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Science journalists in the UK face a number of significant challenges, some shared by journalists in general and some specific to the reporting of science. The world of journalism is changing rapidly as online media grow, squeezing resources and putting pressure on journalists to produce maximum output on minimum resources. The effect is to threaten to shift the role of science news production away from science journalists to public relations (PR) professionals, and to reduce the essential democratic role of the journalist holding the spenders of public money to account. Evidence for this is offered from recent research into the state of science journalism in the UK, and from a BBC-commissioned report into the impartiality of new science coverage in the UK by the state broadcaster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Journalism has historically belittled public relations as being profligate and soft. But life is better in PR-land says a business journalist who crossed over: "Certainly, my lifestyle and work in public relations is far more enjoyable than my last job in journalism, which became a bit of a battle not only over expenses but also time spent at my desk and words produced. In PR, these things are not issues. Results are the only measure of success and if you get good ones then no one gives a damn about how many hours you spend in the office." And he concludes: "Journalists who've used up their expense budgets and spent all their own meagre wages but need to entertain an important contact contact me from time to time. Would I mind joining in and picking up the tab to save the hack's embarrassment? Of course not. All part of the service. Do I want anything in return? Maybe, but nothing earth shattering. A little mention here, a non-mention there. Is that unethical? In the modern world, I don't think so." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our analysis of 2207 domestic news reports in a structured sample of UK "quality" (the Guardian, The Times, the Independent and the Telegraph) and mid-market (Daily Mail) newspapers, revealed journalists' extensive use of copy provided by public relations sources and news agencies, especially the UK-based Press Association. A political economic explanation for this reliance on news stories produced "outside the newsroom", draws inspiration from Gandy's notion of information subsidies and presents findings from a substantive content analysis of selected UK national newspapers, interviews with journalists working on national titles and news agencies, as well as detailed archival analysis of UK newspaper companies' annual accounts across 20 years to deliver information about newspapers' profitability, their expansive editorial pagination as well as the number of journalists they employ. The argument here is that this reliance on public relations and news agency copy has been prompted by the need for a relatively stable community of journalists to meet an expansive requirement for news in order to maintain newspapers' profitability in the context of declining circulations and revenues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is frequently observed that political communication processes related to elections, political parties and the electorally accountable domains of executive authority have entered a period of great conflict. This article widens this debate, by examining journalists' relations with "quasi-government" bodies--i.e. the myriad of arm's-length public bodies (often referred to as "quangos"), that are appointed to office and that have colonised many official advisory, regulatory and executive functions. Presenting findings from semi-structured interviews with 40 UK-based specialist national and regional journalists, the article demonstrates how even these experienced journalists struggle to cope with the complex and evolving structure of quasi-government in the UK, and how their attitudes are often highly inconsistent. Although most are hostile towards the broad principle of appointive-government, their relations with specific public bodies that fall within this rubric are in the main highly co-operative, and these sources are often deemed authoritative and dispassionate arbiters in the public policy arena. The article concludes by discussing the political implications of the appreciably less conflictive relations evident in the reporting of appointive government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the relationship between media and the British government. According to the author, governmental systems differ in the explicitness of their management of information, and Fascist and Communist systems in the twentieth century saw information as a legitimate tool to control the masses and governments in military and other one-party systems seem also to accept it. He stressed that in the country, as seen by foreign journalists and observers, there appears to be a large gap between what is publicly known, and what is unofficially and unattributably understood.