LTŠiuolaikinė žiniasklaida dėl informacinių technologijų sukeltos raiškų konvergencijos dažnai susiduria su produkcijos problema: naujienų gamybos tempas ir žurnalistų profesinių vertybių komercializavimas lemia daugiau skandalų apie politikos veikėjų ir įžymybių gyvenimą, kriminalinių istorijų eksploatavimą, bulvarines tendencijas publicistikoje ir net tiriamojoje žurnalistikoje. Ir nors atrodytų, kad visuomenė ir politikos veikėjai priprato prie dominuojančios rėksmingos politinės kultūros, tačiau kartais pasitaiko tokių skandalų, kurie ne tik turi rimtų socialinių pasekmių, sukelia socialinių santykių krizes, tačiau sukelia rimtų padarinių ir medijų sistemai, lemia jos raidos sukrėtimus. Prie tokių reiškinių galima priskirti ne tik Prezidento Rolando Pakso skandalą (2004 m.), bet ir vadinamąjį pedofilijos skandalą (2009–2010 m.). Straipsnyje, pasinaudojant naujienų gamybos (Molotch, Lester, 1974) ir naujienų vadybos (McNair, 1998; Schudson, 2003; Balčytienė, 2009) teorinėmis įžvalgomis, skandalo (Thompson, 2000) ir moralinės panikos (Critcher, 2005) konceptais bei krizių komunikacijos teorija (Wilcox, Cameron, Ault, Agee, 2007), aptariamas pedofilijos skandalo (2009–2010 m.) atspindėjimas ir atskleidžiamos žurnalistų profesinės nuostatos. Straipsnio tikslas – išnagrinėti skandalo kilimui įtakos turinčius naujienų gamybos ir jų vadybos veiksnius, išryškinti šaltinių ir žurnalistų pozicijas proceso metu bei parodyti žiniasklaidos dalyvavimo socialinį vaidmenį.
ENModern media due to convergence of expression induced by information technology are often faced with the problem of production. The pace of news production and increased commercialization of professional values of journalists lead to the political scandals, casual reports of celebrities' private lives, to criminal stories and to exploitation of tabloid trends in investigative journalism. Although it would seem that the public and policy makers have become accustomed to the dominant political culture of blatant, but such scandals sometimes cause serious social consequences both: for political field, and media system. President Rolandas Paksas (2004) and pedophilia (2009-2010) scandals are examples of such cases. […] The purpose of the article is to reveal factors of the news production and news management affecting the rising of the scandal, to highlight the positions of sources and journalists during the scandal and to show the media performance. There are three main conclusions formulated. Reporters in gathering and preparing information to the public about important events in the country are among the first persons to know about actual or potentially offensive behavior or actions of policy makers (government representatives, officials, institutions, etc.). However, the mere receipt of scandalous information and its dissemination is not enough to provoke changes of social and legal framework.Such effects can occur if the scandal is accompanied by the combination of social circumstances stimulated by mass media: a total visibility of the event; the interpretation of the event as violating the generally accepted moral norms, traditions and values; mystery of the event, consisting of one or more items that must be disclosed. This work usually goes to journalists. Their work in these cases is legitimated by heterogenic unambiguous audience, not its individual segments, despite real or potential guilty of the perpetrator. Thus the disclosing work of media representatives is justified. To sum it up, although the scandals are not targeted or pre-professional interest of the journalists, but the media representatives support and stimulate the scandal, taking the advantages of the difficult crises communication. Typical sign of the scandal as the phenomenon of mass communication is moral panics caused in the society, which requires the correspondence between media and political agenda on the one side and public response and political action from the elites, on the other side. The public response is realized not only by the means of communication, but is taken in accordance with powers of compulsory actions of political elites. So pedophilia scandal has caused serious legal and social changes in society that led to the appropriate domestic policy decisions: law enforcement reforms, the rotation of heads, the faster adoption of the amendments to laws. […].