Journalism is more than thorough research and investigation. It also includes the open handling of sources.

How transparently do U.S. and German quality daily papers work? Access to information is easier than ever before. Journalists are supposed to provide readers with orientation by evaluating data and facts. But the more easily accessible sources there are both on the Web and otherwise, the more important it becomes to assess them. Coverage can only be considered fully transparent if articles provide information about the sources they are based upon. How important is transparency for quality daily newspapers? Do U.S. papers take transparency more seriously? Are differences in transpareny of newspaper articles an indication of different journalistic cultures?

A final thesis at the Technische Universität Dortmund investigated these questions. The analysis included two German and two U.S. quality daily papers: The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) as well as the New York Times (NYT) and the Washington Post (WP). In essence, the study showed that articles in the FAZ and SZ were almost consistently less transparent than articles in the NYT and the WP. Some differences between single papers and the two countries were remarkable.

The majority of statements are backed with a source

The first step was to identify all factual statements made in selected lead stories on the front pages during a 14-month period. The percentage of statements not corroborated by a source given in the text was 23.5% for NYT and WP articles. For the FAZ, that percentage was 25%. In SZ articles, no source was given for about one in three statements (31.3%).

The results were slightly different for articles with a common topic (in this case the 2008 G8 Summit in Japan). The percentage of statements corroborated by a source given in the text was lower for all four papers. Close to 30% of the statements in NYT articles on the summit provided no sources to the reader. That percentage was 38% for the FAZ and 41% for the WP. The summit coverage of the SZ presented had the highest percentage of statements given without a source (43.7%).

A closer look reveals shortcomings

At first glance, the papers seem to be doing a good job with providing transparent information to their readers. More than half (and in most cases more than three-quarters) of factual statements were accompanied by a source. This seems to be a decent level of transparency for newspapers. After all, press articles are not scientific essays. But the basic difference between statements with or without sources is misleading. The overall level of source transparency in the articles was lower than these preliminary findings suggested.

A closer look at the statements accompanied by a source in the article showed that the indication of those sources varied a great deal. Many scholars (Russ-Mohl 2003, Weischenberg 2001, Zschunke 2000, among others) have suggested a three-pronged approach to evaluate these variations:

First, the originator of a piece of information. Second, the channel through which the journalist becomes aware of that piece of information. And third, the level of concreteness with which the originator is identified. Depending on how a source is indicated in an article, factual statements can be divided into four groups: statements with the highest, high, medium and low levels of transparency. (One could argue that statements without a source constitute a fifth category with “no” transparency. For the further analytical purposes of this study, such a category is not necessary. The question of whether no transparency is the lower end of a transparency continuum or something else altogether won’t be discussed here further; it is philosophical.)

Dimensions of transparency

Some examples from the newspapers will help to illustrate the different dimensions and levels of transparency.

■ Highest transparency: An article in the NYT contained quotes by an Israeli army officer. It also included his full name, rank, position as well as the fact that the journalists interviewed him on the phone. This statement fulfilled all transparency dimensions.
■ High transparency: A SZ article quoted a cabinet member. Her name and administrative position were included, which covered the dimensions “originator” and “concreteness”. The dimension “channel”, however, remained unclear: Did the journalist talk to her in a face-to-face interview? Did they talk on the phone? Was the quote taken from other media?
■ Medium transparency: The WP based one statement in an article about the terrorist attacks in Mumbai on a statement by the Indian police. This covered the dimension “originator” (a police officer rather than, say, a government member or a scientist). However, the article didn’t give any further information about the source. It remained unclear whether the statement was made by a police officer on the scene, a spokesman or a high-ranking police administrator (“concreteness”). The reader also isn’t told how the journalist got hold of the information (“channel”).
■ Low transparency: The FAZ based a statement in an article about a government initiative on “media reports.” This source didn’t give the exact originator (TV? Radio? Online?) and also failed to provide full disclosure in the dimension concreteness (Which TV station? Which radio program? Which website?) Naturally, the channel for the flow of information to the journalist also remained unclear.

