Psychology of News Decisions.

This paper is about causal explanations for the way journalists report the news. In its first part, the paper reviews traditional and current models or theories of journalists' news decisions, concentrating on news factors, institutional objectives, the manipulative power of public relations by news sources, and subjective beliefs of journalists. It comes to the conclusion that most of these approaches lack deeper explanations of the underlying processes leading to news judgments. Starting from these shortcomings and from the assumption that most of journalists' work is about perceptions, conclusions, and judgments it then attempts to apply psychological theories to news decision-making. The author holds that two general needs or functions involving specific psychological processes can explain news decisions: a need for social validation of perceptions and the need to preserve one's existing predispositions. Empirical data from several surveys among journalists is used to demonstrate the appropriateness of this approach to journalists' behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]