Evaluating questions in journalism
A case study of the Australian public broadcaster’s coverage of the 2003 invasion of Iraq
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/japl.v9i1.127Keywords:
Australian Broadcasting Corporation, media discourse, semantics, semantic network, systemic functional linguisticsAbstract
To evaluate current affairs interviews, an analysis of question types is central. This paper takes data from The 7.30 Report, a current affairs programme broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation; specifically, interviews with a nightly panel of ‘military experts’ during the 2003 invasion of Iraq by ‘Coalition’ forces. The paper considers how the professional practice of the programme’s presenter, a high profile, experienced, Australian journalist (Kerry O’Brien), fulfilled his role at this ‘critical moment’ in the history of Australia’s public broadcaster. Drawing on Hasan’s metafunctional description of the semantics of questions (Hasan 1983, 1996, in press), the paper presents some evidence that O’Brien’s questions allowed the panelists, at least two of whom could not be considered independent, disinterested observers, to construe events largely on their own terms. The multidimensional analysis of O’Brien’s questions, which Hasan’s message semantic network description enables, brings out various kinds of evidence (interpersonal, ideational and textual) from which it is possible to argue that O’Brien’s interviews with this panel constituted a mode of news which served the interests of the belligerent countries.
References
ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) (2003a) Archive for March 2003. 7.30 Report Retrieved from: http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/archives/2003/730_Archive2003_March2003.htm
ABC (2003b) Defence experts on psychological warfare. 7.30 Report March 21. Transcript retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2003/s813279.htm
ABC (2003d) Defence experts on latest developments. 7.30 Report March 28. Transcript retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2003/s819207.htm
ABC (2003c) Defence panel analyses latest developments, 7.30 Report March 25. Transcript retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2003/s816238.htm
Aday, S. (2010) Leading the charge: Media, elites, and the use of emotion in stimulating rally effects in wartime. Journal of Communication 60: 440–465. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2010.01489.x
Barstow, D. (2008) One man’s military-industrial-media complex. New York Times November 29. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/washington/30general.html
Bennett, L., Lawrence, R. and Livingstone, S. (2007) When the Press Fails: Political Power and the News Media from Iraq to Katrina. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226042862.001.0001
Bernstein, B. (1990) Class, Codes and Control, Volume 4: The Structuring of Pedagogic Discourse. London: Routledge. http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203011263
Bolinger, D. (1957) Interrogative Structures of American English (The Direct Question). Publications of the American Dialect Society 28. Alabama: University of Alabama Press.
Boyd-Barrett, O. (2004) Judith Miller, The New York Times, and the propaganda model. Journalism Studies 5 (4): 435–449.
Boyd-Barrett, O. (2009) Contra the journalism of complicity. Journalism 10: 296–299. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1464884909102588
Butt, D. (1988) Randomness, order and the latent patterning of text. In D. Birch and L. M. O’Toole (eds) Functions of Style, 74–97. London: Pinter.
Clayman, S. (2010) Questions in broadcast journalism. In A. Freed and S. Ehrlich (eds) ‘Why Do You Ask?’: The Function of Questions in Institutional Discourse, 256–278. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Clayman, S., and Heritage, J. (2002a) The News Interview. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511613623
Clayman, S., and Heritage, J. (2002b) Questioning presidents: Journalistic deference and adversarialness in the press conferences of US Presidents Eisenhower and Reagan. Journal of Communication 52 (4): 749–775. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2002.tb02572.x
Cloran, C. (1994) Rhetorical Units and Decontextualisation: An Enquiry into some Relations of Context, Meaning and Grammar. Nottingham: Department of English Studies, University of Nottingham.
Eisenhower, Dwight D. (1961) Farewell radio and television address to the American people. The Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower January 1, 1960, to January 20, 1961, 1035–1040, Washington DC: US Government Printing Office.
Fund for Peace (2005–present) The Failed States Index. http://ffp.statesindex.org/ Gore, A. (2007) The Assault on Reason. London: Bloomsbury.
Halliday, M. A. K. (2003 [1972]) Towards a sociological semantics. In On Language and Linguistics: Collected Works of M. A. K. Halliday, Volume 3, ed. J. J. Webster, 323–354. London: Continuum.
Halliday, M. A. K. (1985/1989) Part A. In M. A. K. Halliday and R. Hasan Language, Context, and Text: Aspects of Language in a Social-Semiotic Perspective, 3-49. Oxford/Geelong: OUP/Deakin University Press.
