Churnalism is a

pejorative A pejorative or slur is a word or grammatical form expressing a negative or a disrespectful connotation, a low opinion, or a lack of respect toward someone or something. It is also used to express criticism, hostility, or disregard. Sometimes, a ...

term for a form of journalism in which

press release A press release is an official statement delivered to members of the news media for the purpose of providing information, creating an official statement, or making an announcement directed for public release. Press releases are also considere ...

s, stories provided by

news agencies A news agency is an organization that gathers news reports and sells them to subscribing news organizations, such as newspapers, magazines and radio and television broadcasters. A news agency may also be referred to as a wire service, newswire, ...

, and other forms of pre-packaged material, instead of reported news, are used to create articles in newspapers and other news media. It is a

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of words to counter revenue lost with the rise of Internet news and decline in advertising, with a particularly steep fall in late 2015. The origin of the word has been credited to

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...

journalist Waseem Zakir. Churnalism has increased to the point that many stories found in the press are not original. The decline of original journalism has been associated with a corresponding rise in

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. P ...

Prevalence

In his book '' Flat Earth News'', the British journalist

Nick Davies Nicholas Davies (born 28 March 1953) is an award-winning British investigative journalist, writer, and documentary maker. Davies has written extensively as a freelancer, as well as for ''The Guardian'' and ''The Observer'', and been named Re ...

reported a study at

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by Professor 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

reporter A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

s. 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 ''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...

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 ''British Journalism Review'' is an opinionated quarterly journal covering the field of journalism. The journal's editor is Kim Fletcher who is supported by an editorial board of journalists and journalism academics. It was established in 1989 and ...

'' saw this trend as terminal for current 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 Peter John Preston (23 May 1938 – 6 January 2018) was a British journalist and author. He was editor of ''The Guardian'' for twenty years, from 1975 to 1995. Early life Peter Preston was born in Barrow upon Soar, Leicestershire, the son of J ...

, former editor of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', see the issue as over-wrought, saying that there was never a

golden age The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology, particularly the ''Works and Days'' of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages of Man, Ages, Gold being the first and the one during ...

of journalism in which journalists were not subject to such pressures. Nick Davies and

Roy Greenslade Roy Greenslade (born 31 December 1946) is a British author and freelance journalist, and a former professor of journalism. He worked in the UK newspaper industry from the 1960s onwards. As a media commentator, he wrote a daily blog from 2006 to ...

gave evidence on the matter to the

Culture, Media and Sport Committee The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, formerly the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, is one of the select committees of the British House of Commons, established in 1997. It oversees the operations of the Department fo ...

in 2009. Churnalism does not only occur in newspapers; for example,

Chris Anderson Chris Anderson may refer to: Sports * Chris Anderson (baseball) (born 1992), American baseball player * Chris Anderson (cheese roller), 22-time winner of annual cheese rolling * Chris Anderson (footballer, born 1925) (1925–1986), Scottish footb ...

'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 system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

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

Local 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 p ...

s 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 trade or industry. The collective term for this ...

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

representatives, according to a senior

public relations professional 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 ...

. When the matter was debated at the

Foreign Press Association Foreign may refer to: Government * Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries * Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries ** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government ** Foreign office and foreign minister * United S ...

, 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 Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) is a British multinational media company, the owner of the ''Daily Mail'' and several other titles. The 4th Viscount Rothermere is the chairman and controlling shareholder of the company. The head office is ...

'' 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 A pundit is a person who offers mass media opinion or commentary on a particular subject area (most typically politics, the social sciences, technology or sport). Origins The term originates from the Sanskrit term ('' '' ), meaning "knowledg ...

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 Infotainment (a portmanteau of ''information'' and ''entertainment''), also called soft news as a way to distinguish it from serious journalism or hard news, is a type of media, usually television or online, that provides a combination of infor ...

'' and ''junk-food journalism''.

Speed

In their book ''

No Time to Think ''No Time to Think: The Menace of Media Speed and the 24-Hour News Cycle'' is a book by Howard Rosenberg and Charles S. Feldman, published in 2008. The book critiques the speed of the media in our days, where the emphasis is usually placed on be ...

'', authors

Howard Rosenberg Howard Anthony Rosenberg (born June 10, 1942) is an American television critic. He worked at ''The Louisville Times'' from 1968 through 1978 and then worked at the ''Los Angeles Times'' for 25 years where he won a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.

and Charles S. Feldman emphasised the role 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

Sunlight Foundation The Sunlight Foundation was an American 501(c)(3) nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that advocated for open government. The organization was founded in April 2006 with the goal of increasing transparency and accountability in the United States ...

, a non-profit which advocates for openness and transparency, in partnership with the UK's

Media Standards Trust The Media Standards Trust is a British media think tank formed in 2006. It carries out research on issues in the media sector. It also advocates for press freedom as well as industry quality, transparency and accountability. It is a registered cha ...

, 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'' is a British technology news website co-founded in 1994 by Mike Magee, John Lettice and Ross Alderson. The online newspaper's masthead sublogo is "''Biting the hand that feeds IT''." Their primary focus is information tec ...

'' 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 ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

public TV service airs a highly critical weekly 15-minute programme, '' Media Watch'' which regularly exposes churnalism,

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

media bias Media bias is the bias of journalists and news producers within the mass media in the selection of many events and stories that are reported and how they are covered. The term "media bias" implies a pervasive or widespread bias contravening of ...

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

References

External links