Abstract
Journalism and journalists have long struggled to gain and maintain the public’s trust. Any effort to heal the rift is welcome. Becoming the News: How Ordinary People Respond to the Media Spotlight is unique in that it is not written to explain the principles and practices of journalism to an uninitiated public. Rather, it examines the perspective of the everyday people who find themselves thrust into the news media spotlight.
As such, Becoming the News offers valuable insight for journalists and students of journalism to more honestly, and with greater awareness, navigate the journalist–subject relationship.
From 2009 to 2011, scholar and researcher Ruth Palmer conducted in-depth interviews with 83 private citizens who became news subjects in newspapers in the New York City area or a mid-sized city in the western United States. Palmer sought to reveal how the public views journalists and journalism and to offer a path toward improving anti-press sentiment.
The stakes are high. “As a whole,” Palmer writes in the opening pages, “riding the wave of news subjecthood can affect how people see and understand journalism, but also how they think about their own identities, reputations, and place in the world.”
For journalists who seek a “face” for their stories, but seldom return to the scene of the crime once the story is published, Palmer’s finding may not spark concern. But it should. Failing to understand the reporter–subject dynamic and potential unintended consequences of publication could further erode public support for journalism.
The academic books I devote time to reading often are selected because they somehow promise to inform my teaching. Becoming the News fits that bill. As I absorbed the author’s research findings, I found myself devising ways to insert portions into lectures and mulling at what stage of the program, and at what time in the semester, students would be ready to hear the various messages Palmer gleaned during her interviews and analysis.
The book itself is divided into nine chapters exploring the triggers of news, motivations behind someone choosing to become the news, the interaction itself, the fallout that follows, and lessons for journalists. Some of Palmer’s more notable findings are as follows:
News subjects will overlook errors if they know journalists care.
Context matters in helping news subjects assign traits of accuracy and fairness to a story.
News subjects see journalists as powerful agents, not as underdog defenders of the “little guy” journalists believe themselves to be.
Journalists need to show they care.
Although Palmer focused on print for her study, some news subjects interviewed also spoke about their interactions with television journalists. Palmer’s brief foray into the specific challenges of broadcast journalism suggests an area of future study and the need for broadcast journalists to carefully balance their on-screen actions with their interpersonal interactions with subjects. Where subjects see a disconnect, mistrust is planted.
In the ending chapters, Palmer examines the far-reaching and forever-lasting nature of news in the digital age. The need to impress on journalists and future journalists the tremendous consequences news subjects face is again indicative of the power imbalance news subjects say they experience at the hands of journalists.
The text offers much to consider when discussing how journalists establish contact with sources, understand their reasons for participating in the news, interact to build rapport during an interview, and manage expectations about how a story will be framed. As Palmer points out, people will not cooperate with journalists if they feel they will be mistreated or if they perceive too much risk is involved.
Still, for all the talk of fake news and disdain for journalistic accuracy, news subjects in Palmer’s study said they still expect others will believe what is in the news. Given that, Palmer concludes, if private citizens are to risk themselves for the sake of news, developing honest and open relationships with news subjects is critical to sustainable journalism.