Halliday, M. A. K. and Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2004) An Introduction to Functional Grammar. Third Edition. London: Arnold.
Hasan, R. (1983) Message Semantics Coding Manual. [Mimeograph] Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University.
Hasan, R. (1985/1989) Part B. In M. A. K. Halliday and R. Hasan Language, Context, and Text: Aspects of Language in a Social-Semiotic Perspective, 52–118. Oxford/Geelong: OUP/Deakin University Press.
Hasan, R. (2009a [1989]) Semantic variation and sociolinguistics. In The Collected Works of Ruqaiya Hasan, Volume 2: Semantic Variation: Meaning in Society and in Sociolinguistics, ed. J. J. Webster, 231–268. London: Equinox.
Hasan, R. (2009b [1991]) Questions as a mode of learning in everyday talk. In The Collected Works of Ruqaiya Hasan, Volume 2: Semantic Variation: Meaning in Society and in Sociolinguistics, ed. J. J. Webster, 231–268. London: Equinox.
Hasan, R. (2009c [1992]) Meaning in sociolinguistic theory. In The Collected Works of Ruqaiya Hasan, Volume 2: Semantic Variation: Meaning in Society and in Sociolinguistics, ed. J. J. Webster, 276-312. London: Equinox.
Hasan, R. (1996) Semantic networks: a tool for the analysis of meaning. In Ways of Saying, Ways of Meaning: Selected Papers of Ruqaiya Hasan, ed. C. Cloran, D. Butt and G. Williams, 104–131. London: Cassell.
Hasan, R. (2010) The meaning of ‘not’ is not in ‘not’. In A. Mahboob and N. Knight (eds) Appliable Linguistics: Texts, Contexts and Meaning, 267–306. London: Continuum.
Hasan, R. (in press) Choice taken in the context of realization. In L. Fontaine, T. Bartlett and G. O’Grady (eds) Systemic Functional Linguistics: Exploring Choice. Cambridge: CUP.
Herman, E. and Chomsky, N. (2002 [1988]) Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books.
Koshik, I. (2005) Beyond Rhetorical Questions: Assertive Questions in Everyday Language. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Lehmann, E. (2005) Retired general: Iraq invasion was ‘strategic disaster’. Lowell Sun, September 30. http://www.lowellsun.com/ci_3075570
Lewis, J., Brookes, R., Mosdell, N. and Threadgold, T. (2006) Shoot First and Ask Questions Later: Media Coverage of the 2003 Iraq War. New York: Peter Lang.
Lukin, A. (2012) The valeur of questions: semantic networks as a tool for discourse analysis. In J. Knox (ed.) To Boldly Proceed: Proceedings of the 39th International Systemic Functional Linguistics Congress, 141–146. Sydney: University of Technology Sydney.
Lukin, A. (2013a) The meanings of war: From lexis to culture. Journal of Language and Politics 12 (3): 424–444. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/jlp.12.3.06luk
Lukin, A. (2013b) Journalism, ideology and linguistics: The paradox of Chomsky’s linguistic legacy and his ‘propaganda model’. Journalism: Theory Practice Critique 14 (1): 96–110.
Miller, D. (2004) Tell me Lies: Propaganda and Media Distortion in the Attack on Iraq. London: Pluto Press.
Newspoll (2003) ABC Appreciation Survey. Ultimo: Newspoll. http://about.abc.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/AppreciationSurveySummaryReport2003.pdf
Otterman, M. and Hil, R., with Wilson, P. (2010) Erasing Iraq: The Human Cost of Carnage. London: Pluto Press, in association with the Plumbing Trades Employee Union of Australia.
PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) (2006) The lost year in Iraq. Frontline, October 17. Transcript retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh//pages/frontline/yeariniraq/etc/script.html
Ricks, T. (2006) Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq. New York: Penguin.
Robinson, P., Goddard, P., Parry, K. and Murray, C. (2009) Testing models of media performance in wartime: UK TV news and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Journal of Communication 59: 534–563. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2009.01435.x
Sarangi, S. and Candlin, C. N. (2010) Applied linguistics and professional practice: Mapping a future agenda. Editorial. Journal of Applied Linguistics and Professional Practice 7 (1): 1–9. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/japl.v7i1.1
Schegloff, E. A. (1984) On some questions and ambiguities in conversation. In J. M. Atkinson and J. Heritage (eds) Structures of Social Action, 28–52. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sedorkin, G. (2011) Interviewing: A Guide for Journalists and Writers. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.
