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Who dominates the debate? Five news agencies and their sources before the
U.S.-Iraq war
Who dominates the debate? Five news agencies and their sources
Who dominates the debate? Five news agencies
and their sources before the U.S.-Iraq war
Beverly Horvit, assistant professor
Texas Christian University
Department of Journalism
TCU Box 298060
Fort Worth, TX 76129
[log in to unmask]
(817) 257-6545 (office)
(817) 468-5149 (home)
(817) 257-7322 (fax)
A paper submitted April 1, 2004, to the International Communication
Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.
Abstract: A stratified random sample of 321news articles related to the
U.S.-Iraq conflict from Jan. 31, 2003, to Feb. 18, 2003, was selected from
five news agencies – AP, Agence France Presse, Xinhua, ITAR-TASS and Inter
Press Service. U.S. official sources were the most frequently used, and
only ITAR-TASS -- showed nationalistic bias in its sourcing. However, the
non-Western news agencies offered readers more diverse sourcing in their
coverage of the debate leading up to the war.
Who dominates the debate? Five news agencies
and their sources before the U.S.-Iraq war
A paper submitted April 1, 2004, to the International Communication
Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.
Abstract: A stratified random sample of 321news articles related to the
U.S.-Iraq conflict from Jan. 31, 2003, to Feb. 18, 2003, was selected from
five news agencies – AP, Agence France Presse, Xinhua, ITAR-TASS and Inter
Press Service. U.S. official sources were the most frequently used, and
only ITAR-TASS -- showed nationalistic bias in its sourcing. However, the
non-Western news agencies offered readers more diverse sourcing in their
coverage of the debate leading up to the war.
Who dominates the debate? Five news agencies and their sources
7
In the beginning months of 2003, world leaders debated the merits of a
United States-led war against Iraq and its leader, Saddam Hussein. The
debate was carried out at the United Nations and in the world media. The
United States' president, George W. Bush, was not swayed by public protests
at home or abroad, and neither was he swayed by the arguments against
immediate military action made before the United Nations Security Council.
The president had begun laying his case against Iraq in his January 2002
State of the Union address when he referred to Iraq as being part of an
"axis of evil." As part of his 2003 State of the Union address, President
Bush reiterated his arguments for why the United States should take
pre-emptive action against Iraq and its leader, Saddam Hussein. Soon after,
he sent his secretary of state, Colin Powell, to the United Nations
Security Council to present information on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass
destruction. Still, although the United States had persuaded 30 countries
to support its efforts to oust Saddam Hussein when it began its war against
Iraq in March 2003, several influential nations, including Russia, China
and France – all three permanent members of the United Nations Security
Council -- remained steadfastly opposed to U.S.-led military action against
Iraq.
This paper will examine how successful the international players were in
getting their viewpoints heard in the court of world public opinion. In
other words, how newsworthy were the points of view expressed by officials
and citizens of different countries in the prelude to war? Who was most
successful in setting the news agenda of the purveyors of much of the
world's news about itself – the global news agencies? This paper will
examine the sourcing practices of five news agencies -- The Associated
Press, Agence France Presse, Xinhua, ITAR-TASS and the Inter Press Service
-- as they covered the early-2003 debate swirling around the U.S.-Iraq war.
Literature Review
Although the realists among international relations theorists have long
suggested that nation-states will act in their own strategic interests,[1]
regardless, perhaps of media content, communication scholars have found
links between media and foreign policy,[2] albeit complicated ones with
connections running in multiple directions from one actor to another to
another.[3] "In democratic political systems," Larson and Chen say, "the
assumption is that an enlightened public will receive politically important
information through the press and in turn will provide guidance to
policymakers."[4] Sometimes that guidance – calls to Capitol Hill after
seeing Marines' bodies being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, for
example – can lead to a change in policy, such as the withdrawal of troops
from Somalia.
Who controls the politically important information that appears in the news
media's coverage to be consumed by the public? Rogers and Dearing define
the agenda-setting process, which was first studied empirically by McCombs
and Shaw in 1968,[5] as "an ongoing competition among issue proponents to
gain the attention of the media professionals, the public and policy
elites."[6] The goal is to put an issue on the agenda -- "a set of issues
that are communicated in a hierarchy of importance at a point in time."[7]
To help organize the vast body of research on agenda setting, Rogers and
Dearing have divided the process into three components -- public agenda
setting, media agenda setting and policy agenda setting; they argue that
agenda setting is a process of interaction among the three parts.[8] This
paper will focus on who seems to be setting the agenda for five world news
agencies.
