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DOI: 10.1177/0163443715594868
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Opening the news gates?
Humanitarian and human
rights NGOs in the US news
media, 1990–2010
Matthew Powers
University of Washington, USA
Abstract
This study examines whether changes in the media, political, and civic landscapes
give leading non-governmental organizations (NGOs) increased news access. Using
longitudinal content analysis (1990–2010) of a purposive sample of US news outlets,
it compares the prevalence, prominence, and story location of news articles citing
leading human rights NGOs to human rights coverage more generally. In all outlets,
NGO prevalence rises over time; media-savvy NGOs drive much of the growth. By
contrast, prominence decreases, as do the number of NGO-driven stories. In all
outlets, NGOs typically appear in stories already in the media spotlight; as sources,
they appear after the statements of government officials. Finally, the news outlets
most receptive to NGOs are those that commit the fewest resources to international
news coverage. Overall, findings suggest that while NGO news access has indeed
increased over time, such access continues to be shaped by established patterns of
news construction.
Keywords
civil society, content analysis, international news, human rights, news access, non-
governmental organizations
Past research shows that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) rarely make the news
(Lang, 2013; Thrall, 2006; Trenz, 2004). Do changes in today’s media, political, and
civic landscapes provide these groups with increased opportunities for news access? To
Corresponding author:
Matthew Powers, University of Washington, 102 Communications Box 353740, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
Email: mjpowers@uw.edu
594868MCS0010.1177/0163443715594868Media, Culture & SocietyPowers
research-article2015
Article
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2 Media, Culture & Society
some, diminished newsroom resources – particularly in the United States – make jour-
nalists increasingly likely to accept third party materials: leading NGOs, many of which
have ramped up and professionalized their publicity efforts, are thus seemingly well-
positioned to find increased news access (Cooper, 2011; Fenton, 2010). To others, cur-
rent shifts do not alter key barriers of NGO access to the news media. Specifically, the
news media’s bias toward government sources minimizes both the amount and types of
coverage such groups receive: accordingly, NGOs are said to receive news coverage only
when speaking on topics legitimated by government officials (Lang, 2013). This study, a
longitudinal examination of the amount and types of news access received by humanitar-
ian and human rights NGOs in the US media, puts these perspectives to the test.
Questions of news access represent a longstanding concern in communication research
(Bennett, 1990; Hall et al., 1978). Scholars have examined the factors shaping patterns
of source distribution (i.e. the relative mixture of sources in news articles) and editorial
selection (i.e. the types of issues that receive coverage). The study of humanitarian and
human rights NGOs provides opportunities for methodological and theoretical renewal
of this important research tradition. Methodologically, NGOs raise interesting questions
about to how adequately measure and operationalize news access. These are groups that
do not merely wish to appear in the news; many also want to get the media spotlight to
shine in new places and on new issues.
Theoretically, humanitarian and human rights NGOs provide an opportunity to
examine whether changes in international relations are reflected in international news
coverage. For decades, scholars of international relations have chronicled the incorpo-
ration – for better or worse – of NGOs into processes of international governance
(Keck and Sikkink, 1998; Lang, 2013; Moyn, 2010). During this same period, the
established wisdom in political communication has been that government officials
dominate news coverage about those international relations (Bennett, 2004). While an
important body of scholarship has investigated changes in how humanitarian and
human rights groups pursue publicity (Chouliaraki, 2013; Cottle and Nolan, 2007;
Dogra, 2012; Orgad and Seu, 2014; Powers, 2014), less attention has been paid to
tracking whether these changes – in conjunction with shifting landscapes of news and
politics – alter basic norms of news construction (e.g. resulting in fewer government
voices, a broader range of topics or issues).
The aims of this study are fourfold. First, it overviews the established wisdom on
news access and suggests that developments in the worlds of media, politics, and civil
society invite new research that re-examines this wisdom. Second, it conceptualizes and
operationalizes news access in order to capture the multiple dimensions on which NGOs
seek coverage. Third, it documents how and in what ways NGO news access has changed
over time. Fourth, it asks what effects, if any, changes in news access have on the con-
struction of international human rights news. To achieve these aims, this study presents
the results of a 20-year content analysis of human rights coverage in a strategic sample
of leading US news outlets. In each outlet, it examines the prevalence, prominence, and
geographic location of stories in which leading NGOs are cited to stories in which such
groups are absent. By doing so, it presents concrete evidence showing how and in what
ways NGO news access has changed over time – and asks what the implications of these
developments are for the study of news access.
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News access revisited
Scholars have long stressed that news access is shaped by a combination of professional
and economic factors (Gandy, 1982; Hall et al., 1978). Professionally, journalists see
themselves as keepers of a public record detailing the actions of public officials.
Economically, news organizations often lack the time and resources to produce news
without the help of sources. Together, these factors lead reporters to favor government
officials, who provide the ‘information subsidies’ (Gandy, 1982) necessary to fulfill both
professional and economic considerations. While the resulting news coverage is not
homogeneous, scholarship suggests that it is typically ‘indexed’ to the concentration and
balance of power in government circles (Bennett, 1990).