Investigative reporting as an exception

The study focused on statement with highest or high level of transparency. This approach was chosen because the analysis showed that sources cannot always be given specifically in order to protect sources. Investigative reporting is based upon granting informants anonymity because they have to protect their safety, job, or family.

In cases like this, journalists have to settle for less transparency in the dimension concreteness. This means that statements in articles won’t be included in the “highest transparency” but in the “high transparency” category because one dimension cannnot be completely fulfilled. However, under these circumstances this still has to be considered a very good level of transparency. That’s why an analysis of statements within the two highest categories of transparency makes sense.

Sources in different categories of transparency

What did the more detailed approach reveal? The SZ was the paper with the lowest percentage (76.8%) of statements with sources in the categories “highest” or “high.” The FAZ had a higher percentage (82.2%). Higher still were the WP (86.5%) and NYT (87.9%). The difference between the most and least transparent coverage is 11.1 percentage points – a remarkable gap. It is also worth noting that the less transparent of the U.S. papers (WP) is still 4.3 percentage points ahead of the the more transparent of the German papers (FAZ).

The results were slightly different for the papers’ coverage of a common topic. When the papers backed up their statements in G8 articles with a source, most of the time they did so with sources in the “highest” or “high” category. The exact percentages were 84.3% for the FAZ, 85.1% for the WP, and 87.7% for the SZ. In the NYT summit coverage, for 95.7% of statements that had a source at all, that source was in the highest or high category of transparency.

While articles (i.e. only the text) didn’t have a source for every factual piece of information, the transparency of illustrative elements such as photographs, diagrams or charts was close to perfect. Not only could the reader understand in great detail what was being shown, but he was also provided with detailed information about where the picture or the informational content of diagrams or charts came from. The articles in the study contained a total of 322 illustrative elements (FAZ: 32, SZ: 22, NYT: 115, WP: 153).

The German papers had a source (e.g. photographer) for every picture and diagram or chart. These indications of sources were missing for one photograph and one diagram in both NYT and WP articles. Both U.S. papers also had one photograph each where the picture was not accompanied by a caption. Generally speaking, “photo credits” seem far more common than “information credits.”

Articles in U.S. papers have higher levels  of transparency

In summary, it can be said that the articles of both U.S. papers were – with two exceptions – quantitavely (percentage of statements with a source vs. statements without one) and qualitatively (transparency level of sources) more transparent than articles of German papers. This was always true if one looked only at the lead stories on the front pages, which accounted for the majority of all articles in the study (see “Scientific method”).

The two exceptions occurred in the G8 coverage. The FAZ had a higher percentage of statements with a source than the WP. And the statements accompanied by a source in SZ articles had a higher level of transparency than the statements in the WP summit coverage.

Throughout the study, one thing remained unchanged: The NYT was always on top. Its coverage (lead stories on front pages and G8) was the most transparent of all four papers – both quantitavely and qualitavely. And generally speaking, U.S. papers did better than German papers. What is to be concluded from these findings?

Different journalism cultures

Trying to identify causes for differences between German and U.S. papers is beyond the scope of this study. No factor responsible for these differences could be singled out. For example, the data does not support the notion that more sources lead to higher transparency.

Some articles had a high level of transparency but contained only very few different sources. One example is an article which mainly consists of paraphrased interview quotes. On the other hand, there were stories which had an abundance of sources and still contained a high percentage of statements which were not accompanied by a source in the article. Investigative stories are typical of this.

In trying to explain the differences between German and U.S. papers, it seems promising to look at different journalistic cultures in the German-speaking and Anglo-American world. Many research projects have pointed out differences between German and U.S. journalists, for example in the way they gather information (Cario 2006, Redelfs 1996) or their professional values (Weaver/Wilhoit 2003, Hallin/Mancini 2004). It is fair to say that U.S. journalists are more eager to follow the ideal of the neutral reporter who labels his sources of information as specifically as possible in order to make his coverage as objectively as possible. A feasible explanation for this characteristic of U.S. journalism is the different development of the media systems in both countries.

Transparency is quality

There are many reasons why newspapers should be open with their readers about sources of information.

