Chapter 4 methodology

As Bakan describes, “Elements of Anglo-American model also increasingly shape its counterparts in other countries, especially in European nations and Japan” (2004:3). Therefore, this paper mainly focuses on the situation of the business/financial journalism in the United Kingdom and Japan.

This research applies the data gathering approach through a series of interviews and questionnaire. By doing them, the researcher expects to have the ideas and insights of what happens in the communication between journalists and news sources in reality. The interviewees were selected from both sides: journalists (including freelance journalist and ex-journalist) and the public relations people such as the PR agencies and the in-house corporation PR people. This study has twelve interviews with journalists and PR people, and one questionnaire answer from a Japanese corporation in total.

In order to have the realistic point of view about the financial/business journalism broadly, the researcher had tried to contact not only to the journalists in newspapers, but also to the people in broadcasting, newswires, magazines, web news and freelance. In addition, he offers the interviews with the corporations which have the in-house PR team and the PR agencies, and the non-governmental organisation which watchdogs the corporations’ behaviour as well. The interviewees are British, American and Japanese, who are the people of economically leading countries and financial/business journalism has been developed. All journalists who accepted the researcher’s interview have more than five years’ experience in journalism.

4-1. Interviews

The interviews were held from June to August 2006. Six interviews with the people who are in the United Kingdom were basically carried out at their office in London or Leeds during their business hours. The discussion was with open ended questions which allow the interviewees to answer as much as they want. In addition, the face to face communications brought the relaxed atmosphere rather than phone conversations or emails. The entire discussions were recorded with the interviewees’ permission to avoid misunderstanding of what the interviewees answer. They were transcribed afterwards.

In the case of the interviews with Japanese journalists or journalists who stay in Japan, most of the interviews were carried out over the phone with open ended questions during weekends when they were at home. The discussions were not recorded because of the difficulty to record the phone conversation, so the researcher wrote the conversation down to his notebook.

In sum, the journalists (including retired ones) who accept the researcher’s offer works for the Financial Times, Bloomberg, the Yorkshire Evening Post, the Business Week, Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei), and the Economist (Japan). In addition, one reporter accepted the interview under the condition to be anonymous both name and organisation. The PR agency which accepted this interview was Weber Shandwick (London).

4-2. Questionnaires

The questionnaire for Japanese companies was written in Japanese, and the answer was as well. The questions allow the open discussion, not like yes-no answers. The list of questions was sent through email, and the answer came through email. The answer was one in total from a Japanese mobile phone company, NTT Docomo. The questions for the journalists asked about their thoughts and opinions about the relationship between their news sources and them. One of the main points was the case when their news source complained about their article or report. How did they deal with the complaints, and how did they act without cutting the relationship off. The interviews were carried out as the style of free conversation.

4-3. Limitations and Difficulties

At the beginning of the contact to the media organisations or the corporations which have their own PR team, the researcher called to the office and got the suitable person’s email address. However, it usually happened that most of news organisations did not reply to the offer emails such as the Guardian, the British Broadcasting Corporation and the like. The researcher needed to keep calling them to ask the availability to have an interview with the right person, and it took much of time. In order to have neutral point of view, the researcher had approached to the non-governmental organisation Which?, and it replied to accept the offer once. However, there has been no reply to the questionnaire. In addition, the corporations such as Sony Corporation, Matsushita Electric Industrial Corporation, and Toyota Motor Corporation answered they were not able to answer any questions because of their policy.