Setting the agenda
Agenda-setting researchers began asking who sets the media's agenda in the
1980s, and they identified such factors as the journalists' sources, other
news media and the journalists' professional practices, values and
traditions.[9] Although not explicitly concerned with "agenda setting,"
Gans[10] and Tuchman[11] addressed similar issues, and Shoemaker and Reese
identified several major influences on media content such as individual
media workers, media routines, organizational influences, influences from
outside media organizations and ideology.[12]
Although the journalists' practices, values and traditions certainly have
an effect on the content they produce, it is the content itself that is
paramount in the agenda-setting process. Of particular interest are the
sources used by the journalists. Arguably, the news sources are "the best
available measure of influence on news coverage."[13] Examining
journalists' choice of sources allows one to quantify news content and to
make inferences about who was the most successful in setting the media's
agenda. In the realm of foreign policy, for example, Livingston and Eachus
have suggested that different segments of the American foreign-policy
establishment try to use the media to articulate and win support for their
positions.[14] Surely, world leaders try to do the same when they
communicate with members of the international press.
Researchers examining U.S. media's use of sources have found that official,
government sources are among those most frequently quoted[15] and that
reporters rely mainly on "routine channels of newsgathering," such as
official proceedings, press releases, press conferences and other staged
events.[16] Gans reported that the "economically and politically powerful
can obtain easy access to, and are sought out by, journalists; those who
lack power are harder to reach by journalists and are generally not sought
out until their activities produce social or moral disorder news."[17]
Arguably one of the most powerful, official news sources who exists is the
president of the United States. Indeed, one study found that a president
might influence television coverage of issues, such as international
crises, if he is an important news source.[18] Indeed, it is in the realm
of foreign policy where the president, or at least his administration, can
be the most important news source. A content analysis of network news
reports on the Persian Gulf crisis, for example, found that more than 50
percent of all reports "emanated directly from official spokespersons."[19]
In his review of the literature, Hertog identified three major influences
on American media coverage of foreign policy, including administration
press management -- the administration's ability to manage how the news is
presented to the public. [20] Cassara, for example, found that President
Carter was able to influence coverage – and help create more coverage,
overall – of human rights issues in Latin America.[21]
In addition to governmental sources, other entities capable of influencing
the media agenda are the prestigious press, such as the New York Time.[22]
In a study of international correspondents in Washington, Ghorpade also
found that other media rated among the most regularly used sources,
primarily because of staff and budgetary restraints.[23] Others who can set
the media agenda are pressure groups and special interest groups.[24]
The journalists' sourcing practices are also colored by their professional
values. Althaus et al concluded that the journalistic norm of objectivity,
for example, seemed to have led New York Times journalists covering the
U.S.-Libya crisis of 1985-1986 to cite foreign sources when opposing views
were difficult to find in the United States.[25]
Values also can vary with the news organization and cultures in question.
Patterson and Donsbach note that many newspapers in Europe are associated
with particular political parties or ideologies.[26] "Journalists are not
nonpartisan actors," Patterson and Donsbach concluded. "They are simply
more or less partisan, depending on the country and arena in which they
work."[27] In another cross-cultural study, British journalists were found
to be more likely to use secondhand information from government than were
U.S. journalists.[28] In addition, another study suggests international
correspondents may favor sources from their own country. Atwood, for
example, found that news reported on the U.S.-Japanese trade frictions, for
example, reflected the point of view of the journalists' own country.[29]
Who is gathering the news seems to matter.
The news agencies
According to Bernard C. Cohen, "The world looks different to different
people, depending not only on their personal interests, but also on the map
that is drawn for them by the writers, editors, and publishers of the
papers they read."[30] A high percentage of the news that circles the globe
emanates from global news agencies. The news agencies, then, are largely
responsible for the image of the world presented to the world's public.
This study examines the content of agencies based in France, China, Russia
and the United States – all countries with permanent seats on the U.N.
Security Council. The coverage of a fifth agency – the Inter Press Service
– also was examined for theoretical reasons to be discussed later.
