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As for Journalist A, she tends to have a weaker contextual knowledge base.
“I think there is a huge gap in between me and other senior colleagues. I
think my understandings toward things are still like fragmented. It is not like a
linear sequence. They seem to have a more complete understanding toward
issues.” (A)
III. Procedural knowledge
Journalist B tends to have a relatively bigger procedural knowledge firm than
Journalist A. B has the tendency of knowing what to do when facing different
circumstances. That is, B is aware of the rules and meta-rules that guide him under
different situations.
“I was assigned to do a piece of news that was on tornado hit and the
aftermath happened in the United States. I was at first told that several cities
and states were hit and the situations were bad, but the source I got was from
Reuters and the details were scarce. I automatically thought of that since it was
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related to what happened within the U.S. territory, the Associated Press (AP)
might serve as a better source of the latest situation updates than Reuters does.
Stories like this that happened in America should always go to AP for more
detailed information. Though it is as vital as Reuters in terms of news agencies
worldwide, but AP usually cover more and more U.S. based news. Every news
agency has its specialty.” (B)
On the contrary, A ran in short of the concept of rules and meta-rules for
different situational problems. During the days of observations, A was assigned to do
news on ‘Society of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt’, ‘labors strike on Labor’s Day in
Russia’, and on ‘subway incident in South Korea’ and ‘U.S. jobs report’. The source
for A in completing these stories was mainly Reuters. Other references were local and
foreign newspapers’ reports, and local ones stand a great proportion.
“I usually go on Reuters to check for more related stories. If I want to look
for other video footages other than the original footage I got along with the
assigned news, I go to Reuters’ media express. When it comes to other
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favorable references of mine, I usually check online to browse on Apply daily
and Central News Agency (CNA). I know there are more sources that I can go for
more information, but I think it is because I am used to use Reuters and it
becomes more like a default source.” (A)
Other findings
Aside from the scope of problem solving and knowledge structures that
distinguish expert journalists of international news from novice journalists, this study
also found subtle traits that may result in the discrepancy of journalistic expertise on
international news through observations and non-official conversations, and
interviews. Two traits are further interpreted below.
Depth of knowledge (specialty)
International news journalists are often considered to merely translate news
stories from foreign newspapers and TV sources. However, due to recent international
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incidents, some international news journalists were sent to the scenes to do stand-up
reporting and interviews.
During the observations, Journalist B from time to time brought up the
abovementioned phenomenon and subtly showed his thoughts that international news
journalists need to acquire other professional knowledge or area of expertise so that
your hard work and potential can be seen by both the audience and the supervisors,
and international news can therefore regain the lost readership and viewership.
“Starting from the kidnapping incident to the case of Malaysian Airlines,
more people are paying attention to international news. Some media even sent
their correspondents to the spot to do live broadcasts. This indicated that
international news is back. So our job needs to change as well. International
news journalists need to acquire other professional knowledge or area of
expertise to fit in the entire change of the media environment. In the past and
even nowadays, there are no specific bites for international news, and
journalists need to cover every profession. By acquiring and accumulating
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person for international issues. This helps facilitate the journalistic expertise of
international news journalists.” (B)
“The most important thing of being an international news journalists is
that you have to delve into an area as deep as you can, or deeper than anyone
else can. When you acquire more knowledge toward a certain area, you start to
build up your own reputation and reliability on reporting related issues, and this
is indeed a great plus for international news journalists. In our international
news center, there is a famous journalist who is the ‘go to’ person for all sorts
of Japanese issues. He has his reputation, credibility, and reliability on that, and
I think this is what an international news journalist should be like.” (A)
Moreover, accumulating the depth of knowledge or to work on knowledge
specialty can help facilitate the connection of knowledge and can in return facilitate
the speed of news production.
“What I don’t have right now is the accumulation of knowledge. This makes
great difference. I think why I’m different from senior colleagues is that they
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know more, and they can process more complicated concepts faster than I can.
The time I spend on searching for information to make myself clear is probably
the time they start working on news stories.” (A)
Well-performed working habits
Based on observations, Journalist B has good working habits. From the time he
is being assigned with a news story, she starts to write down every notes and time
codes. She also marks down names, numbers and locations.
“Basically, I mark down almost everything I think I might use. Every time I
do so, I can easily go back to my notes to check on what I thought about the
plans and solutions. This is especially helpful if you are in a hurry. This can save
you a lot of time of referring back and forth, and can make your task a lot easier
and more efficient.” (B)
Beginning from being assigned to a news story till the completion of the news,
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Therefore, having good working habits can help reduce time and cognitive
complexity in achieving goals more efficiently.