■ Source transparency is one quality criterion for articles (see Russ-Mohl, Weischenberg). It can serve as an internal authority of quality control. Journalists should show that their stories are thoroughly researched and let readers know where the information comes from.
■ A high level of source transparency is a way to separate yourself from the pack. It comes as no surprise that the NYT, which many scholars consider to be the best newspaper in the world (Ruß-Mohl 2001), had the highest level of transparency amongst the papers analyzed in this study.
■ Source transparency is an excellent instrument to increase a paper’s credibility. Journalists cannot assume that readers will trust them just because the paper has a reputation as a reliable source of information. Such reputations can deteriorate very quickly. This is especially true since readers can crosscheck information and claims easier today than maybe ever before.
■ Finally, transparent coverage is of great service for society because it advances an enlightened audience. One could say that the “public’s right to know” does not only refer to the right to know what’s going on. It also means the right to know where statements and information come from.

Scientific method

The study was conducted as a content analysis which combined quantitative and qualitative elements. Two German papers (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Süddeutsche Zeitung) and two U.S. papers (New York Times and Washington Post) were part of the sample. The analysis included 283 articles. 232 were lead stories selected on 59 systematically chosen days during a period of 14 months. The other 51 articles didn’t have a common date of publication but a common topic, the G8 summit in Japan. The summit coverage was chosen as a object of study to avoid cultural bias. The summit had the approximately same political, cultural and geographical distance from both Germany and the United States.

This two-pronged selection took specific characteristics of each paper into account while at the same time allowing multiple possibilities of comparison. The analysis was carried out in several steps. To start, empirical properties of each article such as day of publication and article length were measured. The next step was to examine each factual statement (defined as one complete piece of information) regarding its source transparency. For analytical purposes, source transparency was split into three dimensions: Originator, concreteness of his identification, and channel through which the journalist got hold of the information. Every statement revceived a code for each dimension. 11,120 statements were analyzed with 33,360 codes.

Published in Message, No.3/2010

Author Benjamin Schulz works as a freelance journalist for Spiegel Online. He has a diploma of journalism and political science from the Technische Universität Dortmund.

References

Cario, Ingmar (2006): Die Deutschland-Ermittler. Investigativer Journalismus und die Methoden der Macher. Berlin u.a.:  Lit Verlag

Hallin, Daniel/Mancini, Paolo (2004): Comparing Media Systems. Three Models of Media and Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press

Redelfs, Manfred (1996): Investigative Reporting in den U.S.A. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag

Ruß-Mohl, Stephan (2001): Benchmarking. Transparenz und Interaktivität bei führenden amerikanischen Zeitungen. In:

Kleinsteuber, Hans (Hrsg.): Aktuelle Medientrends in den U.S.A. Wiesbaden, S. 109-125

Ruß-Mohl, Stephan (2003): Journalismus. Das Hand- und Lehrbuch. Frankfurt am Main: Frankfurter Allgemeine Buch

Weaver, David/Wilhoit, G. Cleveland (2003): Journalists in the United States. In: Weaver, David H. (Hrsg.): The Global Journalist. Cresskill: Hampton Press, S. 395-414

Weischenberg, Siegfried (2001): Nachrichten-Journalismus. Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag

Zschunke, Peter (2000) : Agenturjournalismus. Nachrichtenschreiben im Sekundentakt. 2. Auflage, Konstanz: UVK Medien

The need to be present in social networks leads more companies to desert traditional media and head for the Internet.

Yet the game might not be worth the candle, when the medium lacks credibility to the point where it actually makes TV advertising look trustworthy. Louise Kelly, Gayle Kerr, and Judy Drennan from the Queensland University of Technology conducted a study, published in the Journal of Interactive Advertising, assessing the attitudes of younger audiences with regard to advertising on social networking websites. The results indicate that participants place little to no trust in advertising found in social networks.

Despite the fact that none of the respondents reported negative experiences with online advertising, most believed that clicking through adverts will either invite computer viruses or some form of scam. Several participants report feeling manipulated and disturbed when advertisements open without being clicked by the user. Others feel suspicious when they are asked for personal data and must shut  “offers” down.

According to the study, such distrust is fostered by the fact that anyone is able to publish content and advertisements online. Television and newspapers, on the other hand, require licenses or other forms of official registration, thus reducing audiences’ perceived risk of being tricked.

