Revisiting the “Story vs. Information” Model

In Discovering the News, Michael Schudson develops an important analytical dyad: Story vs. Information, reflecting two very different journalistic styles. Stories are more entertaining, often focusing on city life, crime and scandals. They were enjoyed by the new immigrants who freshly arrived in the United States in the nineteenth century. Information focuses on facts and seriousness, bringing useful knowledge about politics, business and foreign affairs to the “independent and participant” middle classes. If this dyad is to be illuminating beyond the nineteenth-century US case, it requires questioning. Are stories unable to produce information or make sense of social facts? Are they not capable of producing a specific understanding of social life, since this is highly visible in the US traditions of magazines and muckraking? This article challenges this dichotomy, encouraging us to rebuild (with, and sometimes against, Schudson) an up-to-date mapping of journalistic genres, their strengths and their uses.