Hachten has classified three of the five agencies reviewed -- The
Associated Press, Agence France Presse and ITAR-TASS (the Information
Telegraph Agency of Russia) – as world agencies. "What made these five
organizations world agencies is their capability to report news from almost
anywhere to almost anywhere else," Hachten says.[31] Indeed, some critics
have said the AP and AFP nearly "monopolize the gathering and distribution
of international news."[32] AP, a United States-based nonprofit
cooperative, is a major source of international news for most daily
American newspapers[33] and the "dominant institution in the world news
system."[34] For its part, Agence France Presse receives subsidies from the
French government[35] but has reporters in 165 international capitals.[36]
The Associated Press and Agence France Press have a "stated goal of
objectivity," which facilitates their ability to distribute news to
countries all around the world.[37] The two agencies also are based in
democratic societies.
Aside from the Western-based AP and AFP, this study will also examine the
coverage of Russia's ITAR-TASS, China's Xinhua agency and the Inter Press
Service. Although ITAR-TASS has traditionally been considered among the
Big Five world agencies, it has not been considered a serious rival to the
top Western agencies because of its history of state control by the
Soviets. In 1970, Schwartz wrote quite bluntly, "Tass and other communist
news agencies are servants of the governments which own and control them. …
These state-operated agencies are propaganda instruments, and the news they
disseminate publicly reflects the policy objectives of their masters."[38]
Times have changed, of course. For starters, the Soviet Union no longer
exists and, therefore, TASS can no longer be considered a communist news
agency. In addition, the introduction of Perestroika in the late 1980s
"meant a new role for TASS, more approaching that of the Western
agencies."[39]
Like ITAR-TASS, Xinhua, another communist news agency, was established as a
state-controlled official spokesman for its country's Communist Party, and
even in the 1990s, its Hong Kong branch was used for diplomatic
functions.[40] Xinhua, or the New China News Agency, was established in
1937 and now transmits about 50,000 words daily to the Chinese media and
60,000 words overseas in six languages. As of at least 1995, Xinhua
"correspondents are classified as diplomats and enjoy diplomatic
immunity."[41] Like ITAR-TASS, Xinhua also operates in a non-free press
environment.
Another news agency likely to provide a different perspective on world
events than that provided by the AP and AFP is the Inter Press Service. To
compensate for the Western agencies' near monopoly on the flow of news, the
Inter Press Service was created to provide coverage of the developing
world. The Inter Press Service is now "the largest international agency
specializing in Third World News."[42] IPS began as cooperative of Latin
American journalists but in the late 1970s began expanding into Asia and
Africa to cooperate with 30 national news agencies in the developing
world.[43] By the 1980s, Altschull reports, IPS had become the
sixth-largest world news agency. According to its Web site, "IPS focuses
its news coverage on the events and global processes affecting the
economic, social and political development of peoples and nations."[44]
If the Inter Press Service focuses on the developing world, Western-based
news agencies in this study have been accused of doing just the opposite.
Studies of international news flow show that how much news coverage a
country receives is related to the country's status on the world stage[45]
and the developing world "continues to be a neglected part of the
globe."[46] If Western reporting tends to rely on official sources and on
to "over-report" on countries with power, it seems logical –
notwithstanding any "debate" at the United Nations – that official sources
from what is considered the world's lone remaining superpower – the United
States would dominate the debate about a war in Iraq.
The literature review suggests the following research questions and
hypotheses related to how five news agencies from different parts of globe
might report the pre-war debate:
RQ1: What is the geographic reach of each news agency based on the number
of different datelines?
RQ2: What is the geographic reach of the Western vs. non-Western news agencies?
RQ3: Who are the news agencies' most frequently used sources?
H1: The news agencies' sourcing practices will reflect the agencies' origin
by quoting a higher percentage of sources from their home countries than
the other agencies.
H1a: The Associated Press will run stories with a higher percentage of
American sources than the other agencies.
H1b: Agence France Press will run stories with a higher percentage of
French sources than the other agencies.
H1c: Xinhua will run stories with a higher percentage of Chinese sources
than the other agencies.
H1d: ITAR-TASS will run stories with a higher percentage of Russian sources
than the other agencies.
H1e: Inter Press Service will run stories with a higher percentage of
sources from the Americas (excluding the United States and Canada).
H2: The news agencies' sourcing practices will reflect the agencies'
national origin by quoting a higher percentage of sources from their
regions than the other agencies.
H2a: The Associated Press will run stories with a higher percentage of
North American sources than the other agencies.
