Decision Making in the Newsroom – Tell Me Something I Don’t Know

Abstract

Most journalism is not about facts but about the interpretation of what seem to be facts. In recent years, the interpretation, influence and pervasiveness of the news from different media organization are beyond doubt. Yet there are still disagreements and conflicting views about just how the public is influenced by the media in general by the news written by the journalist particularly and the stories produced by the editors specifically. Journalism is often called the news business – the gathering, the processing and delivery of important and interesting information and further developments or follow-up stories by newspapers and broadcast media or vice versa – is inextricably entangled in that giant, whirling entity often referred to as the media. Story selection is a decision-making and choice-making process but a hurried one. As a result, the considerations must be quickly and easily applicable so that choices can be made without too much deliberation. The objective of the study is to identify the changes that have taken place in the editing policies in the newsrooms, explore the forces that have influenced the decision making process in the newsrooms for the broadcasting system and to study if news programming patterns have changed since Najib’s reign as Prime Minister and which government policies have influenced the network’s programming. Notable editors, chief editors and group editors from Sistem Television Malaysia Berhad (TV3) and Astro Awani gave in-depth interviews on their decision making process and issues of internal and external forces that ‘dampen’ the process of nation building in shaping the trajectory of the news, hence, sustaining a potentially transformative public sphere in tandem with the prime ministers elaborate government policies.

 

Keywords: Decision making, External forces, Government policies, Internal forces, Transformative