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Meet the typical source: A male academic between 30 and 60

Offentliggjort 07/29/2008

Af Søren Schultz Jørgensen og Annegrete Skovbjerg

ANALYSE: Translation: Kirsten Sparre

The sources of Danish daily newspapers all come from the group of people who make decision on behalf of society. On every imaginable social, cultural and demografic parameter, the sources of daily newspapers differ fundamentally from the average citizen. And the decision-making sources dominate in all types of newspapers - be they free newspapers, tabloid newspapers or broadsheet papers.

Findings at a glance

Eight out of 10 newspaper sources are men. In society only every other citizen is a man.

The typical newspaper source is aged between 30 and 60 years. Younger and older sources are significantly under-represented.

55 per cent of the newspaper sources have an academic education. In the population at large, only five per cent have an academic education.

69 per cent of the newspaper sources have been interviewed by a journalist more than 10 times over the past three years. Less than one per cent of citizens have the same degree of experience with the media.

Less than five per cent of the newspaper sources can be considered markedly inexperienced in terms of interaction with journalists - which means they have not been interviewed by a journalist in the last three years. In the general population 65 per cent have not ben interviewed by a journalist in the last three years.

Only 10 per cent of the sources in Danish newspapers are laymen or ’ordinary people’. The remaining 90 per cent appear in newspapers in their professional capacity - which means that they represent an organisation, a company, an institution, a profession or similar.

According to a survey conducted by UPDATE in connection with the project, 40 per cent of the Danish population agree that too many experts and politicians appear as sources in Danish newspapers.

Ideals about how to choose sources

Obviously there are many ideas about democracy and the role of the media in society - and the ideas are very different. Therefore it is impossible to identify one dominant ideal for interaction between the sources and the press or even for the types of sources that journalists should base their stories on.

According to a classic ideal for how journalists should choose sources, the media should strive to reflect the different groups in society in an almost representative manner (Sahlstrand, 2000:205).

According to this ideal, all social, cultural and political groups should have access to news journalism and the sources of news journalism should be characterised by pluralism. The aim of journalism - and thereby also the aim of choosing sources - is to reflect society.

Another classic ideal understands the primary role of the media to be a corrective or watchdog vis a vis the state and the political system. According to this ideal of the press as the fourth estate, the main task of journalists is to focus on and investigate how society’s decision-makers handle the responsibilities and manage the resources they have been given by the public.

Within this ideal, the aim of journalism and the choice of sources should be to reflect the representatives of society and subject them to critical scrutiny on behalf of citizens. (Lund, 2001:20).

In between these two ideals there are a number of variations that emphasize different aspects of choosing sources. There are also ideals coming from journalistic and communication approaches that focus on finding the sources who - based on for instance ideals of classic news values - have the most interesting contributions to make, are the most intelligent or most respected and therefore can help make good stories.

Similarly, there are also ideals influenced by business approaches that argue that in order to appeal to readers, viewers or listeners, the media must choose sources that will strenghten the audience’s sense of identification with the stories.

In their editorial policies, many of the major Danish newspapers emphasize their role in relation to society, democracy and citizens. In a publisher’s statement, the biggest Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten says that it aims to become ”the main frame of reference for the nation.” The oldest Danish newspaper, Berlingske Tidende, talks about pluralistic debate and the free exchange of opinions in its editorial values.

Earlier Danish media and journalism research has shown that journalists, decision-makers and citizens share an understanding that the role of journalism is to promote citizens’ involvement in society and help citizens resolve their problems within a communal framework. (Lund, 2001:19-20). From different corners of democracy - decision-makers, citizens and the news media - there is overall agreement that the role of daily news media is to provide citizens with important information and opinions.

The question is whether this view also dictates that journalism should be about citizens and include citizens on the list of sources?

Data registered in the survey

This project has registered different types of of social, cultural and demographic background information for all sources who took part in the research. For all of the 2,300 sources registered, the following information has been recorded:

Sex
Type of source - in terms of professional or vocational background

In most cases, it was possible to determine sex and source type directly from the newspaper article in which the sources appeared. Other forms of information was obtained by asking the source directly.751 sources answered a questionnaire and answered questions about

Age
Educational background
Previous experience of being used as a newspaper source - how often has the source been interviewed by journalists

In order to provide a perspective on the data from newspaper sources, UPDATE undertook a representative survey amongst the population with help from Zapera, a Danish analysis institute. In this survey, citizens were asked the same questions as the sources were asked in their survey. This approach makes it possible to compare sources of daily newspapers and citizens both in terms of social and demographic characteristics and in terms of their attiudes to journalists and the media.

The information presented below compares the social and demographic characteristics of sources with data from the survey amongst citizens and population data from the official Danish bureau for statistical information - StatBank Denmark.

The overall conclusion for all these comparisons is that the majority of sources for Danish daily newspapers are decision-makers of some sort. It is the people who set up the parameters and take decisions in our democracy - politicians, businessmen, experts and representatives of interests groups - that dominate the group of newspaper sources, not ordinary citizens. And the tendency is the same regardless of the type of newspaper.

Findings in more detail

Below are figures that outline the findings of the research in more detail.

Figure a: Male dominance

Figure d: Age of the typical source

Figure f: Educational background of newspaper sources

Figure h: Occupation of newspaper sources

(N=2210)

Figure j: Media experience of newspaper sources

Danish population against elitist bias amongst sources

The social and demographic profile of Danish newspaper sources has not previously been documented as it has been done in this project. But that does not mean that the conclusions are new or surprising. Far from it as they dovetail with findings from a number of other research projects and discussions of how decision-makers and expert sources dominate in the media (See for instance: Togeby 2002 and Kristensen 2004).

The first question to ask is of course whether an elite profile amongst sources constitutes a problem - and if so for whom. As outlined in the beginning of this chapter there are competing ideas of what represents the ideal choice of sources for newspapers. And it is only if you subscribe to the idea that newspapers should reflect all citizens and social groupings that the consequent choice of elite sources by newspapers could be considered a democratic or social problem.

But to the extent that the printed newspaper is only one out of the five or six most important media types in Danish society - next to tv, radio, internet, mobile phones and podcast media - it is difficult to say that the imbalance represents a problem for the population at a more general level. The democracy is dependent on media - but not necessarily on printed newspapers. As long as citizens have the possibility of choosing between alternative sources of information and media that are more popular in their choices of sources, democracy will come to no harm. There are plenty of opportunities for citizens for communication, information and debate.

From a purely market-oriented perspective an elitist source profile can only be a problem for the news media themselves and only if the imbalanced choice of sources affect the quality of contents, the newspaper’s credibility or the newspaper’s position in the

market place.

UPDATE’s survey amongst the population gives some indications that this could be the case:

40 per cent of citizens in the survey say they agree that ”Danish newspapers use too many experts and politicians as sources.” 26 per cent disagree with this statement, and 29 per cent neither agree nor disagree.
41 percent say they agree that ”Danish newspapers use too few ordinary people as sources.” 24 per cent disagree with this statement, and 28 per cent neither agree nor disagree.
38 per cent say they agree that ”articles in Danish newspapers focus too little on ordinary people”. 27 per cent disagree with this statement, and 32 per cent neither agree nor disagree.

In other words: A majority of citizens believe that Danish newspapers are too elitist in their contents and choice of sources.

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Meet the typical source: A male academic between 30 and 60

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