These attitudes towards online advertising can help traditional media win some time until a new, sustainable business model is developed. Weaknesses – limitations due to higher prices and impersonal advertisement – can easily be turned into strengths.  In the end, the marketing rule is that the cheapest product is not always the best option.

Find the full at the Journal of Interactive Advertising.

The Guardian creates governmental truth-tracking tool.

Emerging as leaders in “data journalism” and celebrated for launching a sharp bunch of free, simplified analysis tools, The Guardian releases its latest creation: The Pledge Tracker.  As Britain’s new coalition government (a Conservative/Liberal Democrat mashup) came to office, a great number of promises were made to the public. Four hundred and thirty-three promises, in fact. The Guardian’s pledge tracker, a sortable database of the coalition’s pledges, monitors the promises according to their fulfillment statuses (i.e. “Kept,” “Not Kept,” “In Trouble,” “Wait and See”). Pledges can be sorted by metrics such as party, topic and difficulty level. Simon Jeffrey, The Guardian’s story producer, says the idea was sprung from PolitiFact’s Obameter, used to monitor the U.S. president’s campaign promises (i.e. “Kept,” “Compromised,” “Stalled,” “In the Works”).

Read more at The Guardian.

New research tracks coverage of gay marriage debate.

Are you for “family values” or “human equality”? Not that you actually have to choose one over the other, despite the prevalent belief that the two are mutually exclusive.  If you’re a Family Values reader, you might look to the Chicago Tribune for your latest in gay marriage info, whereas if you’re of the Human Equality variety, you’d better go for the New York Times. A new study published in the Social Science Journal takes a look at coverage of gay marriage in the New York Times and Chicago Tribune in 2003 and 2004, before and after the Massachusetts ruling that legalized gay marriage in the state.  After analyzing 120 news stories, detailing approach, tone and quoted sources, it was found that the Times emphasized equality, with 33 percent of sampled stories focused on equal rights, compared to 19 percent in the Tribune. The Tribune, traditionally a more conservative paper than the Times, pushed coverage toward American family values.  Religious attitudes were found to be incorporated more frequently in Tribune coverage (20 percent of stories) than Times coverage (12 percent).

For more on the moral worlds of liberals and conservatives, see Miller-McCune.

Rupert Murdoch’s London Times is the front-runner in attempting to introduce payments for its online content since early July. Others will follow, like Le Monde and Figaro, and Axel Springer AG in Germany announced similar plans. In America, the New York Times spent a year preparing its readers with reports about the newspaper branch, later acknowledging that it would reconstruct the very paywall it eliminated only a short while before.

Will the about-turn of the about-turn succeed? Unfortunately, we will know this only afterwards. The first figures from London indicate that two-thirds of online Times readers are rejecting the pay option. Yet it’s far too early to form an evaluation. By applying games theory, the leaders of the industry must face the prisoners’ dilemma. Only when competing publishing houses are quick to follow will the coup succeed. In any other event, Google and the other new krakens will still be able to offer content in abundance and at zero cost, but high quality journalism may no longer be as easily accessible for free as it is now. Unfortunately, we will know the answer only afterwards.

A few clues that may shed light on the current media situation can be found in insights generated by behavioral economists. First, however, we should reflect on why it would be rational to pay for journalistic products: Thanks to the Internet, news can be distributed and copied as rapidly and as often as desired without any additional cost. Yet to investigate, check them and handle news stories according to professional standards costs money. Journalists who bring positive light to the information jungle ducking PR and contributing  reliable research offer a valuable service. If we, the readers, listeners, viewers and users don’t pay for these services, they won’t be provided any more, or they will have to be financed by someone else. Whoever this “third party” may be – the advertising industry, the government or philanthropical institutions – it will bring private interests into the game and thus endanger journalistic independence.

Behavioral economists can attest that we don’t frequently make decisions quite rationally. Many human beings seem to be content with information and news of minor value. They prefer entertainment to knowing everything in-depth, and as no one can or needs to know everything precisely, economists also speak of “rational ignorance.”

