Cushion Stephen, Lewis Justin
Cardiff University, UK.
Eur J Commun. 2017 Jun;32(3):208-223. doi: 10.1177/0267323117695736. Epub 2017 May 25.
There has been greater news industry recognition in recent years that impartiality should not be translated into simply balancing the competing sides of a debate or issue. The binary nature of a referendum campaign represents a unique moment to consider whether broadcasters have put this into practice beyond routine political reporting. This study examines how impartiality was editorially interpreted in television news coverage during the United Kingdom's 2016 European Union referendum. We carried out a systematic content analysis of the United Kingdom's main evening bulletins over the 10-week campaign, examining the issues and sources shaping coverage, as well as all the statistical claims made by campaign actors. Our aim was to critically examine how notions of impartiality were constructed and interpreted, exploring any operational limits and political consequences. Overall, we found that news bulletins maintained a fairly strict adherence to a central binary balance between issues and actors during the campaign. But this binary was politically inflected, with a significant imbalance in party political perspectives, presenting us with a right-wing rather than a left-wing case for European Union membership. We also found that independent expert analysis and testimony was sucked into the partisan binary between leave and remain campaigners, while journalists were reluctant to challenge or contextualise claims and counter-claims. Journalists were, in this sense, constrained by the operational definition of impartiality adopted by broadcasters. We argue for a more evidence-driven approach to impartiality, where journalists independently explore the veracity of campaign claims and have the editorial freedom to challenge them. We also suggest that the reliance on claims and counter-claims by leading Conservative politicians did little to advance public understanding of the European Union, and helped perpetuate a series of long-standing negative associations the British media have been reporting for many decades.
近年来，新闻行业越来越认识到，公正性不应简单地转化为在辩论或问题的相互竞争的各方之间进行平衡。公投活动的二元性质提供了一个独特的契机，来考量广播公司是否在常规政治报道之外将这一点付诸实践。本研究考察了在2016年英国脱欧公投期间，电视新闻报道在编辑层面是如何阐释公正性的。我们对英国主要晚间新闻在为期10周的公投活动期间的报道进行了系统的内容分析，研究了影响报道的议题和消息来源，以及竞选各方提出的所有统计主张。我们的目的是批判性地审视公正性的概念是如何构建和阐释的，探究其任何操作限制和政治后果。总体而言，我们发现新闻报道在公投活动期间相当严格地坚持了议题与竞选各方之间的核心二元平衡。但这种二元平衡带有政治倾向，政党政治观点存在显著失衡，呈现给我们的是支持英国留在欧盟的右翼而非左翼立场。我们还发现，独立专家分析和证词被卷入了脱欧派和留欧派竞选者之间的党派二元对立之中，而记者们不愿对各种主张和反主张提出质疑或进行背景解读。从这个意义上说，记者们受到了广播公司所采用的公正性操作定义的限制。我们主张采用一种更基于证据的公正性方法，即记者独立探究竞选主张的真实性，并拥有在编辑上对其提出质疑的自由。我们还指出，保守党主要政客对各种主张和反主张的依赖无助于增进公众对欧盟的理解，反而助长了英国媒体几十年来一直在报道的一系列长期负面联想。