Schultz, J. (1998) Reviving the Fourth Estate: Democracy, Accountability, and the Media. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511597138
SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) (1988–present) SIPRI Military Expenditure Database. http://www.sipri.org/research/armaments/milex/milex_database
Stiglitz, J. and Bilmes, L. (2008) The Three Trillion Dollar War. London: Allen Lane.
ABC (2003b) Defence experts on psychological warfare. 7.30 Report March 21. Transcript retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2003/s813279.htm
ABC (2003d) Defence experts on latest developments. 7.30 Report March 28. Transcript retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2003/s819207.htm
ABC (2003c) Defence panel analyses latest developments, 7.30 Report March 25. Transcript retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2003/s816238.htm
Aday, S. (2010) Leading the charge: Media, elites, and the use of emotion in stimulating rally effects in wartime. Journal of Communication 60: 440–465. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2010.01489.x
Barstow, D. (2008) One man’s military-industrial-media complex. New York Times November 29. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/washington/30general.html
Bennett, L., Lawrence, R. and Livingstone, S. (2007) When the Press Fails: Political Power and the News Media from Iraq to Katrina. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226042862.001.0001
Bernstein, B. (1990) Class, Codes and Control, Volume 4: The Structuring of Pedagogic Discourse. London: Routledge. http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203011263
Bolinger, D. (1957) Interrogative Structures of American English (The Direct Question). Publications of the American Dialect Society 28. Alabama: University of Alabama Press.
Boyd-Barrett, O. (2004) Judith Miller, The New York Times, and the propaganda model. Journalism Studies 5 (4): 435–449.
Boyd-Barrett, O. (2009) Contra the journalism of complicity. Journalism 10: 296–299. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1464884909102588
Butt, D. (1988) Randomness, order and the latent patterning of text. In D. Birch and L. M. O’Toole (eds) Functions of Style, 74–97. London: Pinter.
Clayman, S. (2010) Questions in broadcast journalism. In A. Freed and S. Ehrlich (eds) ‘Why Do You Ask?’: The Function of Questions in Institutional Discourse, 256–278. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Clayman, S., and Heritage, J. (2002a) The News Interview. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511613623
Clayman, S., and Heritage, J. (2002b) Questioning presidents: Journalistic deference and adversarialness in the press conferences of US Presidents Eisenhower and Reagan. Journal of Communication 52 (4): 749–775. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2002.tb02572.x
Cloran, C. (1994) Rhetorical Units and Decontextualisation: An Enquiry into some Relations of Context, Meaning and Grammar. Nottingham: Department of English Studies, University of Nottingham.
Eisenhower, Dwight D. (1961) Farewell radio and television address to the American people. The Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower January 1, 1960, to January 20, 1961, 1035–1040, Washington DC: US Government Printing Office.
Fund for Peace (2005–present) The Failed States Index. http://ffp.statesindex.org/ Gore, A. (2007) The Assault on Reason. London: Bloomsbury.
Halliday, M. A. K. (2003 [1972]) Towards a sociological semantics. In On Language and Linguistics: Collected Works of M. A. K. Halliday, Volume 3, ed. J. J. Webster, 323–354. London: Continuum.
Halliday, M. A. K. (1985/1989) Part A. In M. A. K. Halliday and R. Hasan Language, Context, and Text: Aspects of Language in a Social-Semiotic Perspective, 3-49. Oxford/Geelong: OUP/Deakin University Press.
Halliday, M. A. K. and Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2004) An Introduction to Functional Grammar. Third Edition. London: Arnold.
Hasan, R. (1983) Message Semantics Coding Manual. [Mimeograph] Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University.
Hasan, R. (1985/1989) Part B. In M. A. K. Halliday and R. Hasan Language, Context, and Text: Aspects of Language in a Social-Semiotic Perspective, 52–118. Oxford/Geelong: OUP/Deakin University Press.
Hasan, R. (2009a [1989]) Semantic variation and sociolinguistics. In The Collected Works of Ruqaiya Hasan, Volume 2: Semantic Variation: Meaning in Society and in Sociolinguistics, ed. J. J. Webster, 231–268. London: Equinox.
