ANALYSING ECONOMIC NEWS SOURCES: Who Gets to Speak?

Sourcing analysis is a relatively simple research method used by media researchers to understand where a journalist may source information used in news copy. In economic or business journalism this can be particularly significant, as the framing or angle of an article may be derived from the sources used - in particular, what is termed the primary definer. These can be human or documentary sources. While there are various ways of understanding journalistic sources, for the purpose of this chapter we will discuss sourcing analysis via content analysis. Like all research methods it has limitations in that we only look at attributed sources - that is, sources that are named or cited in a report (even those, sometimes, may be unnamed). However, in economic and business journalism, a consideration of the identity and usage of sources is particularly useful because they often have relevant interests that are omitted in the copy or are presented as “independent” experts when they are not. Our case study here looks at the coverage of a law introduced in Ireland in 2008 that guaranteed all the debts of the private banking industry, which ultimately led to intervention by the IMF and ECB.