H2b: Agence France Press will run stories with a higher percentage of
Western European sources than the other agencies.
H2c: Xinhua will run stories with a higher percentage of Asian sources than
the other agencies.
H2d: ITAR-TASS will run stories with a higher percentage of Eastern
European sources than the other agencies.
H3: The news agencies' sourcing practices will reflect the Western
ideological vs. non-Western ideological background of the agencies.
H3a: The non-Western news agencies -- Xinhua, ITAR-TASS and the Inter Press
Service -- will run stories with a higher percentage of non-Western news
sources than the Western news agencies.
H3b: The Western news agencies – AP and AFP -- will run stories with a
higher percentage of Western sources than the non-Western news agencies.
H5: News agencies based in democratic countries – The Associated Press and
Agence France Presse -- will cite a higher percentage of public opinion
sources than do the other news agencies.
Methodology
A stratified random sample of 321 stories was selected from the Lexis-Nexis
database using "Iraq" and the "United States" as key words, the individual
news agency as the source and "between Jan. 29, 2003, and Feb. 18, 2003,"
as the date.[47] The three-week time period begins the day after President
Bush's State of the Union address. Stories of less than 150 words or that
focused on another issue besides the U.S.-Iraq conflict were excluded. One
out of every 10 original[48] stories was selected for The Associated Press
(N=93), Agence France Presse (N=126) and Xinhua (N=45). Because the other
two news agencies – the Inter Press Service and ITAR-TASS -- were
significantly less prolific, the sample size goal was 10 stories per agency
per week. For the Inter Press Service (N=27), all available stories were
selected.
Each paragraph of the 321 stories was then analyzed for the sources cited.
Sources from the United States, England, France, Germany, China, Russia and
Iraq were coded as either official sources or public opinion sources from
those countries. Sources of other nationalities were coded as either public
opinion or official sources by region: the Americas, Asia, Eastern Europe,
the Middle East and Western Europe.[49] A source category also was
available for the United Nations.
The distinction between official and public opinion sources was adapted
from the coding protocol developed by Kern, Levering and Levering.[50]
Official sources included the heads of state and their staffs, diplomatic
personnel, past or present members of the military, officials in government
agencies, and elected and appointed legislative officials at the state,
local and national level. NATO sources who were not identified by their
nationalities were coded as official Western European sources.
As in Kern et al, the public opinion category included business, labor,
religious, patriotic and peace groups; polls, nonsystematic random
interviews, statements by academics and individual statements of opinion;
and information attributed to other media or journalists. If the
nationality of sources with nongovernmental organizations was unclear, then
the sources were coded based on where the NGO was based. For example, the
International Committee of the Red Cross is based in Switzerland, so ICRC
officials were coded as Western public opinion sources.
For this study, if a news agency cited another news organization as quoting
a particular individual, that paragraph was coded as if the individual were
the source, not the second news organization. In addition, if a story cited
another news organization and labeled that organization as state media,
then that information was coded as coming from an official source, not a
public opinion source.
Some paragraphs may have cited more than one explicit human source. For
example, a Chinese official and an American official might be quoted in the
same paragraph. In such a case, the paragraph was coded as both types of
sources. If a source was not named and it was unclear when the individual
provided the information, the paragraph was not coded. Sources that were
identified only with a country and time element (for example, "Moscow said
Wednesday") were coded as explicit sources from the appropriate country.
A single coder conducted the source coding for the study. To check the
reliability of the coding, another coder analyzed a 10 percent sample of
the stories. The level of agreement on the source coding – 28 possible
categories including the option of no explicit sourcing – was 83 percent.
"A minimal level of 80 percent is usually the standard."[51][52]
For each story, the number of paragraphs per source was recorded and a
percentage calculated for each type source (N=335). In some cases, there
was no explicit sourcing, making calculating a percentage impossible. Those
scores were treated as missing variables. For some data analysis, the
official and public opinion sources were aggregated by nationality or type
news agency. For those hypotheses comparing two groups, for example,
Western and non-Western, a t test was conducted with the alpha level set at
p=.05. When comparing more than two means, an analysis of variance was
performed with the alpha level also set at p=.05. When the analysis of
variance was significant, a Tukey post hoc test was conducted.
RQ1: What is the geographic reach of each news agency based on the number
of different datelines?
