Abstract
This article explores whether and how differentiation is covered by EU-correspondents in newspaper articles on European Union (EU) affairs. Differentiation is a central yet controversial aspect of European integration. Some believe that it makes the EU more democratic. Others worry that differentiation is susceptible to domination. Hence, media coverage of differentiation can affect not only what the public knows but also what it thinks about the EU. Drawing on a selection of news reports published between 2015 and 2020 in nine media outlets from Denmark, Germany, and the UK, we find that EU correspondents are successful in presenting complex EU processes and legislation in a manner accessible to the public. Nevertheless, the underlying criterion of newsworthiness remains the national interest, as does the framing, which is along national interest or politics lines. Indepth analysis of the implications of the EU’s differentiated integration appears only fleetingly in professional news reporting, which raises serious doubts as to the potential of EU correspondents’ work to facilitate evaluative-critical discourse on EU differentiation. Encouragingly, the capacity for critical debate is not altogether absent — which is an indicator that EU correspondents are still able to perform their role as facilitators of deliberative discourse, despite the external pressures their profession is facing.
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