Journalism and Emotion

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Stephen Jukes. Journalism and Emotion

Journalism and Emotion

Contents

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Introduction How Emotion Lies at the Heart of Today’s News and Journalism Practice

Two perspectives

An emotional refinement of the journalist’s mindset

A question of definition

Overview of chapters

1 Objectivity and Emotion

How emotion became sidelined in Anglo-American journalism

Emergence of the objectivity norm

Establishment of a professional ideology

Fears of manipulation

Post-War norms consolidated

Challenges to the objectivity norm

Conclusion

2 Journalism and the Rise of Emotion in a Post-truth Society

More than just a technological revolution

The attraction of user-generated content

The Christchurch effect

How the media and grieving public engage in ritual mourning

The journalist as a brand

Contested values – fighting back against emotion

Conclusion

3 Journalism Practice and Affect

From the telephone coin box to social media

Identifying the affective dimension of practice

Affective practice in the digital age

Detachment as a hallmark of professionalism

Detachment and the business of news

Conclusion

4 Interviewing and Emotion

The interview — assault or therapy?

When intrusion into private emotion causes an uproar

Detached does not always work

An affective dance

Do industry guidelines and training address the issues?

Conclusion

5 The Herd Instinct

Pack mentality and tabloidisation

Affective contagion

Camaraderie in the field

Camaraderie at home

Contagion and social media in the newsroom

Conclusion

6 Journalism and Trauma

From shell shock to PTSD

When the mechanisms break down

Guilt and moral injury

Stigma and the duty of care

Self-care

Conclusion

7 Journalists and User-generated Content

From Analogue to Digital — From Zapruder to ISIS

On the digital frontline

Coping strategies and best practice guidelines

Conclusion

Conclusion The Taboo Has Been Broken, What Next?

The affective dimension of journalism

Towards a better understanding of emotion

References

Index

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They say there is a novel buried deep in every journalist waiting to get out. This volume is certainly no novel, but it is a book that I have been carrying around in my head for at least the past two decades. Its roots lie in more than 20 years of work as a journalist and foreign correspondent around the world for the news agency Reuters. But it is only in the past few years, from the detached vantage point of the academic world, that I have been able to draw my ideas and reflections together into what is hopefully a coherent shape. I still passionately believe in journalism as a force for good, but it is clear, with hindsight, that the events of September 11, 2001, triggered in me a critical distance from the profession. That can only be healthy in today’s tumultuous media landscape, in which many of the certainties of the past have been thrown into question. The Introduction to this book describes how September 11 was a pivotal moment that drove me to stand back and explore the complex relationship between journalism, norms of objectivity and emotion. I would like to express my deep gratitude to all my friends and colleagues at Reuters with whom I covered so many summits, crises and, more often than not, the routine day-to-day stories that we call the news. I owe a particular debt to two – my first editor in the Middle East, the late François Duriaud, the ultimate professional and a legendary figure at Reuters; and his colleague as news editor and later successor as Middle East Editor, Graham Stewart. I learnt the trade from both and look back on those days with great affection. I also owe a debt of gratitude to two outstanding academics at Goldsmiths, University of London: Professors Natalie Fenton and Lisa Blackman. They painstakingly supervised my doctoral thesis, on which this book draws, often late on a Friday afternoon when many would be heading off for a weekend break. Natalie Fenton encouraged me to question journalism’s norms and shook me out of the comfortable world of my past. We did not see eye to eye on regulation of the British press (in the midst of the Leveson Inquiry) but her advice and guidance was invaluable. Lisa Blackman, in the next-door office of the New Academic Building at Goldsmiths, now the Professor Stuart Hall Building, introduced me to the world of affect, in all its (sometimes extreme) variations, opening up new horizons, new authors and a new way of thinking about journalism. At my home institution, Bournemouth University, I would like to thank my colleagues and particularly Barry Richards, one of the pioneering academics working in the field of psychosocial research into politics, culture and media. Further afield, thanks also go to Cardiff University professors Stuart Allan, a former colleague at Bournemouth University, and Karin Wahl-Jorgensen for their support and encouragement. The latter has been at the forefront of academic research into emotion and media and always, it must be said, several steps ahead of me. When I moved into the academic world in 2005, I also found a home in the Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma where I have been part of a drive to increase the emotional literacy of journalism and safeguard the mental health of journalists. I am indebted to the former BBC journalist Mark Brayne, who was inspirational in putting such issues on the agenda and introduced me to Dart. Since then, I have worked closely with the organisation’s Executive Director Bruce Shapiro and European Director Gavin Rees, both of whom are internationally recognised as experts in the field and have become firm friends. I would like to thank the team at SAGE for their support in planning and producing this book, Michael Ainsley and Amber Turner-Flanders. And special thanks are due to my wife Yvonne, whose painstaking proofreading has been invaluable, and children Dominic and Timothy. The cries of ‘are you still writing that book?’ echoing through the Bavarian countryside (as I messed up another holiday) have for the moment ceased. Until the next one …

Given the advances in digital technology and the torrent of dramatic footage of news events circulating online from members of the public and perpetrators of such acts, it is hardly surprising that today’s mainstream news agenda is likely to serve up a diet of atrocities, disaster and personal tragedy. Media organisations know full well the power of images to attract an audience, particularly at a time when their business models are under severe financial pressure. We live in a world of live-streamed terror, polarised political debates and fake news, a news landscape in which emotions and the appeal to emotions often dominate stories at the expense of fact-based journalism or rational debate. It seems as if the old cliché ‘if it bleeds, it leads’ has never been more true.

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Analysis after the broadcast showed that the initial talk of mass panic was probably inaccurate or at least exaggerated. Newspapers were happy to play up and censure what they highlighted as the irresponsibility of radio, a relatively new medium which was already threatening to eat into their advertising revenues. ‘Radio is new but it has adult responsibilities’, said the New York Times. ‘It has not mastered itself or the material it uses.’ Hadley Cantril, a psychologist at Princeton University, conducted a study published in 1940 in which he concluded that at least one million of the six million listeners were ‘frightened or disturbed’ (1940: 57). The study showed that the majority of listeners had, however, been able to use their critical abilities to discern the true nature of the programme. As such, the study undermined prevailing theories that audiences could be wholly manipulated by media. The incident also crucially raised questions about the interplay of news and entertainment and looked forward to contemporary discussion about the blurring of boundaries and the affective potential that mixed media formats such as Reality TV and docudrama can command.

By the summer of 1934, members of the Frankfurt School led by Horkheimer had begun to establish themselves in exile in New York at Columbia University, regarded as having the second major department for Sociology after Chicago. By 1941, Horkheimer and a whole colony of exiled German writers, composers and playwrights – for example, Thomas and Heinrich Mann, Bertolt Brecht and Arnold Schoenberg – had all moved to Los Angeles, but many of them found the Hollywood film industry depressing (Wiggershaus, 1994) as reflected in key writings during the war period. Referring to Hollywood, Horkheimer and Adorno argued that the American film industry dominated by large profit-driven corporations created ‘dupes’ of the masses, who would mindlessly consume material (Gorton, 2009). They dedicated a chapter of their work Dialectic of Enlightenment (Adorno & Horkheimer, 1944/1979: 137) specifically to the Culture Industry, stating:

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