For NGOs, this official bias has long made for an uphill battle in the struggle for
media visibility. Studies have repeatedly found that such groups are included in news
coverage only rarely (Thrall, 2006; Trenz, 2004). To improve their chances at garnering
publicity, NGOs adapt their messages to acceptable formats and newsworthy topics
(Cottle and Nolan, 2007; Fenton, 2010; Waisbord, 2011). Yet, even when adapting to
news media demands, achieving news coverage remains difficult. Lang (2013), for
example, notes that NGOs are likely to receive coverage ‘only if there is valorized input
from government representatives’ (p. 127). Because NGOs infrequently align with media
demands and government opinions, they have been historically unlikely to receive news
coverage.
Today, there are signs that things may be changing, particularly in the realm of inter-
national human rights news. There, the constituent elements of a perfect storm are taking
shape, which may result in increased news access for humanitarian and human rights
NGOs. First, changing economic conditions – specifically, diminished revenues coupled
with intensified profitability expectations at US news organizations (McChesney and
Nichols, 2010) – have reduced the resources news organizations commit to international
newsgathering. Since the end of the Cold War, US news outlets have cut back on the
number of foreign news bureaus and full-time correspondents (Kumar, 2011). In their
place, freelance reporters and parachute journalists have become increasingly common
(Hannerz, 2004). As a result, news organizations find it increasingly difficult to ade-
quately monitor international news based on their own network of correspondents
(Sambrook, 2010; Wright, 2015).
Second, NGOs in general – and humanitarian and human rights NGOs in particular –
enjoy relatively high levels of both public and official acceptance. In a climate of public
skepticism toward governments, many view NGOs as both trusted sources of informa-
tion and potential organizers for political action (Castells, 2008; Lang, 2013).
Humanitarian and human rights NGOs benefit from a political climate in which their
shared discourse – human rights1 – enjoys widespread public acceptance (if uneven
application): historical scholarship shows that government use of human rights dis-
courses exploded in the early 1990s (amidst the collapse of the Cold War and the emer-
gence of so-called ‘humanitarian wars’), peaked in the mid-2000s (with pro- and anti-Iraq
war sides using human rights language), and has decreased slightly in the United States
under the Obama administration (Keys, 2014). This has led both humanitarian and
human rights groups to interact more regularly with government officials, whether in the
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4 Media, Culture & Society
provision of services or reporting of human rights violations. Taken together, these
developments appear to simultaneously give official legitimation to NGOs (i.e. include
them within the range of official viewpoints), while perhaps also decentering govern-
ment officials as the primary authority on certain news topics.
Third, NGOs have professionalized their information offerings in order to improve
their chances of making the news. Leading organizations nowadays dedicate substantial
resources to producing reports about topics of importance (Dogra, 2012; McPherson,
2014; Orgad and Seu, 2014; Powers, 2015). Large NGOs also sustain substantial com-
munication staffs – many with journalism backgrounds (Cooper, 2011) – that communi-
cate issues to broader publics (by issuing press releases, staging media events, producing
multimedia content, enlisting celebrities as spokespeople, etc.). Taken together, profes-
sionalization processes at NGOs mean that these organizations have more – and more
types – of information that they can use in their quest for news coverage.
These three elements – economic constraints for news outlets, acceptance of NGOs
in official circles, and professionalized publicity efforts by leading NGOs – each point
to seemingly favorable conditions for increased NGO news access. It is less clear what
sorts of news access they might provide. Will increased news access allow NGOs to
drive news coverage across a wider range of countries? Or will it result primarily in
NGOs being subordinated to the demands and preferences of media and government
actors? To date, scholars have answered these questions primarily through the lens of
case studies (see, for example, Cooper, 2011; Fenton, 2010; Russell, 2013; Waisbord,
2011) or qualitative visual and discourse analysis (Chouliaraki, 2006, 2013; Orgad,
2013). While rich in empirical detail, such studies lack the systematic analysis required
to answer specific questions concerning news access. Moreover, the different cases to
which they speak produce a range of conflicting claims. Some find that NGOs today
enjoy increased opportunities for news access (Russell, 2013), while others suggest
that norms of news construction continue to minimize the amount and types of access
NGOs receive (Waisbord, 2011). The issue, then, is not merely one of discrepant cases
but also under-conceptualization. In order to clarify scholarly knowledge of NGO
news access, it is thus necessary to conceptualize the multiple dimensions of news
access, which can in turn be used as the basis for a content analysis examining patterns
of NGO news access over time. This more parsimonious conceptualization of news
access can help ascertain both the nature and some of the effects of NGO news access
over time.
Conceptualizing NGO news access
News access examines who gets to be a news source and what sort of news source they
get to be. Undoubtedly, this is a vast topic spanning a wide range of actors and influ-
ences. Previous research suggests that access varies depending on news outlet, political
context, topical focus, and a variety of other factors (Bennett, 2004). Thus, to avoid the
risk of overgeneralizing, this study draws on the existing literature examining NGO-
media relations in order to develop a parsimonious conceptualization of news access for
NGOs. From this literature, it identifies three dimensions of access: prevalence, promi-
nence, and story location, each of which captures different facets of how NGOs appear
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in the news. While not exhaustive of access in all forms, each of these – detailed below
– documents aspects of news access that can adjudicate specific claims about the effects
of NGO news access on norms of news construction.
