The DOI matches its Crossref record; 21 of the 21 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
A COMPROMISED FOURTH ESTATE?: UK news journalism, public relations and news sources
Abstract
The suggestion that the activities of public relations professionals and news agencies help to shape news content in national and local news media is increasingly commonplace among journalists, academics and public relations professionals. The findings from this study provide substantive empirical evidence to support such claims. The study analyses the domestic news content of UK national “quality” newspapers (2207 items in the Guardian, The Times, Independent, Daily Telegraph and the mid-market Daily Mail) and radio and television news reports (402 items broadcast by BBC Radio 4, BBC News, ITV News and SkyNews), across two week-long sample periods in 2006, to identify the influence of specific public relations materials and news agency copy (especially reports provided by the UK Press Association) in published and broadcast news contents. The findings illustrate that journalists’ reliance on these news sources is extensive and raises significant questions concerning claims to journalistic independence in UK news media and journalists’ role as a fourth estate. A political economy analysis suggests that the factors which have created this editorial reliance on these ‘information subsidies’ seems set to continue, if not increase, in the near future.
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“as journalists are increasingly expected to produce more copy in less time14 15 these press releases have become the dominant link between academia and the media.16 17”
From The association between exaggeration in health related science news and academic press releases: retrospective observational study (2014) · cites this paper as [14]
Citations
Cites
Beyond Agenda Setting: Information Subsidies and Public Policy
Gandy, O. H. (1982) · Medical Entomology and Zoology · Cited by 823
Handbook of Political Communication, the
&, L. L. K., & Holtz‐Bacha, C. (2008) · Sage eBooks · doi:10.4135/9781412953993.n264 · Cited by 542
Gans, H. J. (2003) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780195151329.001.0001 · Cited by 292
Packaging Politics: Political Communications in Britain's Media Democracy
Franklin, B. (2004) · Cited by 274
Self-citationFranklin, B. (1997) · Cited by 189
Self-citationRethinking Public Relations: PR Propaganda and Democracy
Moloney, K. (2006) · Cited by 156
Moloney, K. (2006) · Routledge eBooks · doi:10.4324/9780203030592 · Cited by 143
Public Relations Democracy: Public Relations, Politics and the Mass Media in Britain
Davis, A. (2002) · Goldsmiths Research Online · Cited by 121
Local Journalism and Local Media
(2006) · Routledge eBooks · doi:10.4324/9780203969205 · Cited by 109
Journalists and Politicians: a relationship requiring manoeuvring space
Larsson, L. (2002) · Journalism Studies · doi:10.1080/14616700120107310 · Cited by 74
Local Journalism and Local Media
(2006) · Routledge eBooks · doi:10.4324/9780203980392 · Cited by 58
Immediacy, Convenience or Engagement? An analysis of 24-hour news channels in the UK
Lewis, J., Cushion, S., & Thomas, J. D. (2005) · Journalism Studies · doi:10.1080/14616700500250362 · Cited by 55
Self-citationBlumler, J., & Gurevitch, M. (2002) · Routledge eBooks · doi:10.4324/9780203181775-5 · Cited by 53
Public Relations Democracy: Public Relations, Politics and the Mass Media in Britain
(2002) · Corporate Communications An International Journal · doi:10.1108/ccij.2002.7.3.192.2 · Cited by 37
PUBLIC RELATIONS AND JOURNALISM
White, J., & Hobsbawm, J. (2007) · Journalism Practice · doi:10.1080/17512780701275606 · Cited by 36
McJournalism? The local press and the McDonaldization thesis
Franklin, R. A. (2005) · ORCA Online Research @Cardiff (Cardiff University) · Cited by 23
The Spin Doctor's Diary: Inside Number 10 with New Labour
Price, L. (2005) · Cited by 20
Cheek, J. (2008) · International Review of Qualitative Research · doi:10.1525/irqr.2008.1.1.19 · Cited by 19
Fourth-rate estate : an anatomy of Fleet Street
Baistow, T. (1985) · Comedia eBooks · Cited by 15
Public relations, the local press and the coverage of local government
Franklin, B. (1986) · Local Government Studies · doi:10.1080/03003938608433281 · Cited by 12
Self-citationThe Press Association and news agency sources
Franklin, B. (2008) · doi:10.4324/9780203630709-33 · Cited by 7
Self-citation
Research works printed but not linked: 6
- Campbell , Duncan (2006) “Relatives Have Their Say on Murders That Shattered Their Lives” , Guardian , 24 April , pp. 10 – 11 .
- Franklin Bob, 1988, Public Relations Activities in Local Government
- Garner , Richard (2006) “Class Sizes Increase in Infant Schools Despite 1997 Pledge” , Independent , 28 April , pp. 4 – 5 .
- Lewis Justin, 2006, Shoot First and Ask Questions Later: media coverage of the war in Iraq
- Manning P., 2008, Pulling Newspapers Apart: analysing print journalism
- Plunkett , John (2006) “Press and PR Partnership—networking or not working” , MediaGuardian , 10 April , p. 3
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Watts, N., Amann, M., Arnell, N., Ayeb-Karlsson, S., Beagley, J., Belesova, K., Boykoff, M., Byass, P., Cai, W., Campbell-Lendrum, D., et al. (2021) · The Lancet · doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(20)32290-x · Cited by 1,943
Harcup, T., & O'Neill, D. (2017) · Journalism Studies · doi:10.1080/1461670x.2016.1150193 · Cited by 115
Sumner, P., Vivian-Griffiths, S., Boivin, J., Williams, A., Venetis, C. A., Davies, A., Ogden, J., Whelan, L., Hughes, B., Dalton, B., et al. (2014) · BMJ · doi:10.1136/bmj.g7015 · Cited by 489
Self-citationHansen, A. (2011) · International Communication Gazette · doi:10.1177/1748048510386739 · Cited by 282
A New Application of Social Impact in Social Media for Overcoming Fake News in Health
Pulido, C., Ruiz-Eugenio, L., Redondo-Sama, G., & Villarejo-Carballido, B. (2020) · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · doi:10.3390/ijerph17072430 · Cited by 271
Metadata
- Authors
- Lewis, J., Williams, A., & Franklin, B.
- Corresponding author
- Lewis, Justin
- Williams, Andrew
- Franklin, Bob
- Venue
- Journalism Studies
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2008-02
- Volume
- 9
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 1-20
- ISSN
- 1461-670X (ISSN-L)
- 1469-9699
- OpenAlex
- W1608119483
- Cited by
- 371
- References
- 21
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 26 · 2023: 25 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 23 · 2020: 27 · 2019: 25 · 2018: 25 · 2017: 34 · 2016: 36 · 2015: 25 · 2014: 23 · 2013: 16 · 2012: 11
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journalism Studies (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Communication › News Media Framing and Political Communication
- Social Sciences › Communication › Journalism and Media Studies
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Media Influence and Politics
- Keywords
- news agencies, editorial independence, fourth estate, news content, quality newspapers, radio and television news, press associations, information subsidies, political economy of journalism, British media
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
