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Over 60% of news in major Arabic dailies taken from Petra, press releases — report

By Mohammad Ghazal - Sep 22,2014 - Last updated at Sep 22,2014

AMMAN — More than 60 per cent of news articles published in the Kingdom’s major Arabic dailies are either taken from the Jordan News Agency, Petra, or from press releases, according to a study by the Jordan Media Institute (JMI).

The study, which covered Al Rai, Ad Dustour, Al Ghad and Al Sabeel, showed that 63 per cent of the Arabic dailies’ content is “ready-made” without any efforts or contribution of the newspapers themselves.

It added that 1,057 of the 1,689 articles published during the seven-month surveyed period between October 2013 and April 2014 were ready items without any contribution from newspapers.

Al Rai came first in terms of publishing ready items with 67.8 per cent of its content taken from Petra or press releases, followed by Ad Dustour with 67.3 per cent, Al Ghad with 58.2 per cent and Al Sabeel with 48.2 per cent.

The survey did not cover Al Arab Al Yawm daily because it suspended publication between July and December 2013 over financial difficulties.

Of the total items published in newspapers, 70.5 per cent were taken from Petra and 27.2 per cent were from statements sent by the public relations departments of ministries, and public and private institutions. 

Two per cent of the items published in newspapers were taken from other journalists with only a change to the by-line.

The study, e-mailed to The Jordan Times and published on the media monitoring web portal Akeed, said it was acceptable to take news items from news agencies, but this is meant to complement the coverage of newspapers and not constitute their main content. 

Newspapers can take news items from agencies in areas where they do not have correspondents to cover the news, it said.

In terms of press releases, the study revealed that newspapers published them as they were received without changing the focus or sentence order, or adding more sources. 

In addition, newspapers published press releases without clearly identifying the source that sent them, and as such they may have been seen by the reader as genuine stories written by the newspaper’s staff.

About 42 per cent of press releases were from government agencies, 29.5 per cent from civil society organisations, 20.4 per cent from commercial entities, 4.1 per cent from international news agencies and 3.1 per cent from the Lower House. 

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