A first dimension is prevalence. This refers to how often NGOs appear in the news.
Several studies suggest that NGOs receive more overall coverage today than in the
past, though supporting historical evidence is scant (Beckett, 2008; Sambrook, 2010).
Moreover, discussions of prevalence remain underspecified in two ways. First, it
remains unclear whether claims of growing access reflect an uptake in the usage of
NGO materials by news organizations or simply an expansion in the population of
NGOs and news outlets, respectively. Second, it is unclear whether growing preva-
lence is a broad phenomenon or whether it is unevenly distributed across NGOs.
Previous research shows that leading NGOs accrue a far greater amount of news cover-
age than smaller ones (Thrall et al., 2014). Others also suggest that a few media-savvy
NGOs drive the majority of the growth in NGO prevalence. In particular, scholars have
argued that both Human Rights Watch and Médecins Sans Frontières are especially
well adapted to the current media environment. Unlike their competitors, these groups
are posited to invest more resources in maintaining a nimble media profile that can
respond to the needs and demands of journalists (Hopgood, 2006; Van Leuven and
Joye, 2014).
A second dimension is prominence. It refers to the position and placement of NGOs
within news articles (in relation to other news sources). According to some, NGOs may
in some ways be changing the construction of news not only by appearing in more news
articles than in the past but also by being cited more prominently within them. Fenton
(2010) suggests that time-strapped journalists frequently copy NGO press releases –
which feature the organizations themselves prominently – ‘verbatim’ (p. 116). Relatedly,
others argue that NGOs increasingly decenter the prominence of government sources
and perhaps increase the position of civic voices in news coverage (Castells, 2008). Van
Leuven and Joye (2014), for example, find that international aid coverage in Belgium is
more often based on NGO sources than government ones.
Others suggest that claims of ‘verbatim’ reportage and the displacement of govern-
ment sources are overstated. In keeping with theoretical premises of indexing, Waisbord
(2011) finds that the ‘organization of news work is lopsided against NGOs’ (p. 146) in
favor of government officials. Several studies of the European press find that NGOs are
used to ‘counterbalance’ (Van Leuven et al., 2013: 430) the messages put forward by
officials. Furthermore, some warn that rising prominence for NGOs over time may
crowd out smaller organizations with fewer material and symbolic resources (Bob, 2005;
Thrall et al., 2014). Together, these suggest that the number of NGO-driven press releases
will be quite low and that NGOs will typically appear later in stories after government
officials.
A third dimension of news access is story location. International news coverage in
general – and human rights coverage in particular – is known to be highly concentrated
and focused on a handful of countries (Ramos et al., 2007; Zuckerman, 2004). Some
research suggests that NGOs appear most often in news articles that focus on the small
number of countries in which the news media already have an interest. This leads some
scholars to express concern that NGO news access will reinforce, rather than challenge,
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6 Media, Culture & Society
norms regarding the construction of international news (Cottle and Nolan, 2007; Fenton,
2010; Waisbord, 2011).
Conversely, other research suggests that NGO professionalization has given organiza-
tions both the skills and resources to bring news coverage to a wider range of countries
than in the past (Ramos et al., 2007; Zuckerman, 2004). On one level, this suggests that
the number of countries in which NGOs are cited will increase over time. On another, it
also posits that the overall pattern of NGO citations will become less concentrated, that
is, that the countries receiving the majority of news coverage will constitute a smaller
proportion of all NGO news citations over time. Zuckerman (2004) argues both in the
case of news coverage in Darfur. There, NGOs reported for years before journalists
turned their attention to the story. As such, NGOs both helped push attention to a country
otherwise outside the media spotlight and, in doing so, helped diversify – albeit modestly
– the overall concentration of international news coverage.
In conceptualizing news access along these different dimensions, this study provides a
methodological framework that may more adequately capture the empirical reality of
NGO news access while also adjudicating among extant debates. Because each dimension
captures different features of news access, each addresses both (a) how and in what ways
NGO news access has changed over time and (b) what effects, if any, these changes have
on the construction of international news. It is possible, for instance, that NGO prevalence
has increased, while prominence has decreased and that government sources remain dom-
inant in news articles. Such a finding would suggest that news construction norms have
changed little, as NGO access would be mediated by other, more established news sources.
Alternatively, it is possible that prevalence and prominence both increase and that the
countries in which NGOs are cited diversify over time. Such a finding would support
claims of both increased news access and the idea that NGOs may partially alter extant
norms of news construction. To be sure, the range of potential permutations is wide and
the influences are numerous. This study simply seeks to test common questions and claims
about regarding changes to NGO news access.
Data and methods
This study asks whether changes in the political, media, and civic landscapes give NGOs
increased news access. To investigate, it examines human rights coverage in a strategic
sample of leading US news outlets from 1990 to 2010. In each, it compares the preva-
lence, prominence, and geographic location of articles in which leading NGOs are cited
to a random sample in which such groups are absent. Through this comparison, it cap-
tures changes in NGO news access both in absolute terms and as a proportion of human
rights coverage.
