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In human communication, in particular, in journalism, gatekeeping is the process through which ideas and information are filtered for publication. Gatekeeping occurs at all levels of the media structure - from a reporter deciding which sources are chosen to include in a story to editors deciding which stories are printed, or even covered.

In his book entitled The Great American Newspaper: The Rise and Fall of the Village Voice, Kevin McAuliffe describes how editors dictate policy for American publications:

"...Most things that are published in America--virtually all of its newspapers, most of its magazines, and even some of its books--are still not, unfortunately, the result of the creative vision of the writer and of the writer's freedom to put that creative vision down on paper, regardless of whatever the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States might say. On the contrary, most things published in America are because an editor or a group of editors--a `committee'--decided in advance that they would be, and in what form they would be, and either found or told some writer to carry out their wishes and write it their way...In practice most American publications still operate according to fixed formulas imposed and enforced from above by aggressive, interventionist editors who control their writers with red pencils that carefully map out what territory the writers are permitted to roam, and, if they so wish, arbitrarily permit no one to stray beyond...In all too many cases, unknown to the majority of readers, writers are `free' to write what they are assigned to write, and to say what they are edited to say, which, not surprisingly, quite often turns out to be exactly what the editor would have said if the editor had been the one doing the writing in the first place. Even at some of America's otherwise most respectable publications, it is neither unknown nor uncommon for writers--particularly freelancers--to pick up their articles and find them totally rewritten, without their consent, without their even seeing it, but with their names still on it..."

External links

• Gatekeeping: regulate the flow of information, University of Twente, the Netherlands

• Human communication