Churnalism

Churnalism is a form of journalism in which press releases, stories provided by news agencies, and other forms of pre-packaged material, instead of reported news, are used to create articles in newspapers and other news media. Its purpose is to reduce cost by reducing original news-gathering and checking sources, to counter revenue lost with the rise of Internet news and decline in advertising; there was a particularly steep fall from late 2015. The term "churnalism" has been credited to BBC journalist Waseem Zakir, who coined the term in 2008.

Churnalism has increased to the point that many stories found in the press are not original. The decline of original journalism has been associated with a corresponding rise in public relations.

In his book Flat Earth News, the British journalist Nick Davies reported a study at Cardiff University by Professor Justin Lewis and a team of researchers which found that 80% of the stories in Britain's quality press were not original and that only 12% of stories were generated by reporters. The result is a reduction of quality and accuracy, as the articles are open to manipulation and distortion.

BBC journalist Waseem Zakir has been credited for coining the term churnalism. According to Zakir, the trend towards this form of journalism involves reporters becoming more reactive and less proactive in searching for news – "You get copy coming in on the wires and reporters churn it out, processing stuff and maybe adding the odd local quote. It's affecting every newsroom in the country and reporters are becoming churnalists."

An editorial on the matter in the British Journalism Review saw this trend as terminal for current journalism, "...a harbinger of the end of news journalism as we know it, the coroner's verdict can be nothing other than suicide." Others, such as Peter Preston, former editor of The Guardian, see the issue as over-wrought, saying that there was never a golden age of journalism in which journalists were not subject to such pressures.

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Wikipedia