The news outlets included in the analysis are the New York Times, NBC Nightly News,
and USA Today. These outlets were selected both to provide a broad picture of NGO
access in the news media as well as test whether patterns of news access vary by outlet.
Elite newspapers like the New York Times retain ample foreign reporting staffs. As of
2013, The Times reported having 31 full-time bureaus in operation around the world
(Keller, 2013). General audience newspapers and broadcast network news have cut back
far more substantially. A 2011 survey found USA Today to have just 5 full-time bureaus
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in operation; NBC had 14 (Kumar, 2011). By selecting these outlets, the research design
can test specific claims about whether diminished editorial resources may or may not
offer increased access to NGOs. Furthermore, the focus on the US case supplements
extant scholarship that examines NGOs in Europe (Trenz, 2004; Van Leuven et al., 2013;
Van Leuven and Joye, 2014).
In order to create the sample, the author entered the search phrase ‘human rights’ into
the LexisNexis search database. For the New York Times and USA Today, searches begin
in 1990 and are repeated every 5 years up to and including 2010. This time period ena-
bles a lengthy longitudinal analysis: its selection coincides with decreased editorial
resources, increased NGO professionalization, and rising acceptance of human rights
discourses. Because full text archives of NBC Nightly News begin in 2000 (and
Vanderbilt archives provide only news summaries), analysis of that outlet begins in
2000. In all news outlets, the unit of analysis was the news article. This procedure
yielded 10,310 news articles, which are referenced below as the total sample. Each of
these articles is coded for year (i.e. 1990, 1995) and primary country of focus (e.g.
Afghanistan, Turkey).
Within the total sample, searches for the name of seven leading humanitarian and
human rights NGOs were entered. These are Amnesty International, Human Rights
Watch, International Crisis Group, Médecins Sans Frontières, Oxfam, Save the Children,
and World Vision. Scholars routinely identify these as some of the largest and well-
funded groups in the humanitarian and human rights sector (Barnett, 2011); previous
research also shows that leading NGOs account for the vast majority of NGOs mentioned
in the news (Thrall, 2006; Thrall et al., 2014). In selecting these organizations, the study
can be reasonably sure that any over time changes in NGO prevalence reflect actual
changes in news access rather than resulting from other confounding factors (e.g. the
introduction of new NGOs in the sample). Moreover, by including several NGOs –
namely, Human Rights Watch and Médecins Sans Frontières – that previous scholarship
identifies as especially media savvy (Barnett, 2011; Hopgood, 2006), this study is able to
test claims about whether the media strategies of leading NGOs allow some organiza-
tions more access than others. The total sample of articles in which NGOs are mentioned
is 2077.
In order to compare citation patterns of articles in which NGOs are mentioned to
those in which they are not, a random subset of news articles in which leading NGOs are
not mentioned was also drawn. This subset included 100 articles for each news outlet in
each time period (e.g. 1990, 1995). For any news outlet with fewer than 100 articles in a
given year, all items were coded. This sample included 1034 news articles. Together with
the sample of articles mentioning leading NGOs, these data are referenced below as the
core sample. It contains 3111 news articles.
All articles in the core sample were coded in relation to specific claims about how
NGO news access has changed and what effects, if any, such changes have on the con-
struction of international news. To capture the prevalence of NGOs in the news over
time, each article was coded for the specific organization mentioned. Those without any
organization mentioned were coded as ‘0’. This allows for a simple measure of total
NGO mentions over time and analysis of how many mentions each NGOs garner. These
are compared to the total population of human rights articles (i.e. the total sample) in
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8 Media, Culture & Society
order to examine the prevalence of articles in which leading NGOs are mentioned as a
percentage of all human rights news coverage.
To further contextualize prevalence data, this study utilizes an independent measure
of human rights discourse by government officials. Scholars working under the theo-
retical premises of indexing call for independent measures of political discourse in
order to more carefully trace the degree to which media coverage of an issue departs
from political debates (Zaller and Chiu, 1996). The search term ‘human rights’ was
entered into the online database of the Congressional Record in order to create a gen-
eral measure of human rights discussions in policy circles. Then, the name of each
leading NGO was entered alongside the search term (e.g. ‘Amnesty International AND
human rights’) in order to capture the prevalence of NGOs within Congressional
debates.
Several measures coded for prominence. To assess claims that NGOs decenter gov-
ernment officials within news articles, each article in the core sample was coded for its
first five sources. Any individual or group receiving direct attribution was deemed a
source. Sources were categorized as government officials, civil society groups, academ-
ics, businesspersons, legal or medical professionals, celebrities, UN officials, and unaf-
filiated individuals. Each source was coded for its position within the news article (e.g.
first source, second source). After coding, each source’s average order of mention was
calculated within news articles. A simple word count of each news article was done to
ascertain whether the NGO was mentioned in the first or second half of the news article.