In this sample, Agence-France Presse reported from the greatest number of
countries at 37, compared with 30 different datelines in the AP sample.
(See Table 1.)
The number of different datelines among the other agencies ranged from 14
in ITAR-TASS to 21 in Xinhua. Although those non-Western agencies reported
from fewer countries, they also produced much fewer stories. If one divides
the number of different datelines by the total number of stories, then the
"dateline diversity quotient," so to speak, is much higher for the
non-Western agencies than for the Western news agencies. For the Inter
Press Service, for example, 59 percent of its stories were from different
datelines, compared with 47 percent in both the ITAR-TASS and Xinhua
samples. The "dateline diversity quotient" was much lower for the Western
news agencies -- 29 percent for AFP and 32 percent for AP.
Of course, for every news agency besides ITAR-TASS, the most frequent
dateline was the United States. (See Table 2.) Most of the Russian news
agency's stories originated in Russia. For the two Western news agencies –
the AP and Agence France-Presse – the five most frequent datelines were
almost identical – the United States, Iraq, England, Turkey and the United
Nations. However, unlike the AP sample, the AFP sample included as many
stories from Russia as it did stories from England, Turkey and the United
Nations. (England was the United States' most prominent ally before and
during the war, and Turkey was debating its response to U.S. requests about
using its bases.) More variation appeared in the datelines of the
non-Western news agencies. The third most frequent dateline in the Inter
Press Service stories was Australia, for example, and the second most
frequent TASS dateline was Egypt. China and Belgium tied for the
fourth-most common datelines in Xinhua's coverage of the war debate.
RQ2: What is the geographic reach of the Western vs. non-Western news agencies?
Together, the Western news agencies produced stories from 46 countries,
compared with 35 countries for the non-Western news agencies. Although the
non-Western news agencies reported from fewer countries, they did report
from countries that otherwise might have not been heard from. ITAR-TASS,
for example, was the only agency to report from Azerbaijan, Georgia,
Kyrgyzstan and the Ukraine – all formerly part of the Soviet Union. Xinhua
was the only news agency to report from communist Cuba, as well as Cyprus
and Nicaragua. The Inter Press Service was the only agency with a story
produced in Syria.
RQ3: Who are the news agencies' most frequently used sources?
Three agencies – The Associated Press, Inter Press Service and Xinhua –
most frequently cited U.S. officials, as one might expect given that the
United States was the country whose officials were proposing the war
against Iraq. Agence France Presse also cited U.S. official sources more
than any other nationality source. (See Table 3.) However, if all Western
European officials are considered together, then the AFP cited a slightly
higher percentage of Western European officials, 21 percent, than U.S.
officials, 19 percent. Interestingly, the Inter Press Service cited Asian
officials almost as often as it cited U.S. officials. More than 70 percent
of ITAR-TASS' sources were Russian officials, and 24 percent were U.S.
officials.
The Associated Press' second-most cited source category was Western
European officials, as was the case with the Xinhua agency, as well. Those
officials ranked third in the Inter Press Service's most frequently used
sources. For both The Associated Press and Agence France Presse, public
opinion sources from their respective countries/regions were among the top
five most frequently used sources, as were Iraqi officials. For the French
agency, an average of 12 percent of the sources in each story were public
opinions sources from Western Europe. That compares to 11 percent for The
Associated Press' use of U.S. public opinion sources.
Iraqi officials were among the top five most frequently used sources for
the Agence France Presse, Associated Press and Xinhua. The TASS stories did
not quote Iraqi officials, and Inter Press Service articles were more
likely to cite public opinion sources from the United States and Western
Europe.
H1: The news agencies' sourcing practices will reflect the agencies'
national origin by quoting a higher percentage of sources from their home
countries than the other agencies.
H1a: The Associated Press will run stories with a higher percentage of
American sources than the other agencies.
H1b: Agence France Press will run stories with a higher percentage of
French sources than the other agencies.
H1c: Xinhua will run stories with a higher percentage of Chinese sources
than the other agencies.
H1d: ITAR-TASS will run stories with a higher percentage of Russian sources
than the other agencies.
H1e: Inter Press Service will run stories with a higher percentage of
sources from the Americas (excluding the United States and Canada).
