This paper looks at the interplay of communication modes from an ethnographic perspective by presenting a case study which documents the role of news consumption in news writing. Our data are drawn from fieldwork at the home office of a freelance financial journalist who covers the stock markets for a quality daily newspaper in Belgium. He writes feature articles, op-ed pieces and, of interest here, newspaper fillers known as buy/sell advice. These short, personal finance articles provide investor advice on which shares to buy or sell (and why). Crucially, our data show how the journalist manages to conceal his authorial presence, thereby effectively displacing responsibility for assertions made (‘sell these shares’) onto the financial analysts he quotes or sources. We conclude that this form of passive news production relies wholly on the journalist’s available desktop sources, i.e. the financial newsletters to which he subscribes.

1. Buy or sell?
The role of consumption and authorship
in financial journalism
Tom Van Hout
NewsTalk&Text
Ghent University
11th Int’l Pragmatics Conference | July 12-17, 2009 | Melbourne, Australia

2. Prince, Jay & Mark

3. Prince - TAFKAP
The Artist Formerly Known as Prince

4. Jay Rosen - TPFKATA
Technological innovation
A digital revolution in journalism
Cultural shifts in news production
and consumption
From passive consumers to active
producers (aka ‘produsers’ or
‘prosumers’)
http://twitter.com/jayrosen_nyu
The People Formerly Known as The Audience

5. Mark Deuze - TPFKATE
Industry shifting from print to online
New journalistic form and content
Print journalism is in dire straits
Doom and gloom: red ink, lay-offs,
cost-cutting, increased productivity
concerns and source reliance, news
isomorphism, outsourcing
http://twitter.com/markdeuze
The People Formerly Known as The Employers

6. News cultures in flux
“the challenges journalism faces are rewriting
everything we thought we knew about the news
media and causing us to question the very basis on
which the industry has survived and flourished for a
hundred-odd years”
Christopher Warren
Federal Secretary of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance
http://www.thefutureofjournalism.org.au/
[H/T: Mark Deuze]

7. Financial journalism
is omnipresent in quality news media
caters to a financially literate, elite audience
forecasts trading decisions and investor sentiment
impacts market decision-making processes
is fueled by corporate announcements and hearsay
has a weak investigative record
a largely unexamined field of journalism
the credit crisis as a ‘critical discourse moment’

8. Churnalism: rip and read journalism
journalists have become news
processors instead of generators
market demands force smaller
workforces to produce more
journalists have become less weary
of PR copy
decreased editorial independence
in UK newsrooms
Source: Lewis, Williams & Franklin 2008

9. Research questions
• What is the role of the journalist as author?
• What is the role of the journalist as consumer?
• How do journalists ‘churn’ news?
• What can a linguistics of news production
contribute to this process?

10. Case study: buy/sell advice
Setting: home office of a freelance journalist: Gilles
Covers financial markets for a Flemish quality newspaper
Writes feature articles, commentaries and evaluations
Previously worked as an analyst for a financial magazine
Works as a ‘hired pen’ for the newspaper
Data was collected in the wake of fieldwork (Oct. 2007)
Specific genre: stock market buy/sell advice

11. Case study: buy/sell advice

12. Case study: buy/sell advice
Short news: typically 150 words
Not bylined (author anonymity)
Author as ‘animator’ (Goffman)
Epistemological positioning
(Bednarek 2008):
Source of information = ‘other’
Basis of knowledge =
perception
Certainty= low to medium

13. Case study: buy/sell advice
+ Philips
ING feels that the Philips (31 euro) share price fall is a good entry moment for
investors. ING has a ‘buy’ advice with a 40 euro price target.
The ING analyst thinks that the share price fall was too sharp as a result of the
weak performance of the American medical division. The bank has only
marginally lowered its price target following the third quarter results.
- Air France KLM
ABN Amro stands by its ‘sell’ advice for Air France KLM (26,9 euro) despite the
optimistic sounds that the company made at an investor meeting on Monday.
ABN Amro sees risks in a possible decline in economic growth, Air France KLM’s
ambitions in London and a possible takeover of and/or investment in Iberia or
Alitalia.

14. A Perrinian combination of
Ethnography: contextualizes how reporters
– find and transform news sources into news articles
– reflect on newswriting practices
Computer-assisted writing process analysis
records, reconstructs and analyzes writing processes
keystroke logging (Inputlog)
screen recording (Camtasia)

15. A Perrinian combination of

16. Authorial agency
source texts copied verbatim from an agency feed
– (1:49:58) Philips feed (in Dutch)
– (1:51:42) Air France feed (in French)
Gilles:
adds institutional appositions
shortens and simplifies (jargon)
specifies motivation (« problems in the US »)
eliminates quotes (epistemic modality)
translates French agency news feed
previews TPSF (adds a hard return)

17. Consumption
Churnalism in the wild
Publically available news agency feeds
Domain knowledge
Interpretive creativity
Strategic interest in the stocks quoted

18. Interview data
• “advice is of little value to real investors”
• “I’m an investor myself”

19. Conclusions
methodologically:
– combination of linguistic ethnography and writing
process analysis illuminates the social practice of
financial churnalism
theoretically: a more nuanced understanding of
Churnalism as a process of entextualization
Reproductive writing as a type of media literacy
Agency within a specific field (‘structure-in-use’)

20. Joining the dots
ethnographically informed (micro-)analysis of a
business reporter plying his trade:
practice of news sourcing
routine behavior
reliance on source media
discursive practice invisible to textual/product-based
analyses of news production
a linguistics of news production examines process
theory formation in journalism studies, writing
research, workplace interaction

21. Further information
Tom Van Hout
Ghent University
tom.vanhout@ugent.be
NewsTalk&Text
http://www.ntt.ugent.be