Finally, each article was coded for whether or not the NGO was the clear initiator. An
article was coded as ‘NGO driven’ when it clearly signaled that an NGO was the source
for the article (see Livingston and Bennett, 2003, for a similar measure). Such articles
report statements made by an NGO in the first paragraph (e.g. ‘According to Human
Rights Watch, 17 people were killed in bombings today’). This is a conservative esti-
mate, as NGOs may ‘drive’ news articles in less visible ways; however, the indicator
allows for testing of claims about whether NGOs find their work increasingly used
‘verbatim’.
To assess claims about how changes in news access impact the location of articles
in which NGOs are mentioned, all articles – that is, the total sample – were coded for
country focus. Following Ramos et al. (2007), each article was coded for the first
country mentioned. This likely undercounts the total number of countries, as some
articles include multiple countries. However, this measure allows for longitudinal
analysis of whether the number of countries in which NGOs are mentioned expands
over time, while retaining high levels of coder reliability. To test claims that NGO
mentions cluster around a small number of countries, the study reports what percent-
age of all NGO mentions is located in the five most frequently mentioned countries
for each collection period.
The author provided two graduate student coders with the core sample drawn from
LexisNexis. A pretest among coders was performed to ensure reliability; in-person meet-
ings among coders resolved coding disagreements. Using Krippendorf’s alpha, overall
reliability (determined by sample tests constituting 10% of the overall data) between
coders was high. For prevalence measures, average reliability was .815; for prominence,
.802; and for country focus, .735.
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Findings
Prevalence
NGO prevalence in the news rises sharply over time, both in absolute terms and as a
percentage of all human rights coverage. The growing prevalence of leading humanitar-
ian and human rights NGOs in the news far outpaces their presence in Congressional
debates, which remain largely constant. Media-savvy groups drive much of the growth
and account for a growing share of all mentions. Across all time periods, the news outlets
that dedicate the fewest resources to international news coverage are also the most likely
to mention NGOs in their reporting. See Tables 1 and 2.
In 1990, humanitarian and human rights NGOs were mentioned in 8.5% of all human
rights news articles in the total sample. By 2005, that number jumps to 27.4%. In 2010,
prevalence drops slightly in absolute terms (from 638 to 604) but grows as a proportion of
all articles (to 35.9%) on account of the news media’s diminished attention to human rights
issues. Growing prevalence in the news far outpaces NGO presence in Congressional
debates. There, human rights issues – as a percentage of all human rights discussions – peak
Table 1. NGO prevalence as a % of human rights coverage by media and Congress.
Institutional
actor
1990,
% (Total N)
1995,
% (Total N)
2000,
% (Total N)
2005,
% (Total N)
2010,
% (Total N)
NYT 7.9 (1704) 11.7 (1601) 18.6 (1990) 26.4 (2005) 34.7 (1466)
USA Today 11.7 (358) 14.6 (335) 13.9 (266) 32.3 (261) 41.6 (190)
NBC Nightly n/a n/a 35.6 (45) 40.3 (62) 59.3 (27)
Total Media 8.5 (2062) 12.2 (1936) 18.4 (2301) 27.4 (2328) 35.9 (1683)
Congressional 13.5 (1152) 18.3 (882) 14.3 (1157) 15.7 (1083) 13.4 (681)
NGO: non-governmental organization.
Congressional mentions taken from Congressional Record online database. Total media sample, N = 10,310
articles. See methods section for details.
Table 2. NGO prevalence in the news by individual organization, 1990–2010.
NGO 1990, % (N) 1995, % (N) 2000, % (N) 2005, % (N) 2010, % (N)
Amnesty 59.7 (105) 39.4 (93) 31.0 (131) 20.4 (130) 19.0 (115)
HRW 10.8 (19) 40.3 (95) 39.0 (165) 33.9 (216) 30.3 (183)
ICG n/a n/a 2.6 (11) 7.5 (48) 10.9 (66)
MSF 5.7 (10) 9.7 (23) 16.1 (68) 15.5 (99) 20.5 (124)
Oxfam 3.4 (6) 3.0 (7) 4.0 (17) 13.6 (87) 7.6 (46)
SCF 15.9 (28) 5.5 (13) 5.2 (22) 6.9 (44) 6.1 (37)
WV 4.5 (8) 2.1 (5) 2.1 (9) 2.2 (14) 5.5 (33)
Total 176 236 423 638 604
HRW: Human Rights Watch; ICG: International Crisis Group; MSF: Médecins Sans Frontières; SCF: Save
the Children; WV: World Vision.
Total sample of articles in which NGOs are mentioned, N = 2077. Due to rounding, not all % add up to 100.
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10 Media, Culture & Society
in 1995 and decline steadily over time. Overall, NGOs are found on average in about 15.0%
of all Congressional discussions of human rights: this number varies minimally over time.
Claims that media-savvy organizations drive much of the growth in NGO news preva-
lence find support. In 1990, the two media-savvy organizations in the sample – Human
Rights Watch and Médecins Sans Frontières – account for just 16.5% of all NGO men-
tions in the core sample. By 2010, these groups garner half (50.8%) of all mentions. For
other groups, prevalence either undulates moderately across time periods or rises in
absolute terms while constituting a small portion of total mentions. Amnesty International
and Save the Children both see their number of mentions rise modestly in absolute terms
even as their share of total mentions diminishes considerably, from 75.6% in 1990 to just
25.1% in 2010. Oxfam and World Vision see their prevalence grow over time in absolute
terms (from 6 and 8 in 1990, respectively, to 46 and 33 in 2010), but this remains a small
proportion of all NGO mentions.