Hasan, R. (2009b [1991]) Questions as a mode of learning in everyday talk. In The Collected Works of Ruqaiya Hasan, Volume 2: Semantic Variation: Meaning in Society and in Sociolinguistics, ed. J. J. Webster, 231–268. London: Equinox.
Hasan, R. (2009c [1992]) Meaning in sociolinguistic theory. In The Collected Works of Ruqaiya Hasan, Volume 2: Semantic Variation: Meaning in Society and in Sociolinguistics, ed. J. J. Webster, 276-312. London: Equinox.
Hasan, R. (1996) Semantic networks: a tool for the analysis of meaning. In Ways of Saying, Ways of Meaning: Selected Papers of Ruqaiya Hasan, ed. C. Cloran, D. Butt and G. Williams, 104–131. London: Cassell.
Hasan, R. (2010) The meaning of ‘not’ is not in ‘not’. In A. Mahboob and N. Knight (eds) Appliable Linguistics: Texts, Contexts and Meaning, 267–306. London: Continuum.
Hasan, R. (in press) Choice taken in the context of realization. In L. Fontaine, T. Bartlett and G. O’Grady (eds) Systemic Functional Linguistics: Exploring Choice. Cambridge: CUP.
Herman, E. and Chomsky, N. (2002 [1988]) Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books.
Koshik, I. (2005) Beyond Rhetorical Questions: Assertive Questions in Everyday Language. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Lehmann, E. (2005) Retired general: Iraq invasion was ‘strategic disaster’. Lowell Sun, September 30. http://www.lowellsun.com/ci_3075570
Lewis, J., Brookes, R., Mosdell, N. and Threadgold, T. (2006) Shoot First and Ask Questions Later: Media Coverage of the 2003 Iraq War. New York: Peter Lang.
Lukin, A. (2012) The valeur of questions: semantic networks as a tool for discourse analysis. In J. Knox (ed.) To Boldly Proceed: Proceedings of the 39th International Systemic Functional Linguistics Congress, 141–146. Sydney: University of Technology Sydney.
Lukin, A. (2013a) The meanings of war: From lexis to culture. Journal of Language and Politics 12 (3): 424–444. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/jlp.12.3.06luk
Lukin, A. (2013b) Journalism, ideology and linguistics: The paradox of Chomsky’s linguistic legacy and his ‘propaganda model’. Journalism: Theory Practice Critique 14 (1): 96–110.
Miller, D. (2004) Tell me Lies: Propaganda and Media Distortion in the Attack on Iraq. London: Pluto Press.
Newspoll (2003) ABC Appreciation Survey. Ultimo: Newspoll. http://about.abc.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/AppreciationSurveySummaryReport2003.pdf
Otterman, M. and Hil, R., with Wilson, P. (2010) Erasing Iraq: The Human Cost of Carnage. London: Pluto Press, in association with the Plumbing Trades Employee Union of Australia.
PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) (2006) The lost year in Iraq. Frontline, October 17. Transcript retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh//pages/frontline/yeariniraq/etc/script.html
Ricks, T. (2006) Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq. New York: Penguin.
Robinson, P., Goddard, P., Parry, K. and Murray, C. (2009) Testing models of media performance in wartime: UK TV news and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Journal of Communication 59: 534–563. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2009.01435.x
Sarangi, S. and Candlin, C. N. (2010) Applied linguistics and professional practice: Mapping a future agenda. Editorial. Journal of Applied Linguistics and Professional Practice 7 (1): 1–9. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/japl.v7i1.1
Schegloff, E. A. (1984) On some questions and ambiguities in conversation. In J. M. Atkinson and J. Heritage (eds) Structures of Social Action, 28–52. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sedorkin, G. (2011) Interviewing: A Guide for Journalists and Writers. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.
Schultz, J. (1998) Reviving the Fourth Estate: Democracy, Accountability, and the Media. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511597138
SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) (1988–present) SIPRI Military Expenditure Database. http://www.sipri.org/research/armaments/milex/milex_database
Stiglitz, J. and Bilmes, L. (2008) The Three Trillion Dollar War. London: Allen Lane.
Published
2013-12-30
Issue
Section
Articles
License
Equinox Publishing Ltd.
How to Cite
Lukin, A. (2013). Evaluating questions in journalism: A case study of the Australian public broadcaster’s coverage of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Journal of Applied Linguistics and Professional Practice, 9(1), 127-147. https://doi.org/10.1558/japl.v9i1.127
