Details of participants, including the type of media they worked for and their role are reported (Table 3). Eight media actors approached declined to participate (five in Australia and three in the UK).
Table 3. Participant details of media actors including type of media and role (n = 19)
Media actors’ role in reporting food incidents
Media actors' views on their roles in reporting food incidents are summarised in Figure 1. Participants presented an unanimous view that media have a central and important role in reporting food incidents to the public. This was summarised by one participant who stressed the centrality of the media in reporting food incidents, questioning how food recallsa and health warnings would be communicated to consumers if not disseminated through the media (AU M10b).
Figure 1. Media actors’ role in reporting food incidents.
…obviously if there’s a recall or a health warning, if you don’t disseminate it through the media, then how’s it going to get out there? (AU M10) Media actors described this role in reporting food incidents in two main ways: first, as a conduit for information and second, as a public watch dog.
Media as a conduit for information
Media actors referred to themselves as “a conduit for information about what’s going on” (AU M15) between consumers and the relevant authorities. One participant described this as follows:
“....we’re really only there as the voice of the public.... [ ]....We ask the questions the public would like answered by public health authorities and doctors and that’s all we are. We’re just the middle men; we’re just the communicators”. (AU M2)
This role was also described as a community service and public interest role, whereby media actors “amplify the information released by Government and industry, especially regarding (food) recall information”. (AU M14)
Some media actors extended the idea of media as a conduit for information by suggesting that part of this role as a conduit is a role in translation of a message provided by other sources, for example Government. One media actor said “we should report whatever FSANZ [Food Standards Australia New Zealand] says about the situation” (AU M11). The role of the media in acting as a voice for the public was also described as translating the message for the public and “making sense of the pronouncements” made by medical or health science (UK M2). Essentially, the result of media having a conduit role in reporting information was described as enabling the public to decide on a course of action themselves, after the facts had been reported:
My only agenda is to expose the information, let people make the decision after they’ve got it. (AU M18)
This view was reiterated by another media actor:
We’re motivated by presenting a balanced story so if the company or the food producer wants to put their point of view of course we’ll run that as well and you have to balance that up against whatever the risk is and let the public decide for themselves. (AU M2)
This quote demonstrates a reflection upon the lack of responsibility of the media for the information that is provided to the public. However the need for media to ensure that the information presented to the public is accurate, so that the public can effectively decide on a course of action for themselves, was highlighted.
We’re the go-between, we’re the messenger, but we have to be very careful that the message is accurate, correct, credible, responsible and, yeah, as far as food safety it’s very much a case of it coming from the accredited official authorities who do the testing and it’s their word that we’re conveying. (AU M16)
To manage this, participants cited food safety, Government and health sources as those they would most frequently approach for information during food incidents.
Media as a public watchdog
Some media actors described an extension of the role of a conduit to a role as a public watch dog, or an investigative role, where media might follow up a food incident story with an investigative lens in order to expose truth and any further issues that do not appear initially in a situation, with a view of ‘watching out’ for the public’s interests. For example:
Then I think there would be kind of like a deeper investigative role of covering how something like this [food incident] can happen in the first place, how you can prevent it happening and, yeah, further implications for the food system, the global food system. (AUM1)
In doing so, media has a role in investigating suspected issues and holding organisations to account, as described here by one media actor:
The secondary part would be to, I guess, continue to investigate the matter and give – to balance out whatever the public relations perspective is being distributed by the company itself. The company has obviously – they have to provide a certain level of information and I guess our role would be to question that, analyse that, see if there’s actually more to the story than what they’re suggesting.... our idea is to say ‘okay, are we saying – is this the full, 360 degree view of this story?’ because the company’s only going to give you one side, which is their side, and obviously in a situation like this there’s many more people involved that tend – it’s not the company’s job to reveal that but it could be as a media organisation that would be something we would do. (AUM6)
In this example, there is clear distrust of the food company by the media to report factual and complete information.
An investigative role was described as involving questioning and scepticism and exposing what is going on. This was taken to a higher level by some participants who demonstrated a passion for informing the public:
My role basically is to ensure that people are well aware that there is a risk out there and there are not the safeguards that we would like to minimise that risk or nullify it altogether. (AUM18)
For some media actors, this was the main agenda in being a journalist, as framed by one UK media actor, ‘a journalist has got to interrogate and investigate’ (UKM2). A similar view was held by another participant:
I’ve got no agenda other than to try and tell people what’s going on and to uncover things that people don’t know about. (UK M11)
Result of media roles on the public’s actions
The result of media actors perceiving their roles in reporting food incidents as conduits for information and public watch dogs was that information about a food incident is provided to the public, with the assumption that the public then act on this information. For example:
If this product is in your home and it is as potentially harmful as we’ve discussed then there’s a purpose of making sure that people are aware and have information that they can act on if they have bought these products. (UK M3)
However it is clear from media actors’ reports that whether or not the public act on what the media report is dependent on the extent to which the public trust the media. This reinforces previous reflections by media actors that media actors themselves do not perceive a personal responsibility for consumer’s safety.
