The news we see daily is selected from among alternatives by journalists. Argumentation in the Newsroom uses ethnographic data from Swiss television and print newsrooms to shed light on how journalists make decisions regarding the selection and presentation of news items in their daily professional practice. The evidence illustrates that, contrary to the standard view, journalistic decisions are not limited to the influence of standardized production patterns, instinct, or editors’ orders. Rather, in their attempt to produce the best news possible, journalists carefully ponder and discuss their choices, utilizing full-fledged critical discussions at all stages of the newsmaking process. By employing the pragma-dialectical model of a critical discussion in conjunction with the Argumentum Model of Topics, this study provides a detailed reconstruction of how journalists make use of argumentative reasoning, basing their decisions on a complex set of material premises and on recurrent procedural premises.

Mark Aakhus, Rutgers University:
Dr. Zampa offers genuine insights about the practice of news production with a novel analysis of argumentation in journalist decision making in the editorial room, production room, and the process of writing and video production. The application of the Argumentum Model of Topics offers an important, innovative contribution for investigating news values as these happen in the key moments of everyday journalistic practice.