel did not see investigative journalism as its hallmark. The report concluded:
In all three cases, it is clear that the news requirements are designed to fit in with the culture, branding and general approach of the respective channels (House of Lords 2008a: 39).
