Abstract

Journalism is surely one of society's great institutions. It has long been an important site of knowledge production, allowing audiences to make sense of their world. Today's journalism is a highly complex, expensive, and time-sensitive challenge to produce. This research investigates how these factors in the production process of Canadian television journalism affect the product. Public relations has been using journalism as a means of publicity for nearly a century. With increasing pressure on news departments to make profits, PR sources gain an advantage in getting their material on the evening news. Video News Releases are the pinnacle of PR sourcing: fully produced, promotional news stories designed to blend in perfectly with other news content. This thesis reviews existing literature examining news sourcing practices as well as the organizational and economic constraints that govern journalism's production processes. The research looks at Canadian television news through these lenses, as well as through the words of working Canadian journalists. The interaction of PR and news is examined to understand how news stories get developed, where the content and resources presented in those stories come from, and who is benefiting from changing practices in the newsroom