Claims that understaffed news outlets are more likely to mention NGOs also enjoy
empirical support. NBC Nightly News is most likely to mention NGOs in its coverage
(core sample). On average, 42.5% of its human rights coverage references a leading
NGO, and this percentage grows over time. By 2010, nearly 60.0% of its human rights
articles reference a leading NGO. USA Today’s coverage of human rights issues declines
each year from 1990 on, but the shrinking coverage coincides with increased mentions
for NGOs. By 2010, 41.6% of all human rights stories include a leading humanitarian or
human rights organization (up from just 11.7% in 1990). Prevalence as a percentage of
human rights coverage is lowest in the New York Times (19.7% on average), in part
because the Times produces a much larger number of human rights articles in absolute
terms than either of the other two news outlets.
Prominence
NGO prominence declines over time. NGOs are mentioned later in news articles and
after other news sources. Expectations that increased access will decenter official sources
are unsupported: across all time periods in the core sample, government officials are
most prominent. To the extent that growing NGO access displaces any source, it tends to
be other civil society groups or United Nations officials. Finally, suggestions that NGOs
are increasingly able to drive news coverage (as evidenced by the number of NGO-
driven articles) receive little support: the total number of such mentions is small and
declines as a proportion of all mentions over time. See Tables 3 and 4.
Government officials are a prominent source in all human rights news articles. They
are slightly more prevalent in articles where leading NGOs are not mentioned (32.4% vs
28.0% of all mentions, respectively, in the core sample). Nowhere, though, are govern-
ment officials decentered from the news coverage. In addition to constituting roughly a
third of all sources, government officials are also most likely to be the first source men-
tioned in any article (34.2% of all first mentions, figure not shown in tables). If leading
NGOs displace any sources, it tends to be other civil society groups and United Nations
officials, both of whom are more commonly mentioned in human rights articles where
NGOs are not included as sources: civil society groups (i.e. any civic group that is not
one of the seven NGOs) garner 23.9% of mentions in human rights articles but only 9.5%
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in those in which leading NGOs are mentioned; United Nations officials are twice as
likely to appear in articles without leading NGOs in it.
While the prevalence of NGOs increases over time, their prominence within articles
decreases. In 1990, 51.1% of NGO mentions occur in the first half of articles in the core
sample. By 2010, only 39.4% do. In addition to being mentioned later in news articles,
they are also increasingly mentioned after other news sources. In 1990, NGO order of
mention averaged 2.12. This figure drops gradually over each time period; by 2010,
average order is 3.19. In their place, government officials and unaffiliated individuals
receive the most prominence. In 1990, individuals constituted 15.3% of first and second
source mentions in news articles that mention leading NGOs. By 2010, they account for
31.8% of all mentions. Government officials remain prominent across all time periods.
Together, unaffiliated individuals and government officials thus count for nearly two-
thirds of first sources in the 2010 sample.
Despite claims that NGOs find their publicity attempts increasingly used verbatim by
the news media, NGO-driven articles constitute a small portion of all mentions. Such
articles rise in absolute terms (30 in 1990, 82 in 2010), but decline as a proportion of all
mentions (17.0% in 1990, 13.6% in 2010). Media-savvy NGOs’ accounts are most suc-
cessful in placing such articles: Human Rights Watch and Médecins Sans Frontières
Table 3. Average distribution of news sources in human rights articles.
Source Human rights news Articles w/NGO citation Difference
Government 32.4 (1261) 28.0 (2128) – 4.4
Media 6.1 (238) 4.8 (367) −1.3
Leading NGO – 31.3 (2377) –
Civil Society 23.9 (931) 9.5 (722) −14.4
Business 2.3 (89) 2.5 (193) +0.2
Arts/Education 7.4 (288) 4.8 (366) −2.6
United Nations 12.6 (489) 6.5 (496) −6.1
Individual 10.6 (414) 9.6 (730) −1.0
Other 4.6 (180) 2.8 (214) −1.8
NGO: non-governmental organization.
Core sample, N = 3111 articles. For human rights news, total N = 3890 sources. For articles citing NGOs,
total N = 7593 sources.
Table 4. Indicators of NGO prominence, 1990–2010.
1990 1995 2000 2005 2010
NGO-driven article 17.0 (30) 12.7 (30) 13.5 (57) 15.2 (97) 13.6 (82)
Citations in 1st half of news article 51.1 (90) 49.2 (116) 39.2 (166) 39.8 (254) 39.4 (238)
Avg. citation order 2.12 2.71 3.26 3.09 3.19
NGO: non-governmental organization.
All figures based on average of the three news outlets. Total sample of articles in which NGOs are men-
tioned, N = 2077.
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12 Media, Culture & Society
generate 58.0% of all NGO-driven articles. Amnesty International accounts for another
quarter (25.6%) of all such articles. The remaining mentions are split fairly even amongst
the remaining groups. In general, the findings suggest that NGO-driven news articles are
an infrequent occurrence for all groups.