“Some senior colleagues have really good working habits. They write down
every detail on the scripts. For example, when they listen to the raw footage of
the source, they mark down time codes to make sure they can efficiently trace
back to this time point to edit. They also write down main points next to every
paragraph. They pay attention to the names, dates, and numbers on the scripts.
These are just some of the examples. I think these tips help journalists a lot in
organizing and selecting what and how to use. When I first joined this group,
they taught me how to makes notes and these tips as well. But I’m not really
used to it. I seldom do it, but they do it every time.” (A)
“Every time when I am assigned to do a piece of news story, I first check
the date of each script to see when they were released. Also when listening to
the video footages, I mark down every detail information just in case I get
baffled later when doing news. More than this, I also save a lot of raw footages
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just in case when I’m in need of these but can’t find one to use. Keeping a good
working habit can allow you to reduce the stress when doing the news.
Sometimes when you are running out of time, and it makes you a lot easier if
you have the habits of writing details down. This saves you time to look back
and forth for what was read and what is going to be used and keeps you being
on track of the process.” (B)
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Conclusion
This study recruited two international news journalists in exploring the
journalistic expertise of international news through observations and interviews. By
appropriating the approach of cognitive psychological expert-novice theory, problem
solving theory, and knowledge structure, findings of this study are further organized
and interpreted in terms of problem solving and knowledge structure based on the
data collected through daily observations and conversations.
Difference on problem solving of expert/novice international news journalists
This study aimed at exploring the differences of performances within the entire
problem solving process, including initial status, target status, and actions.
Results suggested that expert and novice international news journalists do have
differences in terms of problem solving. Journalist A spends more time in initial
status to try to form the representation of the case. Journalist A spends a lot more time
in reading the original news pieces, figuring out the main points of the news story,
finding more related information based on the same issue while being pending on
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whether those information is appropriate or suitable. Also, Journalist A tends to find
almost every single piece of news texts online and read them all through to help
making sense of the central idea of the original one when looking for more
information. That is, upon receiving a news story, A needs more time to process
before entering the next status. International news journalists don’t have to name the
‘slug’ of the news story they work on, but still, it takes Journalist A more time to shift
from initial status to target status.
As for Journalist B, B tends to spend less time in reading the original news
pieces, in finding more related information, and with the representation format. B also
tends to browse for more useful and meaningful news texts segments online to make
sure the layout of the news output is complete and filled with everything the audience
needs to know. In other words, after the news task is assigned, B spends less time in
searching for other information to make representation of the task.
Namely, in terms of the performance in initial status, which is forming
representation and conducting initial analyses, Journalist B is more inclined to be an
expert journalist of international news, whereas Journalist A is more inclined to be a
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novice on forming representation and conducting initial analyses.
In organizing, selecting, and forming possible solutions, Journalist A tends to
spend more time on reading all online news materials to try to come up with a sense
of logic in reporting and in deciding what materials to use and how to use. A
relatively spends longer time in referring texts online one by one, and goes back and
forth to one another. The reaction time for A to come up with a clear reporting logic is
comparatively longer than Journalist B.
On the contrary, Journalist B spends less time in referring to online texts.
Though B does do online to look for more information, but she does not conduct this
in a random way. B has a clear sense of what materials and how to be used. B also
spends less time in coming up with a logical reporting order. B has an idea on this
logic is that news stories she deals with must try to cover all information that audience
need to be aware of.
Aside from the abovementioned findings, results suggested that A has the
tendency of coming up with more possible solutions for the expected outcome of the
news layout than Journalist B does. Results analyzed for target status was to find out
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during the time-span, whether the international news journalists were being able to be
efficient in organizing, selecting, and forming possible solutions. Though Journalist A
has the tendency of coming up with more possible solutions, she still spends more
time in deciding how organize and what to select for the news outcome. But for B,
though she comes up with fewer solutions, she spends less time in making decisions,
and she is being efficient in in organizing and selecting materials for audience.
Namely, in terms of organizing, selecting, and forming possible solutions in
target status, Journalist A is more inclined to be a novice journalist of international
news, whereas Journalist B is more inclined to be an expert.
Moreover, in terms actions, Journalist A and B tend to evaluate both the plans
and solutions along with the problem solving process. Performances of both A and B
are relatively the same with each other. That is, when it comes to the application of
plans and that of solutions and the evaluations of both plans and solutions, there is no
discrepancy that differentiate Journalist A from B.
