The Rise of Interpretive Journalism

Abstract

Interpretive journalism is a journalistic style, characterized by reporters expressing their opinion, speculating about the future or explaining why something happened, without referring to verifiable facts or statements from news sources. Previous research upon this phenomenon is rather scattered, and inconclusive about the mechanisms underlying the presence of this journalistic style. This study aims to address both shortcomings by investigating newspaper coverage on coalition negotiations in Belgium. Conducting a quantitative, longitudinal content analysis, the evolution of interpretive journalism is studied between 1985 and 2014. Results show a remarkably strong, almost linear increase in the amount of interpretation in newspaper articles over a period of 29 years. Apart from the structural evolution in the media landscape that might cause this trend to occur, contextual determinants differing from one coalition formation to another turn out to be relevant as well. While interpretive journalism is on the rise, this is especially so when considering lengthy, difficult negotiations. This finding emphasizes the importance of contextual determinants-information accessibility in this case-in explaining journalistic trends.

The Tensions of the Cultural News Beat

“…In addition to these tensions stemming from within the beat, broader changes in journalism brought about by digitalization and commercialization also put pressure on the cultural beat from the outside, as interpretive approaches are seeping into other parts of journalism. Several studies show that explanations, judgements, opinions but also emotions have increased across daily news outlets and in political journalism since the mid-end twentieth century (e.g., Salgado and Strömbäck 2012;Barnhurst 2014;Soontjens 2019). While this may not be a completely new trend, it has long been a blind spot in journalism practice and research, because it counters the ideology of objectivity, key to traditional conceptualizations of journalism (Kotišová 2020;Wahl-Jorgensen 2020).…”

The Rise of a Pandemic-related Writing Style in the News Media

“…The phenomenon of evolving writing patterns began to change. Because of the advancement of digital technologies, the news writing style has transformed from being primarily descriptive (inverted pyramid) to becoming more interpretive (narrative) (Soontjens, 2019).…”

“…Even in the United States, research, notably on political news, has revealed that interpretive journalism (i.e., trivia, entertainment, and opinions) has served as a substitute for reporting and has shifted toward personal and literary forms (Houston, 2008). The use of interpretive journalism in today's news has gradually increased (Soontjens, 2019).…”

The hostile media: politicians’ perceptions of coverage bias

“…The effect is substantial; elite outlets score on average 13 per cent higher (more hostile) on the 11-point scale. One explanation might be that elite outlets generally have more extensive coverage on political issues, which allows for more (critical) journalistic interpretation (see Soontjens 2019). The same argument applies to newspaper coverage as opposed to television news reports; the latter is perceived as significantly less hostile.…”