Story location of news coverage
While media coverage of human rights issues declines over time, the geographic reach
of that coverage – as well as its concentration – remains largely constant. Leading NGOs
are mentioned in a wider number of countries, but the distribution of their mentions
remains heavily concentrated within a few select countries. Across all periods and news
outlets, NGOs tend to be mentioned primarily in countries where the media spotlight is
already shining. Interestingly, though, NGO-driven articles appear most likely in coun-
tries outside the media’s primary zone of interest. See Table 5.
News coverage of human rights issues typically occurs in roughly 100 countries (total
sample). This figure remains largely constant, even as media coverage of human rights
issues declines in absolute terms. In all time periods, the New York Times far exceeds all
other news outlets in the number of countries it reports (143 vs 73 in USA Today and 32
in NBC Nightly News). It is also more diverse in its coverage of human rights issues. On
average, the percentage of mentions garnered by the top five countries ranges between
47.1% and 61.1%, as compared to 59.2% and 89.2% in USA Today and 80% and 100%
in NBC Nightly News (figures not shown in table). Thus, while the degree of concentra-
tion varies, all outlets generally concentrate on a few countries. Excluding the five most
frequently cited countries, the average number of citations per country across all outlets
is 10.12 annually.
Growing NGO prevalence does little to change this equation. While NGOs are men-
tioned in a growing number of countries (40 in 1990, 74 in 2010), the bulk of their men-
tions come in the countries from which the news media already report. Like news media
coverage of human rights issues more generally, NGOs tend to be mentioned in just a
few countries. In any given year, between 46.6% and 63.8% of all NGO mentions occur
in the five countries that garner the most media coverage for human rights issues. Over
time patterns – either toward greater or less concentration of NGO citations – are unclear.
The percentage of NGO mentions occurring in the top five countries drops 10% points
Table 5. Patterns of human rights coverage in the US news, 1990–2010.
Outlet 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010
Articles citing
an NGO
(a) Total countries 40 52 56 72 74
(b) % mentions in
top 5 countries
57.4 46.6 57.2 63.8 53.6
Total human
rights coverage
(a) Total countries 100 87 109 100 110
(b) % mentions in
top 5 countries
56.0 57.3 52.1 57.6 56.7
Total sample, N = 10,310 articles.
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from 1990 to 1995, only to rise in both 2000 and 2005, and drop slightly (to 53.6%) in
2010. Unobserved factors, like real world human rights issues, may be responsible for
variation. Further research is required on this issue.
Interestingly, while the number of NGO-driven stories is small, NGOs do appear
more likely to drive news coverage when reporting on issues in a country not already in
the media spotlight. Of the 237 NGO-driven articles in the core sample, 61.2% are found
in countries outside the media spotlight (as indicated by a country’s exclusion from the
top five countries in any given year). Typically, these mentions are one-off citations of a
country that otherwise receives very little coverage. Occasionally, a single organization
appears able to bring sustained media attention to a country otherwise unlikely to receive
news coverage. In 2005, for example, Human Rights Watch was cited 12 times in
Uzbekistan, a country with otherwise very low prevalence across the sample (across all
outlets and time periods, it gathers only 20 total mentions). This suggests that while
NGOs are generally mentioned in news articles within the media spotlight, they may be
most likely to succeed in driving news coverage when focusing on countries outside the
media spotlight.
Discussion
This study has examined whether changes in media, politics, and civil society give NGOs
increased access in mainstream news. It finds that leading humanitarian and human
rights NGOs do indeed receive greater prevalence today than in the past. The rising
inclusion of such groups in the news far outstrips their mentions in official political
debates. Moreover, the news outlets that dedicated the fewest resources to international
newsgathering are most likely to mention NGOs. According to the literature, the most
likely explanation for this finding is that they utilize the ‘information subsidies’ (Gandy,
1982) that leading NGOs provide. The result is that while there is less human rights news
coverage today than in the past, NGOs appear more often in it.
At the same time, the findings suggest that greater inclusion of NGOs has done little
to change the basic norms of news construction. Leading humanitarian and human rights
groups are cited later in news articles and after other news sources, especially govern-
ment officials and – to a lesser degree – unaffiliated individuals. Claims that NGOs are
decentering government officials appear overblown, at least in news coverage. Articles
driven directly by NGO efforts are rare across all time periods. Furthermore, leading
NGOs are mentioned primarily in countries where the media spotlight already shines.
Thus, the findings accord with previous research suggesting that while the news gates
may open for leading NGOs, they do so in ways that largely reinforce long established
norms of news construction (see, for example, Thrall, 2006; Thrall et al., 2014; Van
Leuven and Joye, 2014).
Extant theories of news access correctly predict the types of coverage that NGOs
receive. However, they do not predict the amount of coverage they receive. For example,
indexing theories (Bennett, 1990) suggest that non-official sources tend to receive cover-
age only when they ‘express opinions already emerging in official circles’ (p. 106).
Logically, this suggests that NGO prevalence ought to rise and fall alongside the inclu-
sion of leading NGOs within official circles (as measured via the Congressional record).