A large part of the media offer is being provided on so-called “markets for lemons.” This is how economist George A. Akerlof refers to markets in which the quality of products is not transparent, or where quality consciousness is lacking on the buyers’ side. In such markets, products of relatively low quality will be offered frequently. For instance lemons, which are difficult to estimate whether they’ll be especially sour or juiceless from simple observation. Inevitably, for such products the consumers’ willingness to pay will shrink, and thus it will become more difficult for suppliers of high quality goods to sell their products at a high price to compensate for higher production costs.

A similar phenomenon emerges in journalism: If fewer people buy or subscribe to high-quality newspapers, newsrooms must cut back. The quality of the news product will be reduced, and the credibility will suffer. Thus, the willingness to pay will fade away even faster. In a spiral movement, bad quality squeezes good quality out of the market.

This process is accelerated by the fascination we maintain with offers of “free.” “It’s no secret that getting something free feels very good. Zero is not just another price, it turns out. Zero is an emotional hot button – a source of irrational excitement,” summarizes Dan Ariely (2008), behavioral economist at MIT. Publishers who would like to protect their journalistic content through the use of pay walls should not underestimate how difficult it will be to rescind from the world of free news. We’ve been hooked on their freebies for years at this point.

What does hope look like? From experiments of behavioral economists we also know that most of us have a quite distinct and well-developed sense of fairness. Fair-trade activists like Max Havelaar mobilized this sense for justice in everyday life with enlightening campaigns. Many, though by far not all of us, are willing to pay a bit more for coffee or bananas if they enable us to “buy” a clear conscience with the hope that peasants in Ecuador will receive “adequate” compensation for their work.

Whether paid content online will become a success will depend on such persuasive campaigns. Those that believe quality journalism has a fair chance at survival must also communicate strong journalistic quality. The small but significant difference should be made conscious – for example the difference between investigative research and content which has been magically transformed from PR to journalism.

The fact that all of us are paying the bills for advertising – even if media products don’t cost anything at first glance – must be addressed as well. We are charged in the supermarket when we buy a Coke, a box of Kellogg’s cornflakes or other branded products suggested to us by advertising. And if we must pay fees for public broadcasting, or if the distribution of newspapers is being subsidized with taxpayers’ money, we are once again taking over the bills. In both cases, however, we are frequently paying for media products we don’t even like to consume. Those aware of these crucial facts will find it easier to say goodbye to the Cockaigne of free online journalism in which we’ve been living for the past years.

Media companies may have to do more than simply invest in advertising and corporate communication. In particular, public relations will not come across if there are no journalistic platforms dealing with journalism and the media in a credible way. The quality-consciousness of publics as well as the willingness to pay for media products will – if anything – rise thanks to the distribution of reliable information about media and journalism which should, in turn, be generated by journalists rather than by PR and advertising specialists. How many cars would cease to be sold by premium brands like Mercedes, BMW, Audi or Porsche if there were no motor sections, no special interest magazines dealing with cars and no Formula One coverage?

In the event that paid content proves successful, this will serve as a victory for the “Ralph Lauren Strategy” as proposed by Marjorie Scardino, CEO of Pearson and top publisher of the Financial Times. Indeed, there are media products like the Economist which remained trendy for the simple fact that they carried slightly higher price tags, making them chic to have and indicative of luxurious taste.

The future of less-ambitious media outlets will probably have more to do with the “Tom Sawyer” business model. This is how Michael Sprengelmeyer, who runs the Guadaloupe County Communicator an online journalistic start-up in Santa Rosa, defines what others are referring to as “citizen journalism.” “Like the boy convinces his friends how rewarding it is to paint a fence for him, he persuades friends and family to write articles and to design Web pages for free,” the Financial Times Deutschland recently quoted as Sprengelmeyer’s survival strategy.

Both strategies of persuasion make the self-interested, rational homo economicus approach appear somewhat outdated. At least the first may become the light at the end of a long tunnel for professional journalism.

Published in Die Zeit, August 12, 2010, by Stephan Russ-Mohl

*Editor’s Note: Micheal Sprengelmeyer contacted the EJO to clarify that his quote from the Financial Times Deutschland was missing appropriate context. Sprengelmeyer believes journalists should be paid adequately for their professional work. All journalists who contribute to his paper are paid.