Speaking of problem solving strategy, Journalist A tends to spend more time in
monitoring the writing of the scripts, editing the video, and voice coverings. In other
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words, A spends more time on proofreading, re-writing, re-organizing, and re-editing,
and the frequencies of the re-dos go higher than B’s. As for Journalist B, she spends
less time on re-writing, re-organizing, and re-editing, and she tends to be able to have
good control over the expected outcomes. That is, B is more efficient in controlling
time on managing the structures and compositions of news layout.
Namely, in terms of the surveillance ability in problem solving strategy,
Journalist A is more inclined to be a novice journalist of international news. On the
contrary, Journalist B is inclined to be an expert journalist of international news.
Expert/novice international news journalists’ knowledge structure difference
This study aimed at exploring the difference of knowledge structure from the
approach of cognitive psychology, and results suggested that expert and novice
international news journalists do have different bases of knowledge structure.
Speaking of the domain knowledge that is related to the concepts and
relationships of the issues, Journalist B has the tendency of having wider domain
knowledge base. After being assigned with a news story, B can easily come up with
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related information or familiar news that guide him for reducing the time spent on
information gathering. B knows more about what had happened regarding the news
assigned to him. He is also aware of the names, locations, projects, bills, and also
relationships regarding the news. On the contrary, results suggested that Journalist A
tends to run in short of this domain knowledge in guiding him on information
gathering. Namely, in terms of having more access into domain knowledge related to
different issues, Journalist A is more inclined to be a novice journalist of international
news. But for Journalist B, B is more inclined to be an expert journalist of
international news.
When it comes to contextual knowledge, Journalist A tends to focus on
everything online related to the assigned news story. That is, A tends to browse as
much as he can but without a clear sense of what happened before and what might
happen in the future regarding the news story. In other words, when A is assigned
with a news story, A follows what is already on the scripts she got, and she goes
online for more related information which is equivalent to the scope of the original
scripts. As for Journalist B, she tends to browse for more information to make sure
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that what she knows or is familiar with is the same as the facts. Journalist B pays
attention to more detail information along with the controversial issues within the
scope of a news story. Therefore, when being assigned with a news story, B spends
less time in searching for more information. B usually searches online for
confirmation for the reporting logic she hopes to present to audience. With regards to
this, Journalist A is more inclined to be a novice journalist of international news,
whereas Journalist B is more inclined to be an expert journalist of international news.
In terms of procedural knowledge, Journalist B has a wider procedural
knowledge base than A does. B has a clear logic of what to do when certain things
occur. That is, B knows the rules and meta-rules of what and how to do under
different circumstances. B is clear about the different attributes of different news
agencies, and he therefore knows where to go for more video footages. As for
Journalist A, she does not have a lot of alternatives for different situations. A most of
the times abides by the only rule to guide him under almost every given situations.
That is, journalist A is more inclined to be a novice journalist of international news.
On the contrary, B is more inclined to be an expert journalist of international news.
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This study appropriates the cognitive psychological approach of novice-expert
theory in exploring the journalistic expertise differences of international news
journalists. Based on the findings, this study proposed that:
I. Expert journalist of international news tends to spend less time in initial
definition and representation of a problem.
Findings suggested that expert journalist of international news is more inclined
to be an expert at initial status, and spends relatively less time to define and form
representation of a problem. Novice tends to perform differently and spends more
time in defining and forming representations.
II. Expert journalist of international news tends to spend less time in
forming possible solutions for expected outcome.
Findings suggested that expert journalist of international news is more inclined
to be an expert at target status, and tends to spend less time in coming up with
possible solutions, for they have already constructed one upon being assigned to a
piece of news story. Novice tends to perform differently in coming up with possible
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III. Expert journalist of international news tends to have a more solid and
stronger knowledge structure.
Based on the findings, it is suggested that expert journalist of international news
is more inclined to have stronger domain knowledge, contextual knowledge, and
procedural knowledge to make connection for related problem details, to deal with
familiar aspects of problems with procedures, and allow expert to have greater
cohesion and linkage with different knowledge.
IV. Expert journalist of international news tends to have better surveillance
ability.
Findings of this study suggested that although both international news journalists
could finish their work on time, but expert journalist of international could
successfully and efficiently control and monitor the re-dos of writing and voice
covering, whereas novice journalist could not, and needed to re-do more times.
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V. Expert journalist of international news tends to have better working
habits.
Findings of this study suggested that expert journalist of international news tend
to have good working ability on writing down every little details and making notes to
to have good working ability on writing down every little details and making notes to