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Baldridgemarleeresearch.Pdf (469.7Kb) LONG VIOLENT HISTORY: THE NEWS VALUES OF THE BLACKJEWEL COAL MINER PROTEST ______________________________ A Thesis presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School at the University of Missouri-Columbia ________________________________________________ In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts _______________________________________________ By MARLEE BALDRIDGE Dr. Amanda Hinnant, Thesis Supervisor DECEMBER, 2020 The undersigned, appointed by the dean of the Graduate School, have examined the thesis entitled LONG VIOLENT HISTORY: NEWS VALUES IN THE BLACKJEWEL COAL MINER PROTEST Presented by Marlee Baldridge, a candidate for the degree of master of journalism, and hereby certify that, in their opinion, is worthy of acceptance. _________________________________________ Professor Amanda Hinnant _________________________________________ Professor Rebecca Scott _________________________________________ Professor Sungkyoung Lee _________________________________________ Professor Ryan Thomas ii Acknowledgements I would like to thank my committee for their efforts on this thesis. Dr. Hinnant, Dr. Thomas, Dr. Scott, and Dr. Lee took the time to give me their insight despite the many hiccups this project faced. I would also like to thank Dr. Hinnant for permission to pursue a mixed-methods study, which was enormously rewarding. I encourage anyone who does not find graduate student life as stressful as they’d like to do the same. I would also like to thank the invisible committee whose names do not appear on the paperwork. My family always had advice, which included suggesting I bribe the IRB office to speed up my approval process. Beatriz Costa Lima, Jon Stemmle, and Katy Cawdrey-Culp were friendly advisors and on more than one occasion had the opportunity to say, "I told you so," but were gracious enough not to over-do it. Gabe Schneider influenced how I thought about diversity in newsrooms, and had seemingly endless patience for my complaints. James Lewis, my best friend, made sure I was eating, even 600 miles away. My gratitude for this group of people is fierce and profound. My biggest advocate in j-school (many students’ biggest advocate) isn’t here, and can’t see the journalists he helped succeed. Simply put: Without Mark Hinojosa, I wouldn’t have ever worked in media, or gone on to grad school. Wherever he is, I hope the martinis are well-chilled and well-mixed. He is terribly missed. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... vi LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................................................... 3 RQ1: How do journalists perceive what the news values of the protest are? ............................. 4 RQ2: What news values appear in protest coverage of the Blackjewel miners? ...................... 10 Why Mixed Methods. ........................................................................................................... 16 METHODOLOGY ....................................................................................................................... 17 In-Depth Interviews. ............................................................................................................. 17 Content Analysis. .................................................................................................................. 20 FINDINGS .................................................................................................................................... 23 In-Depth Interviews .................................................................................................................. 23 Reporting Background .......................................................................................................... 24 News Values Themes ............................................................................................................ 26 Protest Coverage Content ..................................................................................................... 29 Perceptions of Audience ....................................................................................................... 36 Content Analysis ....................................................................................................................... 38 General Findings ................................................................................................................... 38 Themes Identified with Reporters Interviewed ..................................................................... 40 DISCUSSION ............................................................................................................................... 47 The Research Questions ............................................................................................................ 47 iv Importance of Understanding Context in News Values ........................................................... 47 The Subjectivity and Complexity of News Values ................................................................... 50 Implications............................................................................................................................... 52 Importance of Mixed Methods.................................................................................................. 53 Future Research on News Values ............................................................................................. 55 Limitations ................................................................................................................................ 58 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................. 60 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................. 62 APPENDIX A ............................................................................................................................... 72 Coding Scheme ......................................................................................................................... 72 APPENDIX B ............................................................................................................................... 73 Interview Questions .................................................................................................................. 73 v TABLE OF FIGURES REGIONAL REPORTER 1 ................................................................................................................. 40 REGIONAL REPORTER 2 ................................................................................................................. 41 REGIONAL REPORTERS 3 & 4 ......................................................................................................... 43 NATIONAL REPORTER 1 ................................................................................................................. 45 NATIONAL REPORTER 2 ................................................................................................................. 46 vi Abstract How do journalists cover those outside of their own experience? As researchers study newsroom diversity, this has been one of the most pressing issues on editors and publishers as they try to improve trust with marginalized communities and diversity in their own newsroom. This led me to a very simple question: How well do journalists understand their own coverage? I used the explanatory structure suggested by Creswell and Plano Clark (2011) to develop in-depth interviews, which were then contextualized by content analysis. I compared the analysis of what the journalists thought they portrayed in their writing, and what actually appeared. Ultimately, I found that while the reporters I interviewed had fine-tuned control over depicting the conflict and impact value of a news story, they struggled with other elements. I also found in the interviews there are implications about how newsrooms think of news values, and more research is needed to understand how descriptive news values influence coverage. NEWS VALUES OF THE BLACKJEWEL COAL MINER PROTEST 1 Introduction In 1931, the family of union leader Sam Reece was terrorized by local Harlan County police forces in retaliation for Reece’s organized labor activities against local mine bosses. Some members of the police illegally entered the home to search for Reece, while others waited outside for his return. When Reece failed to appear, the men left. That night, wife Florence Reece recounts that she tore a page from a calendar on the wall and wrote the song “Which Side Are You On?” which has since been covered most famously by Peter Seeger and referenced by Bob Dylan (Serrin, 1984). Reece would say later, “There's no such thing as neutral. You have to be on one side or the other. Some people say, 'I don't take sides – I'm neutral.' There's no such thing. In your mind you're on one side or the other.” (Labor Heritage Foundation, 2009) Harlan County, Kentucky, has a long and violent history within the coal industry that started in the 1920s. This incident of local terrorism was one of many of the Harlan County War in which union leaders and coal firms would attempt to intimidate each other over working conditions and pay. More than once people on both sides of the skirmish would die, and more than once the national
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