Organizations and the Media

Abstract

The results of a recent survey of 140 randomly selected for-profit and nonprofit organizations covered in seven Maryland, Delaware, and District of Columbia newspapers, and field interviews with journalists and organizational respondents based on articles about those organizations, suggest that discrepancies in communication may result not only from reporting routines but also from the organization's own ideologies and structures governing work and communication. In organic organizations with values compatible with open communication, dependency relationships with journalists are more likely to form, and these appear to diminish claims of distorted reporting. Specifically, systematic discrepancies or differences between organizations and reporters on the salience, selection, and interpretation (accuracy, framing, and emphasis) of news reports were found to be more common for public sector (particularly government) mechanistic bureaucracies of large-sized (greater than 5,000 employees) than for private organizations having organic structures, and these organizations were the ones lacking open communication behaviors that foster dependency relationships.

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