This article is a detailed discourse analytic study about the transformation of three social research reports into television news, above all through the reporter–source interview. The focus is on how questions are used to probe responses and explanations and how these are either omitted from or incorporated into the final news stories. By this unique research design the interactional conduct of the reporter–source interview as well as some aspects of question design applied in the interview are described. It is argued that both the interviews as well as the editing of the news stories are guided by ‘narrative relevance’, i.e. the reporter’s preliminary idea of what the emerging story should/could look like, rather than by the actual outcome of the interviews.
Altheide, D. (1974) Creating Reality: How TV News Distorts Events. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage .
2.
Asp, K. (1995) Kommersialiserade TV-nyheter p gott och ont. J‰mfrande unders^kning av Rapport TV2 och Nyheterna TV4[Commercialized TV News for Good or Worse] (Working Report 50). Gothenburg: JMG.
3.
Atkinson, M. (1984) Our Masters’ Voices: The Language and Body Language of Politics. London: Methuen .
4.
Atkinson, P. and Silverman, D. (1997) ‘Kundera’s Immortality: The Interview Society and the Invention of the Self ’ , Qualitative Inquiry3(3): 304–325 .
5.
Clayman, S. (1990) ‘From Talk to Text: Newspaper Accounts of Reporter–Source Interaction’ , Media, Culture and Society12(1): 79–103 .
6.
Clayman, S. (1992) ‘Footing in the Achievement of Neutrality: The Case of Newsinterview Discourse’, in P. Drew and J. Heritage (eds) Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional Settings, pp. 163–198. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .
7.
Clayman, S. (1995) ‘Defining Moments, Presidential Debates and theDynamics of Quotability’ , Journal of Communication45(3): 118–146 .
8.
Clayman, S. and Heritage, J. (2002) The News Interview: Journalists and Public Figures on the Air. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .
9.
Cohen, A. (1987) The Television News Interview. Thousand Oaks, CA:Sage .
10.
Cohen, A. (1989) ‘Answers without Questions: A Comparative Analysis of Television News Interviews’ , European Journal of Communication4: 435–451 .
11.
Dahl, H.F. (1989) ‘Hva innebaerer forskning om journalistik?’ [What does journalism research mean?]Nordicom-Information4: 3–6 .
12.
Ekstrm, M. (2001) ‘Politicians Interviewed on Television News’ , Discourse and Society12(5): 563–584 .
13.
Epstein, E. (1973) News from Nowhere. New York: Random House .
14.
Fairclough, N. (1995) Media Discourse. London: Arnold .
15.
Greatbatch, D. (1988) ‘A Turn-Taking System for British News Interviews’ , Language in Society17: 401–430 .
16.
Hallin, D. (1992) ‘Sound Bite News’ , Journal of Communication42(2): 5–24 .
17.
Helland, K. and Sand, G. (1998) Bak TV-nyhetene: Produksjon og presentasjon i NRK och TV2 [Behind TV News]. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget .
18.
Heritage, J. (1985) ‘Analyzing News Interviews: Aspects of the Production of Talk for an Overhearing Audience’, in T. Van Dijk (ed.) Handbook of Discourse Analysis,vol. 3:Discourse and Dialogue,pp. 95–117. London: Academic Press .
19.
Hutchby, I. (1996) Confrontation Talk: Arguments, Asymmetries and Power on Talk Radio. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum .
20.
Kurikka, P. (2000) H‰ll‰ v‰li‰?[Who cares?] Nuorten Suomi 2001 tutkimuksia nro 5. Helsinki: Suomen kuntaliitto.
21.
Linell, P. (1998) ‘Interaktionen i samtal – en teoretisk bakgrund’ [Talk-in-Interaction – A Theoretical Background], in P.-A. Forstorp and P. Linell (eds) Samtal pÂgÂr: Dialogiska perspektiv p svenska mediedebatter pp. 9–48. Stockholm: Carlssons .
22.
Nylund, M. (2000) Iscensatt interaktion: Strukturer och strategier i politiska mediesamtal.[Staged Interaction: Structures and Strategies in Political Broadcast Talk.]Helsinki: Svenska litteraturs‰llskapet iFinland .
23.
Nylund, M. (2001) ‘Reported Speech in Front Page Journalism: On Some Aspects ofQuoting and Morality in Top Priority News in Nordic Newspapers’. MS, Swedish School of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki.
24.
Papp, K., Kontula, O. and Kosonen K. (2000) Nuorten aikuisten seksuaalik‰ytt‰ytyminen ja seksuaaliset riskinotot.[The sexual behaviour of young adults and sexual risk-taking.] V‰estntutkimuslaitos D 36. V‰estliitto.
25.
Pomerantz, A. (1988) ‘Offering a Candidate Answer: An Information Seeking Strategy’ ,Communication Monographs55: 360–373 .
26.
Renckstorf, K. , McQuail, D. and Jankowski, N. (2001) ‘Television News Research: RecentEuropean Approaches and Findings’ , Communications Monograph, vol. 2. Berlin: Quintessence Books .
27.
Scannell, P (ed.) (1991) Broadcast Talk. London: Sage Publications .
28.
Schudson, M. (1994) ‘Question Authority: A History of the News Interview in AmericanJournalism, 1860s–1930s’ , Media, Culture & Society16: 565–587 .
29.
Svensson, C. (2001) Samtal, deltagande och demokrati i svenska TV-debattprogram.[Talk, participation and democracy in Swedish TV-debate programmes.] Linkping University, Tema K.
30.
Thompson, K. (1998) Moral Panics. London: Routledge .
31.
Tutkimustieto (4/2000) Viron tymarkkinailmasto: Virolaisten muuttoalttius Suomeen ja tymarkkinapoliittiset kysymykset ja suomalaisten suhtautuminen Viron EU-j‰senyyteen.[The labour market in Estonia: The tendency to move to Finland and labour market politicsand Finnish attitudes to Estonian EU membership.]Helsinki: Suomen Ammattiliittojen keskusj‰rjest .
32.
Wortham S. and Locher, M. (1996) ‘Voicing in the News: An AnalyticTechnique forStudying Media Bias’ , Text16(4): 557–585 .