Public trust in the media
Media actors described why it is vital to form trust with the public:
We’re in business to sell papers, no-one shies away from that, however selling papers rests fairly and squarely on building up a long-term reputation of credibility, of trust, of accuracy and that’s not something you’re going to blow with one story that’s going to leave your business struggling for years afterwards to try and rebuild that reputation and rebuild that trust and connection with the broader public who buy the paper….[ ] …you can’t take that for granted, especially in these days of falling circulation. (AU M16)
This was supported by a media actor from New Zealand who talked about the importance of readers trusting what she writes:
And trust? Well I guess I work very hard to make sure what I write is accurate, it’s scientifically accurate and it’s based on current information and that the advice is interpreted correctly and - because I want what I write to be something that consumers can trust. I want them to be able to look at my name and say ‘if she’s written that article then I know it’s researched well’. So I guess for me the fact that a reader could trust me is very important to me. It’s one of the key things; it’s what I work really hard at.
Therefore developing trust with the public and a good reputation through the presentation and reporting of accurate, trustworthy information was seen as vital by media actors. Ways in which the public’s trust in media is influenced, both positively and negatively, were discussed.
Facilitation of public trust
Media actors indicated that trust with the public is facilitated through the application of journalistic norms including responsibility in reporting, accuracy, fair and balanced reporting and not overstating or understating the risks.
Media actors consistently referred to the responsibility they uphold when reporting food incidents:
I think you’d find in most cases the media would react to something like this[scenario] in a fairly responsible way because - as they do in times of any other emergency, like bushfires or natural disasters, things like that, the main thing is to get the story out there. (AU M2)
This notion of responsibility was also demonstrated through a conveyed belief that it is the role of the media to present the facts, be accurate and convey the truth:
The nature of a food safety issue means it is imperative to report the facts. It’s just not the kind of topic that is more or less doing anything but the most objective, straightforward reporting on it. (AU M6)
For one participant, accurate reporting by the media during a food incident was assumed:
I mean obviously they need to report it accurately but I would assume that they do that. I’ve no reason to think that the media doesn’t report these things accurately….For example on the horsemeat [scare], I’m not aware that there was any sort of great ‘oh the media got it all wrong and they told us things that weren’t correct’. (UK M6)
The idea of balance and treading a careful line between over or understating risk was considered important. However at times this was considered a challenge by participants, with the balance between “neither overstating nor understating the risks” (AU M11) needing to be achieved “in such a way that it doesn’t unnecessarily terrify people or create that sort of sensationalism” (AU M15). Similarly a participant from New Zealand said it is ‘the responsibility of the general media is to present both sides, balanced, not to frighten people and to have some proportionality – you don’t want to lull people into false sense of security but you also don’t want to scare. You need to inform the public in a way that they can make their own informed choices’ (NZM9).
Participants indicated that it is the role of the media to engage in fair and balanced reporting. When asked about the definition of fair and balanced reporting, responses included “getting a range of perspectives” (AU M15), “as wide a range of views as possible” (UK M 1) and not putting “a particular spin on it” (AU M2). One media actor warned against ‘false balance’ in reporting, which was described as:
Certain sections of the media have been accused of this thing called false balance – if you have a story, you would get the opposing views even if it was not a kind of fifty-fifty split, about, for example, climate change, that you interview somebody about climate change, and then you’d interview somebody who was opposed. (AUM2)
Inhibition of public trust
On the other hand, media actors said that sensationalism and partiality, which may be enacted by some media actors, did not facilitate trust with the public. One participant, whose role as a media actor involved the use of online media, with strong connections to providing news for a specific industry, indicated that media do not necessarily present fair and balanced information:
I don’t think media generally these days seems to need to pursue balanced and ultimate accuracy in their reports, it’s all about eyeballs and unfortunately I think that makes it very difficult to achieve the sort of outcomes that the consumer really needs to make balanced judgments about things like a food safety episode. (AU M7)
This view was supported by a media actor who described herself as not impartial:
I’m not in the business of being impartial. I never pretend to be impartial. People come to me for a view and they know the kind of view that I’m going to have. (UK M6)
Another participant, who worked in the science sector, agreed with this perspective and even went on to discuss how media will “look for conflict when there may not be conflict” in order to sell papers (AU M19). Another believed that fair and balanced reporting may not be the purpose of every section of the newspaper, for example “if you’re writing an opinion piece for a food section or for any other section then obviously it’s more subjective and your own opinions are given more credence” (AU M17) and “I think as a journalist, you don’t always have to sit on the fence. I think to have your own opinion is something that is needed but that’s very different from a news story in the paper” (UK M4). However, another, who worked in the higher education sector, identified that while fair and balanced reporting may be ideal, this can be difficult in a newsroom context where “immediacy really flies in the face of things like balance, fairness and so on because there just isn’t necessarily that time, so while journalists might be more aware of the need for it, it doesn’t always play out” (AU M15). Such barriers to balance were reiterated by other media actors who mentioned the time pressure of media reporting and the high turnover of news.
Sensationalism was named by some media actors as being a problem of media reporting, for example ‘some members of the media seem to go out of their way to look for “scare” stories, to the point, in my opinion, of irresponsibility’. (AUM14) and:
I guess that goes back to what I was saying about the constraints of the traditional mainstream format of looking for the most sensational angle so, yeah, that does lend itself to not necessarily providing balanced, useful coverage. (AUM12)
However, others had different views, with one media actor describing sensationalism as ‘looking for emotive angles’ (UKM5) and this was further explored by an Australian media actor who said that ‘the media not only deals with factual information but includes emotional reactions to that information. That is often construed by our critics as “sensational reporting”. (AUM2)
Clearly there were different views about the presence of sensationalist reporting amongst media actors.