Reflections on Wikileaks’ Afghan War Diary.

Swaying the media is much easier than academics and reporters are willing to admit. Knowing that 80 percent of the news comes from institutional sources, the transparency of information depends, above all, on the integrity of the people who work in such institutions.

If the government, or in this specific case the White House and Pentagon, select a line to follow and demand discipline from staff (avoiding unwelcome leaks), they are able to control not just a newspaper, but the media as a whole.

Unfortunately, as demonstrated in the book Gli Stregoni della Notizia (Witch Doctors of the News), scoops are often deceptive as they tend to be deliberately planted by those in power. The latest Wikileaks scandal confirms this conviction, proving that for six years the Pentagon concealed massive news. And not just one incident, but several. In theory, it should have been easy to crack the story given the fairly long period of time we’re talking about, yet no journalist managed to penetrate the strict disciplines of the White House and the Pentagon.

This has been a period during which the American and international publics were served an entire series of cock-and-bull stories. The media overlooks or ignores such problems entirely, which in turn simplifies the work of spin doctors who, after the public’s initial knee-jerk reaction, are able to carry on as before, refining their craft.

Furthermore, the Wikileaks scoop highlights the significance of the relationship between old and the new media. According to Luca de Biase’s editorial in Il Sole 24 Ore, this case highlights the interaction between online information (Wikileaks) and the traditional media. Wikileaks gained access to exceptional sources but to assess them it had to turn to the experience, skills and professionalism of traditional journalists. De Biase writes, “In the search for facts, newspapers and platforms conceived for the Web can be symbiotic: Internet opens up doors to classified information systems while the editorial offices of newspapers can contribute method, experience and quality.”

That’s food for thought.

In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes.

The cyberworld, it seems, is condemned to the same ineludible limitations. Facebook users are dying.  So are Twitterers, MySpacers, Flickrers and Tumblrers. But as social media users eventually pass on to the great unknown, what are companies to do with carefully crafted online personas and profiles? Facebook, as explained in a recent NYT article written by Jenna Wortham, occasionally suggests users “reconnect” with deceased friends and relatives who’ve created accounts. This is, for lack of gentler terms, totally creeping people out.

Yet with users over 65 converting to Facebook at a greater pace than any other age group, the issue of cyber life-after-death will surely become more pressing. According to the NYT article, Facebook’s original strategy was to simply delete profiles of anyone it learned had died.  Now, to memorialize a profile, Facebook requests that a friend or family member of the deceased fill out a form to provide proof of the death (an obituary notice, for example) which will then be reviewed by a Facebook employee. This method, as several have already discovered, is hardly foolproof. The next great challenge for social media, perhaps, is to devise a graceful strategy for cyber death.

Read more at NYTimes.

The Daily Mail’s website is a humongous success. And it’s free.

Let’s skip the pros and cons of the somewhat tired ‘to paywall or not to paywall’ argument for a moment and focus on a website which is quite virtually rolling in the dough: MailOnline, Web version of the UK’s Daily Mail. According to Peter Preston of The Guardian, 1.9 million folks are still buying copies of the printed version, while online growth  increased from basically nill four years ago to 40,500,00 unique visitors per month (up 72 percent year by year). Pretty impressive.

Yet a quick visit to the site’s homepage will assault the eyes with celebrity images (LiLo in prison garb, Kate Winslet in Rome, someone called Katie Price who appears to have had a plastic surgery misfire).  Addressing critics who don’t believe MailOnline to be a true news site, Preston says, “There is no rule that says online papers must play print’s little brother. On the contrary, the most successful ones are more like inspired riffs on a print theme. Nor is there a rule that says big print sellers carry the same clout when they transfer to screen.”

Read more from Preston at OrganGrinder.

While journalists occasionally serve as the butt of a bad joke or two (ex: What do you get if you cross a sports reporter with a vegetable? A common tater), they’re victimized far less than other professionals, namely lawyers. Even your own sweet grandmother can pull off a “How many lawyers does it take to screw in a lightbulb” zinger.  But don’t get too comfortable, warns Michael Rosenblum, video-journalism expert, because soon journalists might have to start taking notes from their Bluetooth-and-briefcase toting colleagues.

