The research of news source is pivotal because of mainly two reasons. First, journalists can not say things in their own names. They have to cite the witness of an incident, participant of an event, or government officials in order to be objective. Second, journalists need sources because they provide information not availabe to reporters or explain diffcult ideas.
Because sources have the "privilege" to appear in the media, they are also considered capable of shaping the focus of a story by supplying information to their advantage. Many researchers, in fact, think of the news construction process as the stuggle between sources.
In the case of epidemic diseases, a recent study found that journalists rely on bureaucratic officials and experts as source of information. The affected, such as humans infected by WNV or paltry farmers affected by avian flu, did not get much attention from the media. Even medical care providers, such as doctors and nurses, did not appear very frequently.
The depedence on institutional or government officials is more explicit when looking at trend lines illustrating the distribution of number of news coverage, key sources, number of press releases from key regulatory agencies, and number of infected cases.
The chart below indicates that the ups and downs of media attention to epidemics conform to the ups and downs of the number of press releases and government officials used. The findings suggest that the number of coverage did not reflect the magnitute of diseases, but reflect what government said about the seriousness of diseases.
The case illustrates that government authorities control the information journalists needed for public health issues and therefore have much power to shape media agenda of these issues.
