Churnalism is a low-quality form of

journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree of accuracy. The word, a noun, applies to the journ ...

in which press releases and other forms of pre-packaged material are used to create articles in

newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as poli ...

s and other news media in order to meet increasing pressures of time and cost without undertaking further research or

fact-checking Fact-checking is the process of verifying the factual accuracy of questioned reporting and statements. Fact-checking can be conducted before or after the text or content is published or otherwise disseminated. Internal fact-checking is such che ...

. Churnalism is often the result of understaffed journalists who do not have the bandwidth for original news-gathering and checking sources. Because it can quickly be churned out (and thus is less expensive to produce), churnalism has become more common due to the revenue lost with the rise of Internet news and decline in advertising, with a particularly steep fall in late 2015. The origin of the term has been credited to

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

journalist Waseem Zakir. The name "Churnalism" is a

portmanteau In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.

of "churn" and "journalism", referring to the perceived "churning out" of content by the press. Churnalism has increased to the point that many stories found in the news are not original.

Prevalence

In his book '' Flat Earth News'', the British journalist Nick Davies reported a study at

Cardiff University Cardiff University () is a public research university in Cardiff, Wales. It was established in 1883 as the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire and became a founding college of the University of Wales in 1893. It was renamed Unive ...

by Justin Lewis and a team of researchers which found that 80% of the stories in Britain's quality press were not original and that only 12% of stories were generated by reporters. The result is a reduction of quality and accuracy, as the articles are open to manipulation and distortion. A 2016 study of 1.8 million articles published by the U.S. and international editions of the HuffPost found that only 44% were written by staff journalists and thus could be considered original reporting. The journalist Waseem Zakir has been credited for coining the term ''churnalism'' while working for the BBC in 2008 (however, Zakir himself recollects it being a decade earlier). According to Zakir, the trend towards this form of journalism involves reporters becoming more reactive and less proactive in searching for news: "You get copy coming in on the wires and reporters churn it out, processing stuff and maybe adding the odd local quote. It's affecting every newsroom in the country and reporters are becoming churnalists." An editorial on the matter in the '' British Journalism Review'' saw this trend as terminal for journalism, "...a harbinger of the end of news journalism as we know it, the coroner's verdict can be nothing other than suicide." Others, such as Peter Preston, former editor of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', see the issue as over-wrought, saying that there was never a golden age of journalism in which journalists were not subject to such pressures. Nick Davies and Roy Greenslade gave evidence on the matter to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee in 2009. Churnalism does not only occur in newspapers. For example, Chris Anderson's wide use of "writethroughs" in his book '' Free: The Future of a Radical Price'' has been labelled churnalism.

Economic causes

Traditional newspapers have cut staff as their advertising revenue has declined because of competition from other media such as television and the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

. They no longer have sufficient staff to generate news stories by making the rounds of civic and business activities. Local newspapers and

trade magazine A trade magazine, also called a trade journal or trade paper (colloquially or disparagingly a trade rag), is a magazine or newspaper whose target audience is people who work in a particular tradesman, trade or industry. The collective term ...

s are commonly produced by only one or two staff and these rely upon stories which are increasingly brought to them by

public relations Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) to the public in order to influence their perception. Pu ...

representatives, according to a senior public relations professional. When the matter was debated at the

Foreign Press Association The Foreign Press Association (FPA) is a not-for-profit Friendly Society established in 1888, at the time of the Jack the Ripper murders. It organises press briefings and events at central locations in London and coordinates and facilitates the wor ...

, it was agreed that there was a relationship between the numbers of PR staff employed and journalists unemployed. There was a particularly steep fall in UK advertising revenue in the 6 months to March 2016, with the '' Daily Mail & General Trust'' issuing a warning to investors after its newspaper division reported a 29% fall in profits largely to a 13% decline in print advertising revenue; news media commentator Roy Greenslade said in response to this "print cliff fall" that newspapers had no future. Other commentators have said the modern journalism is increasingly being performed in a cheaper, high-volume way, describing the resulting product with derogatory terms such as ''newszak'' (combination of "news" and "muzak"), '' infotainment'' and ''junk-food journalism''.

Speed

In their book '' No Time to Think'', authors Howard Rosenberg and Charles S. Feldman emphasised the prioritization of speed in degrading the quality of modern journalism. An example is given of the BBC guide for online staff which gives advice to ensure good quality but also the contradictory advice, "Get the story up as fast as you can... We encourage a sense of urgency—we want to be first."

Combating churnalism

Some organizations and tools have arisen to combat churnalism. In April 2013, the American Sunlight Foundation, a non-profit organisation that advocates for openness and transparency, in partnership with the UK's Media Standards Trust, launched churnalism.com, an online tool to discover churn. It used a database of known press releases and compared the text of a submitted URL to determine what percentage of it was derived churn. ''

The Register ''The Register'' (often also called El Reg) is a British Technology journalism, technology news website co-founded in 1994 by Mike Magee (journalist), Mike Magee and John Lettice. The online newspaper's Nameplate_(publishing), masthead Logo, s ...

'' commented that some level of "churnalism" is both normal and healthy for news organisations, but said it considered the Media Standards Trust linked to campaigns supported by "wealthy and powerful individuals and celebrities" in favour of "state control of the media" in the UK, and claimed there was significant irony in the Sunlight Foundation tool launch announcement itself being "uncritically churned by many of the usual suspects". In Australia, the nationwide ABC public TV service airs a highly critical weekly 15-minute programme, '' Media Watch'', which regularly exposes churnalism,

plagiarism Plagiarism is the representation of another person's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own original work.From the 1995 ''Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary'': use or close ...

media bias Media bias occurs when journalists and news producers show bias in how they report and cover news. The term "media bias" implies a pervasive or widespread bias contravening of the standards of journalism, rather than the perspective of an ...

and unethical behaviour by journalists and radio talk-back hosts.Media Watch
official web site

References

External links