As of the past few years, it’s grown apparent that journalists and media outlets must reorganize significantly, that a new business model must surface. Acknowledging the handful of similarities between those who choose careers in law and those who choose news (both lovers of research, investigation, analysis and presentation), Rosenblum suggests striving for a entrepreneurial union of business and journalism, an ideal which can only be attained through collaboration – the formation of partnerships and collectives.

The difference between lawyers and journalists, says Rosenblum, is the way that they’ve elected to organize their own professions. “Lawyers – while it is true some become employees – tend to organize themselves in partnerships in which they pool their skills and their business,” he says . A “journalism firm” would do the same. A partnership of journalists would contract with various magazines, newspapers, television stations and websites to offer content, just as a law firm offers work. In this way, they would also be insulated from disaster if one newspaper or one magazine were to go under.

For more about the “Journalism Firm” see RosenblumTV.

Several recent studies rank traditional media above newer formats.

Concerning interactivity, “old” forms of media function better than their reputations suggest, while new media like blogs and social networks have a lot of catching up to do in the quality department. This consensus came as the result of several international studies presented in Singapore at the world congress of the International Communication Association (ICA).

A research team from the University of Missouri analysed the Web editions of 187 established daily newspapers and 106 – some award-winning – citizen blogs and  journalism websites. In many relevant categories the Web editions of U.S. daily newspapers were rated more favourably by researchers. And not only did the established papers lead in the matter of interactivity, but their Web editions also had a wider range of topics, provided more information and showed higher technical quality. Furthermore, a surprisingly large number of citizen blogs only rarely linked to other websites.

More than 100 political blogs from the Netherlands were investigated by a research team at the University of Amsterdam. The results are quite disillusioning: Most of the bloggers were found to be Caucasian males of middle age who practice exalted professions. It seems the blogosphere’s power to diversify political discourse is somewhat exaggerated.

The political bloggers sourced their information predominantly from the mass media, and only seldom investigated news independently to complement information provided by the traditional media. Only rarely did bloggers pick up local or regional topics; national politics dominated the forefront.

A team from the University of Arkansas analysed the quality of conventional letters to the editors and compared them with feedback in response to published articles via commentary functions on the Internet, using the debate surrounding a 2008 corruption scandal at the University of Arkansas as the focus. The team, however, only analysed 25 letters to the editor from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (a daily paper) along with 96 blog entries and commentaries on the website of the Arkansas Times. Thus, the results cannot be generalised because of the small random sample. Still, the newspaper performed better here as well: discussion contributions were more versatile while on the Internet users argued less constructively and ranted more.

In turn, the studies presented in Singapore did provide one interesting surprise. A team from the College of Staten Island (City University of New York) examined how journalists and bloggers reported on a revised version of the informant protection for journalists, a debate which is revelent for bloggers as it poses the question of whether bloggers should obtain a legal status similar to that of journalists. In this case, bloggers discussed the question in a fashion that was less self-serving than the researchers had expected.

Translated by Tina Bettels

Sources

Papers presented at the annual conference of the International Communication Association  22-26th June in Singapore:

“Audience Responses to Controversy: Medium Comparison between Letters to the Editor and Blogs” 
Donna Lampkin Stephens, University of Central Arkansas, USA, 
Nokon Heo, University of Central Arkansas, USA

“Comparing Legacy News Sites With Citizen News and Blog Sites: Where’s the Best Journalism?
” Margaret Ellen Duffy, University of Missouri, USA
, Esther Thorson, University of Missouri, USA
, Mi Rosie Jahng, University of Missouri – Columbia, USA

“A Comparative Content Analysis of Newspaper and Weblog Reporting on Attempts to Pass a Media Shield Law” 
C.W. Anderson, College of Staten Island, The City University of New York (CUNY), USA

“What’s Journalism Got to Do With It? Political Blogs and Bloggers” 
Tom Bakker, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands 
Klaus Schoenbach, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands 
Claes H. De Vreese, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands