Category
Far more for production and research tasks than for writing articles — and the distinction matters, because public discussion focuses almost entirely on the least common use. Where it is genuinely
Because the economics of a direct relationship with readers can work better for an individual than employment does — and because the alternative, for many, has been redundancy. What pushed them:
Frequently before the subject dies — major outlets maintain large files of prepared obituaries for prominent people, updated periodically, so that a considered piece can publish within minutes of a
Strict, and stricter than most people expect: news photography operates on the principle that an image must accurately represent what was in front of the camera, and the permitted edits are limited
Increasingly not by the advertising that funded it historically — because investigations are the most expensive journalism to produce and among the least commercially rewarding, so the funding models
Because a bulletin is built to a shape, not simply filled with the day's stories. The running order is a deliberate structure designed around how attention behaves over the length of a programme —
Rigorous reporting on responses to social problems — not positive news or advocacy, but investigating what is being tried, what the evidence says, and where it falls short. What distinguishes it from
Because a poll produces many numbers, and which one is led on is an editorial choice — before any question of bias arises, the same data genuinely supports several accurate headlines. What a single
Through a combination of professional practice, legal protections and operational security — and journalists have gone to prison rather than identify a source, because the whole system depends on
Investigates complaints about a publication's own journalism and reports on them publicly and independently of the editor — an internal accountability role that is voluntary, uncommon, and has been
Because they are cheap to produce, easy to write up, and generate coverage reliably — and a substantial proportion are commissioned by organisations with a commercial interest in the result. The
Laws requiring large technology platforms to negotiate payment with news publishers for content that appears on their services — introduced because publishers argued platforms captured the
In the UK, nobody licenses journalists — there is no register, no qualification requirement, and no authority that can stop someone practising. A press card is an identity and verification document,
A media pack is the document a publisher gives advertisers describing its audience, reach and advertising options — and the numbers in it are audited in some cases and self-declared in others, which
The opportunity for someone criticised in a report to respond before publication — and in UK practice it is an editorial and regulatory expectation rather than a general legal right, which surprises
Purdah — now officially called the pre-election period of sensitivity — is the convention restricting government announcements and activity in the weeks before an election, so that public resources
A legal and ethical justification for publishing something that would otherwise be unlawful or unethical — intruding on privacy, breaching confidence, or using subterfuge — on the basis that the
Through agencies that represent photographers and sell usage rights to publishers — a system most readers never see, and which determines which images the world actually gets to look at. How it
Through a licence fee paid by households watching or recording live television or using BBC iPlayer, set by the government and collected under statutory authority — an arrangement that is unusual
A court order that prohibits publication of information and prohibits reporting the existence of the order itself — so the public cannot know that anything has been restricted. The two elements: An
A regulatory requirement on UK broadcasters to treat matters of political or industrial controversy and current public policy with impartiality — and the word "due" is doing essential work, because
A working vocabulary, much of it inherited from print production, that persists because it is precise — each term names something that would otherwise take a sentence. Page and story terms: Splash —
Journalism in which the analysis of data is the reporting method — finding stories in datasets, verifying claims against them, and presenting findings in ways readers can interrogate. What
Journalism produced by recycling press releases and wire copy with little or no independent checking — a term popularised by Nick Davies in Flat Earth News, describing what happens when the volume of