Abstract

The study of reporters and their news sources draws its roots from questions about bias, power, and influence. Couched in an atmosphere of adversarial conditions, a key question in the early literature concerned whether reporters or sources exert greater influence in shaping the news. One extension of this question asks how journalists’ use of news sources leads toward a particular news agenda that either favors or excludes some issues over others. A second extension asks if source power provides the ability to subsidize the time and effort required for reporting.