Hypothesis 1 was only supported for the ITAR-TASS news agency. (See Table
4.) As mentioned earlier, about 71 percent of the sources cited by TASS
were Russian, compared with between 1 percent and 6 percent for the other
agencies. Not surprisingly, the differences were statistically significant
(F=69.34, p<.0001, DF= 4, N=303). A Tukey post hoc analysis showed
ITAR-TASS' use of Russian sources varied significantly from all the other
four agencies.
Although The Associated Press cited more U.S. sources and Agence France
Presse cited more French sources than did other news agencies, the
differences were not statistically significant. In an unexpected result,
the Inter Press Service used more Chinese sources than did the Xinhua news
agency, and Xinhua used more South American sources than did the Inter
Press Service.
H2: The news agencies' sourcing practices will reflect the agencies'
national origin by quoting a higher percentage of sources from their
regions than the other agencies.
H2a: The Associated Press will run stories with a higher percentage of
North American sources than the other agencies.
H2b: Agence France Press will run stories with a higher percentage of
Western European sources than the other agencies.
H2c: Xinhua will run stories with a higher percentage of Asian sources than
the other agencies.
H2d: ITAR-TASS will run stories with a higher percentage of Eastern
European sources than the other agencies.
Hypothesis 2 was supported for the Russian news agency for which Eastern
European (entirely Russian) sources accounted for 71 percent of the
explicit sourcing. (See Table 4.) ITAR-TASS' use of Eastern European
sources was significantly higher than that of all the other news agencies
(F=40.22, p<.0001, DF=3, N=283). An analysis of variance found some support
also for the hypothesis that the French news agency would be more likely to
use Western European sources. Although the French news agency did use a
higher percentage of Western European sources than the other agencies
(F=4.47, p=.0044, DF=3, N=283), the statistically significant differences
were between Agence France Presse and ITAR-TASS. On average, 33 percent of
AFP's sources were from Western Europe, compared to zero percent in
ITAR-TASS' coverage.
H3: The news agencies' sourcing practices will reflect the Western
ideological vs. non-Western ideological background of the agencies.
H3a: The non-Western news agencies -- Xinhua, ITAR-TASS and Inter Press
Service -- will run stories with a higher percentage of non-Western news
sources than the Western news agencies.
H3b: The Western news agencies will run stories with a higher percentage of
Western sources than the non-Western news agencies.\
Hypothesis 3 was supported. The non-Western agencies were significantly
more likely to use non-Western sources than were the Western news agencies.
On average, about 57 percent of the sources cited by the non-Western
agencies were non-Western, compared with 36 percent in the Western
agencies. (See Table 5.) The difference was statistically significant, with
t =3.63 and p=.0004. By the same token, 60 percent of the Western agencies'
explicit sources were Western, compared with 41 percent of the sources
cited by the non-Western agencies. Again, the differences are significant,
with t=3.36 and p=.001. (For both types of agencies, sources from the
United Nations make up the difference.)
When examining the wire services individually, an analysis of variance
showed the differences between the news agencies were significant. With the
percentage of Western sources as the dependent variable, F=4.31 and
p=.0021. When looking at the percentage of non-Western sources as the
dependent variable, F=5.228 and p=.0004. In both cases, N=303 and DF=4. The
Tukey post analysis showed that the statistically significant differences
were between ITAR-TASS and the two Western news agencies -- The Associated
Press and ITAR-TASS.
Overall, as written, the hypothesis was supported.
Conclusions
When it came to their use of sources, both the Western news agencies and
two of the non-Western news agencies showed that, for this three-week
period, they were not significantly beholden to sources from their home
countries. Yes, The Associated Press did cite information from Americans
more than from any other type source, but so did every other news agency,
except ITAR-TASS. Such a trend in coverage is not surprising given that the
United States is the world's lone remaining superpower and this study
focused on news coverage involving that superpower's proposal to rid Iraq
of weapons of mass destruction and its totalitarian regime.
Still, for those who have suspected the non-Western agencies of primarily
being mouthpieces for their governments, these results go against the
conventional wisdom. In reporting on the U.S.-Iraq issue, Xinhua was not
used to promote China's official stance on the issue. ITAR-TASS, however,
lived up to its reputation as an organization created to disseminate
propaganda rather than report news. If the major world news from Jan. 31,
2003, to Feb. 18, 2003, was the debate over the United States' proposed war
against Iraq, ITAR-TASS was more interested in reporting what the Russian
government had to say than what was being said by Americans. Obviously,
ITAR-TASS' coverage was out of the "mainstream" in terms of the nationality
of sources. This study cannot answer why, but it does suggest the need for
further research into the self-proclaimed mission of ITAR-TASS and whether
it has really changed since the end of the Cold War.
Where the Western and non-Western agencies differed most was in their use
of non-Western vs. Western sources. If agencies such as the Inter Press
Service were created to give the developing world a voice, that need
becomes more apparent in this study. The Western news agencies did more
reporting over the three-week period, but they also tended to report from
the same centers of power – Washington and the Western European capitals.
The non-Western news agencies had a broader geographic reach, allowing
literally for one to say, "another country heard from." The geographic
reach is apparent in the sourcing, as well. Perhaps it's appropriate given
the balance of power in the world that 60 percent of the explicit sourcing
in the Western agencies' reports would be from Western sources. However,
given that the war would not take place in Western Europe or the United
States, the Western news agencies might want to re-examine how much voice
they provide those living elsewhere in the world.
Suggestions for further research
Although agenda setting presumes a linkage exists between media coverage
and public opinion, testing that linkage was beyond the scope of this
study. Still to be determined is how much of the news agencies' coverage
various publics receive. Only then could one examine any correlations
between the coverage and the public opinion.
In addition, what is true for a news agency based in a particular country
might not be true for all media in a country, particularly a democracy. For
example, a survey of Western journalists in five countries, found that
although there was little correlation between the American journalists'
partisanship and their perceptions of their news organization's
partisanship, a strong correlation did exist for journalists working for
European newspapers.[53] However, the survey was directed only to
journalists working for newspapers and broadcast organizations, not news
agencies, and the survey did not include French journalists. How a French
newspaper – or a British tabloid, for that matter – might have covered the
U.S.-Iraq debate might very well be different. Also, future studies should
include Reuters, the British news agency, because it is among the Big Five
and might provide theoretically interesting data. The British government,
after all, was the United States' strongest ally in the war with Iraq, and
the British public generally opposed the government's policy.
In addition to examining the sourcing practices, the tone of coverage
should be examined, as well. Not all sources coded as U.S. officials, for
example, supported the Bush administration's policies. Many did not. Some
were retired military or members of the opposing political party. Refining
the source categories and adding a valence variable would likely be fruitful.
Despite the limitations of the study, this research indicates that four
of the news agencies studied do not appear to be overly nationalistic.
ITAR-TASS' coverage during this three-week period only reinforced its
reputation as a mouthpiece for its government, but Xinhua's coverage used
more Western sources and fewer Chinese sources than one would have predicted.
Finally, although newspapers in the United States rarely, if ever, publish
an Inter Press Service story, perhaps newspaper editors should reconsider.
This study did not focus on the agencies' tone of coverage, which would be
difficult to reliably quantify, but even a cursory examination of the
coverage reveals the Inter Press Service's writers' strong point of view.
The reporting does not appear "objective" by Western standards, but the
points of view expressed – judging by relatively easy to quantify sourcing
practices – are difficult to find in the "objective" coverage of the
Western news agencies. When scholars and media critics have argued for
balanced news flow in the past, their critiques have often focused on where
the news originates. Perhaps the "balanced flow" argument should be
extended to journalists' sourcing practices, as well.
In his summary of the debate swirling around the Western agencies more
than 20 years ago, Richstad noted, "Imbalance in the flow of news, for
example, is viewed as a serious problem to the United States understanding
of the world, particularly of the non-Western world."[54] In quantifying
the sources used by the news agencies, it's all too clear that the United
States' public is not exposed to a full range of global viewpoints. Yes,
individuals can seek out news from multiple sources, but the news that is
most readily available does not appear to help Americans understand the
non-Western world – a world with which the United States is coming
increasingly into conflict.
Table 1
Dateline diversity
No. of different datelines
No. of stories
Dateline diversity quotient1
AFP
37
126
29%
AP
30
93
32%
IPS
16
27
59%
TASS
14
30
47%
Xinhua
21
45
47%
1Number of different datelines divided by number of stories
Table 2
Reporting from where?
The top five most frequent datelines by news agency
AFP
AP
IPS
ITAR-TASS
Xinhua
1. U.S.
1. U.S.
1. U.N.
1. Russia
1. U.S.
2. France
2. Iraq
2. United States
2. Egypt,
United States
2. Iraq
3. Iraq
3. England
3. Australia1
3. Turkey
4. England,
Russia,
Turkey,
U.N.
