Silencing the agenda? Journalism practices and intelligence events: A case study

Abstract

This article is a response to theoretical and methodological gaps witnessed in both journalism and intelligence literature. The goal of this research is to better our understanding of journalistic practices when covering intelligence-related events. National and international news agencies’ coverage of the failed Mossad operation in Bern in 1998 serves as an empirical case. The article discusses the benefit of grounded theory as a bottom-up inductive qualitative coding method to address these methodological gaps, and provides an empirical study that traces the evolution of the news coverage of the Bern operation, rather than merely studying the content of the final news product. Results challenge three main theoretical areas: journalist–source relationships, agenda setting, and framing. Concerning the journalist–source relationship, the article shows that, in cases of intelligence events, newsworthiness criteria depend on what other media know about the story rather than publicizing new facts. Moreover, quantitative and qualitative analyses of sources show that, in cases of leaked information, the longer that time has passed, people, media, and officials are less willing to give sourced information. Regarding agenda setting theory, this study suggests that struggles between media, statecraft, and intelligence whilst covering leaks should be conceived as ‘agenda-silencing’, where the purpose of media coverage is also to communicate and legitimize silences orchestrated by security and intelligence censorship. Finally, the data suggest that the concept of framing is altered in case of intelligence-related events. In fact, the framing relies mostly on hypotheses of interpretation which media are not able to assert openly due to various types of censorship.