In this book, I have attempted to view news discourse in ways that characterize the dynamic behind its production and the interrelationships that are integral in the process. For the purposes of academic discussion, I have set up these interrelationships in trichotomies that would be familiar to news practitioners: (1) in terms of news content, news structure, and the role of interaction between the communities of practice and the communities of coverage, among both individuals and groups; or (2) as author, audience, and text (the reporter-editor-source as author, reader-viewer as audience, and news product as text). The language–audience–media triumvirate is the basis of my ethnographic and interactional linguistic approach, but can be oriented to analytically – in ways that would be familiar to researchers – in different combinations and foci.

The journalistic values of craft, community, and credibility are integral to communicative competence within the news community. Craft and credibility are important in self-identity and community is an important framing concept for what counts as news. These three primary values put into perspective the importance of writing processes and the form and function of their discursive outputs and language norms (craft); relationship and interaction in the course of everyday journalistic work (community); and the professional ideologies (credibility) that become interpreted locally and underpin journalistic action and identity as news practitioners report, edit, and comment.