4. Turkey
4. U.N. 1
4. Belgium,
China
5. U.N.
1All other datelines occurred once each
Table 3
Who's in the news
The top five most frequently cited sources by news agency (mean percentage
of sourced paragraphs per story)
AFP
AP
IPS
ITAR-TASS
Xinhua
1. Western European1 officials, 21%
1. U.S. officials, 24%
1. U.S. officials, 29%
1. Eastern European officials4, 71%
1. U.S. officials, 16%
2. U.S. officials, 19%
2. Western European1 officials, 22%
2. Asian3 officials, 28%
2. U.S. officials, 24% percent
2. Western European officials, 16%
3. Western European1 public opinion,
12%
3. U.S. public opinion sources, 11%
3. Western European1 officials, 9%
3. Asian3 officials, 5%
3. Asian3 officials, 14%
4. Eastern European2 officials, 9%
4. Non-Iraqi Middle Eastern officials, 7%
4. Western European1 public opinion sources,
U.S. public opinion sources, 5% each
Note: No other sources were explicitly cited
4. Iraqi officials, 10%
5. Iraqi officials, 8%
5. Iraqi officials, 6%
5. Non-Iraqi Middle Eastern officials, 9%
1Includes French sources. 2Includes Russian sources.
3Includes Chinese sources. 4 All Russian sources.
Table 4
Ethnocentric sourcing?
Mean percentage of sources by region and news agency
Agence France Presse
Associated Press
Inter Press Service
ITAR-TASS
Xinhua
Asian sources, Chinese sources
9, 0
8, 1
31, 5
5, 0
18, 3
Eastern European sources, Russian sources
12, 6*
7, 2*
6*
71*
1*
North American (U.S.) sources
25
35
34
24
22
South American sources1
1
1
2
0
10
Western European sources, French sources
33**, 6
28, 5
13
0**, 0
24, 4
1Excluding the United States and Canada
*p=<.0001, **p=.0044
Table 5
East vs. West
Mean source percentage per type source by agency1
Western Agencies
Non-Western Agencies
Western sources
60**
41**
Non-Western sources
36*
57*
1Does not equal 100 because of UN sources.
*t=3.63, p=.0004
** t=3.36, p=.001
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Policy Officials," International Studies Quarterly 39 (4): 427-451.
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Response to the Beijing and Kwangju Pro-democracy Movements," Asian Journal
of Communication Spring 1992 2(2): 82.
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[7] Ibid.
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[16] Sigal, 125.
[17] Gans, 81.
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[19] Shanto Iyengar and Adam Simon, "News Coverage of the Gulf Crisis and
Public Opinion: A Study of Agenda-Setting, Priming and Framing."
Communication Research (1993) 20: 382.
[20] James K. Hertog, "Elite Press Coverage of the 1986 U.S.-Libya
Conflict: A Case Study of Tactical and Strategic Critique," Journalism &
Mass Communication Quarterly (Autumn 2000) 77(3): 612-627.
[21] Catherine Cassara, "U.S. Newspaper Coverage of Human Rights in Latin
America, 1975-1982," Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly (Autumn
1998) 75(3): 478-486.
[22] Dearing and Rogers, 25.
Ibid., 33.
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[27] Patterson and Donsbach, 465.
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[31] William A. Hachten and James F. Scotten, The World News Prism: Global
Media in an Era of Terrorism, Ames, Iowa: Iowa State Press, sixth edition,
2002, 33.
[32] Frederick T.C. Yu, "The International News Flow Problem – What Can Be
Done About it?" Journal of International Affairs, Fall 1981/Winter 1982
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[33] Hertog, 616.
[34] Hachten and Scotten, 33.
[35] Hachten, 33.
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[38] Harry Schwartz, "Covering the Foreign News," Foreign Affairs (July
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[47] In the "Guided News Search," the news wires category was selected.
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[48] Duplicates and write-thru's were excluded from the possible sample,
as were AP stories that moved only on the local and state wire.
[49] The region breakdown was based on Stephen Hess' protocol for
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Institution Press, 1996, 116-117.
[50] Montage Kern, Patricia W. Levering and Ralph B. Levering, The Kennedy
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[53] Patterson and Donsbach, 459.
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Michael A. Anderson, editors, New York: Columbia University Press, 1981, 248.
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