Abstract:

With the rapid development of the Internet and social media, the news industry has always witnessed a type of misleading reports that try to escape the condemnation of the industry and legal punishment. In a “misleading report”, the reporter can correctly understand the objective facts, but consciously uses the true statement in an insincere way to guide the recipient to misunderstand the objective facts in the process of news communication. Making use of the “codebook imbalance” principle in interpersonal communication, this kind of report conducts information manipulation so as to attract readers, persuade readers, and even mislead readers on the premise of not violating the news truth principle. According to Greis’ perspective of cooperative principle, misleading reports can be divided into three categories, that is, violating quantitative principle, violating relevance principle, and violating method principle. “Truth” has always been regarded as the most essential feature of modern journalism, but “misleading reports” show that “sincerity” shall also be an indispensable factor in considering journalistic professionalism.

Key words: news report, misleading behaviors, cooperation principle, authenticity principle, post-truth