“Maybe there’s a very simple debate”: how journalists frame a public debate in the newsroom

Abstract

Taking the perspective of a newsroom ethnographic approach, our paper interrogates the decision-making process that leads to establish a public debate as a news product. More precisely our paper details the argumentation in interaction engaging broadcast journalists during an editorial conference: who argues? When and how is argumentation joint constructed? By the means of what interactional and linguistic ressources? How does argumentation in interaction shape the news product? In our case study we focus on how argumentation develops within the specific genre of “debate”, and how the journalists come to debate about a specific genre of news item : a public debate to be broadcast as a report in the news bulletin.