Managing Civility in News and Information Organizations

Purpose: Explore media managers’ perspectives on covering issues of conflict, as well as analyze news coverage of issues related to civility in the Black Lives Matter conflict. Methodology: Summary translations were conducted on panel discussions of civility in media to identify issues of importance to media managers. A computational content analysis of newspaper articles on conflict was conducted to identify key words and phrases used in actual coverage. Findings/Contribution: Media managers are concerned with bias in news reporting an­­d covering differing viewpoints especially in stories of conflict. Four themes emerged: Values, Practices, Sectors, Story Topics and Legal Considerations. In Black Lives Matter coverage, reporting themes related to violence prevailed leaving open more in-depth coverage of issues related to values, sectors and legal concerns.