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14 Media, Culture & Society
Yet, the findings indicate that NGO prevalence in the Congressional Record is largely
constant over time. It may be that additional measures of government valorization of
NGOs are needed. Nonetheless, something more than government indexing appears
responsible for the growing prevalence of leading NGOs in the news.
In this vein, scholars have suggested that NGOs boost their chances of breaking into
the news by professionalizing their publicity strategies (Bob, 2005; Hopgood, 2006). The
findings here offer support for such claims. In particular, media-savvy NGOs, especially
Human Rights Watch and Médecins Sans Frontières, are responsible for much of the
growth in NGO prevalence over time. This finding connects with scholars who note that
the chances for news access are distributed unevenly across NGOs. While others have
noted that resource-poor organizations face much higher barriers to news access (Thrall
et al., 2014), this study shows that even among well-resourced NGOs, one’s chances of
making the news is moderated by media skills that are themselves unevenly distributed
across organizations. More research examining the processes by which different types of
NGOs pursue news coverage is needed to deepen our understanding of these issues.
Diminished editorial resources do seem to make some outlets more likely to feature
NGOs in their news coverage. Both NBC Nightly News and USA Today have less human
rights news overall but include leading NGOs in a greater proportion of it. At the same
time, in no outlet does increased NGO prevalence appear to alter or modify the general
patterns of human rights news coverage. The one counter-tendency to this finding is that
NGO-driven articles tend to relate to countries not already in the media spotlight. This
could result from a number of factors. On stories already in the news media’s zone of
interest, NGOs may be more likely to be used as an accompanying, rather than driving,
voice in news coverage. In contrast, when publicizing issues outside the media spotlight,
leading organizations may compete with fewer voices for attention. More attention – into
the roles played in this by both NGOs and newsrooms – is required.
A number of factors may have influenced the findings. By sampling at 5-year incre-
ments, the data is subject to world events that may drive leading NGOs – and human
rights topics more generally – into and out of the news cycle. It may be, for example, that
the moderate drop in human rights coverage from 2005 to 2010 reflects heavy focus on
Iraq in the former and on the financial crisis in the latter. By calculating NGO prevalence
as a percentage of all human rights articles, the findings can claim with some confidence
that prevalence has increased. Whether the overall prevalence of human rights discourses
is on the decline – as some have suggested (Keys, 2014) – requires further research.
Prominence data find that NGOs tend to be mentioned later in news articles over time.
In their place, unaffiliated individuals increasingly occupy prominent positions.
Theoretically, this finding is in keeping with scholarship that notes the rise of narrative
forms of journalism which emphasizes unique individual experiences as a way to tell
complex stories. This seems especially likely in human rights coverage, which centers to
a large degree of the suffering of individuals – and, increasingly, on the individuals in the
global north that donate to these causes (Chouliaraki, 2013; Dogra, 2012; Orgad and Seu,
2014). Some scholarship suggests, however, that NGOs play a key role in connecting
reporters with individuals on the ground that can dramatize events (Cottle and Nolan,
2007; Powers, 2013; Reese, 2015). If this is the case, data on the growing prominence of
unaffiliated individuals might partially obscure the role NGOs have in their being there.
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This research raises a number of questions that can be addressed moving forward.
Civil society voices are typically theorized as providing an alternative perspective to
media and government viewpoints (Habermas, 1996). The growing incorporation of
NGOs in news coverage of human rights issues raises important questions about whether
or not they are being used to present alternative perspectives. Frame analysis could be
fruitfully employed to track the different ways in which NGOs frame human rights issues
vis-a-vis government officials. This could supplement some of the ongoing research that
assesses the implications of increasingly media- and branding-driven forms of human
rights and humanitarian publicity (Chouliaraki, 2013; Cottle and Nolan, 2007; Dogra,
2012; Kyriakidou, 2014). Moving beyond the case of human rights, future research could
also examine whether NGOs operating in other thematic areas (e.g. environmental
groups) see an increase in prevalence. Finally, cross-national comparisons could help
tease out the degree to which different media systems are more or less open to the mes-
sages of advocacy groups in general and NGOs in particular.
Increasingly, scholars frame question of news access in terms of resources. On this
view, the reduction of cost (for sources to produce information and for journalists to
produce it) creates conditions for greater access. In several ways, this study supports this
argument. However, the findings also suggest that extant norms of news construction
still matter in terms of who and what gets circulated in the public sphere. NGOs may thus
enjoy greater news access today than in the past, but the power to shape, or challenge,
these rules continue to exceed their grasp.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or
not-for-profit sectors.
Note
1. Historically, human rights and humanitarianism were separate discourses, with the former
focused on protecting citizens against state violence and the latter driven primarily to reduce
suffering. Since the end of the Cold War, the two have become increasingly intertwined, with
both relying on human rights discourses to justify their work. As Moyn (2010) puts it, ‘[T]
oday, human rights and humanitarianism are fused enterprises, with the former incorporating
the latter and the latter justified in terms of the former’ (p. 221). As such, one can group them
together for content analytic purposes, without denying the actual differences in work both
sets of actors do on the ground.
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