Newspaper 2000 Abstracts
Newspaper Division
Reliance and Science Knowledge: Do People Learn Science Information from the Media the Same Way they Learn Political Information • Raymond N. Ankney, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • This paper examines how reliance on newspapers and television news affects science knowledge. The newspaper-reliant group averaged 41.1 on the science knowledge test, compared with 38.5 for the television-news reliant group (t = -4.48, df = 346.75, p = .001). Moreover, the higher the respondents’ newspaper use, the higher their science knowledge (Std. beta = .104, p < .001). Gender and education also played important roles in predicting the respondents’ science knowledge.
Online Media Ethics: A Survey of U.S. Daily Newspaper Editors • M. David Arant, Memphis and Janna Quitney Anderson, Elon College • In this paper, 203 online editors at U.S. daily newspapers report their practices, problems and ethics in doing online journalism. All but four percent are publishing news online at least daily, with nearly a third updating more than once a day. Among their concerns about publishing online are the immediacy of Web publication, corrections procedures, linking to other sites, monitoring reader chat rooms and online news staff size.
Influences on a Daily Newspaper’s Market Orientation • Randal A. Beam, Indiana • A national study involving 183 daily newspapers found that organizational goals and ownership characteristics were the most significant influences on the degree to which a newspaper newsroom was “market oriented” or “market driven.” Newspapers that emphasized high profitability or that emphasized editorial excellence tended to have a strong market orientation, as did newspapers that belonged to large groups or that were part of a privately owned company.
Internet Use and Media Preferences of College Students • Bonnie Bressers and Lori Bergen, Kansas State • A survey of 400 at a midwest university shows students are frequent readers of their campus newspaper, but are unlikely to access any online newspaper. Students are likely to use the Internet for e-mail, information searches or reference and research materials, and spend an average of 92 minutes per day online. They seek information and use the Internet as replacement for the library, postal service and telephone. Recommendations for online newspapers include enhancing their local franchise online, bringing greater interactivity to their editorial and advertising content, and providing seamless access to their archives.
How Yellow Journalism Lives On: An Analysis of Newspaper Content Across 100 Years • W. Joseph Campbell, American University • Woven subtly into the literature of American journalism history is a thread that maintains that yellow journalism lives on, that defining features of the nineteenth century genre endure through widespread adoption and adaptation. The literature, however, reveals no systematic attempt to test such claims. This paper discusses such a study, a systematic content analysis of the front pages of seven leading U.S. newspapers, examined at ten-year intervals from 1899 to 1999.
Computer-Assisted Reporting in Michigan Daily Newspapers: More than a Decade of Adoption • Lucida D. Davenport, Fred Fico and Mary Detwiler, Michigan State • This study is a follow-up to previous studies, conducted in 1986 and 1994, and surveys all Michigan daily newspapers on their adoption and use of seven different computerized information sources. It also acts as a part of a longitudinal study on the adoption rate of computer-assisted reporting. Particularly important findings are that 47 of the 48 state dailies now use one or more computerized sources to obtain information for news stories.
Journalism Education: Weathering the Storm • Tom Dickson, Southwest Missouri State • The author surveyed members of the Newspaper Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and a random sample of daily newspaper editors to determine whether they agreed about the emphases and practices of college journalism programs and the types of knowledge and skills that were important for beginning newspaper journalists at the end of the 20th century.
Setting the News story Agenda: candidates and commentators in News coverage of a Governor’s Race • Frederick Fico and Eric Freedman, Michigan State • In coverage of the 1998 Michigan gubernatorial campaign, candidates and their supporters dominated coverage in the state’s nine largest dailies more than did “horse race” experts and issue experts who might have competed with those partisans to define the election. However, to a significant degree, reporters’ subjective leads competed with the candidates for such election-defining power.
Small Town Murder, Big Time Headlines: The Jasper Newsboy and the Texas Dragging Death • Barbara Friedman, Missouri • Jasper, Texas, became the focus of worldwide attention in June 1998, when a black man was dragged to his death behind a truck driven by three white men. Reporters, from as far away as Tokyo and Germany, called it a modern-day lynching and Jasper “more Deep South than Lone Star.” This study is the first to examine the role of the local newspaper, The Jasper Newsboy. Using textual analysis and personal interviews, this project considers editors’ perceived responsibilities to the community and how that was manifested in newspaper content.
Leadership, Values and Cultural Change: A Three-Year Case Study of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch • Peter Gade and Earnest L. Perry, Oklahoma • When Cole C. Campbell was introduced as the editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in August 1996 it signaled a change in direction for a newspaper steeped in the Pulitzer tradition and long considered a member of this country’s “prestige press”. This three-year case study has measured newsroom employees’ perceptions of Campbell and the changes he has brought to the Post-Dispatch. Surveys were administered to employees in the autumns of 1996-98.
Online Information Use in Newsrooms: A Longitudinal Diffusion Study • Bruce Garrison, Miami • This study examined adoption of online information resources in newsrooms at U.S. daily newspapers from 1994 to 1999. Since the general public and news media began to embrace the Internet and World Wide Web in 1994, a process of adoption of this new interactive innovation by newspapers has occurred. The longitudinal survey data reveal that use of interactive information-gathering technologies in newsrooms has reached a critical mass for (a) general computer use, (b) online research in newsrooms, (c) non-specialist content searching, and (d) daily frequency of online use.
Second-Level Agenda-Setting in the New Hampshire Primary: A Comparison of Coverage in Three Newspapers and Public Perceptions of Candidates • Guy Golan and Wayne Wanta, Florida • Second-level agenda-setting was examined during the New Hampshire primary through a comparison of Gallup poll responses and coverage in three newspapers in the region. Results show that John McCain was covered much more positively than George W. Bush. The findings also show that respondents linked four of six cognitive attributes (issues, personal characteristics) to candidates in direct proportion to media coverage. The results show less support for media influence on the affective (positive) attributes individuals linked to candidates.
Diversity Efforts at the Los Angeles Times: Are Journalists and the Community on the Same Page? • Richard Gross, Stephanie Craft and Glen T. Cameron, Missouri and Michael Antecol, Stanord Center for Research in Disease Prevention • Survey data from Los Angeles Times editorial employees and residents of Los Angeles County were gathered to determine respondents’ views of the newspaper’s efforts to increase minority coverage, specifically with regard to the “market-driven” nature of those efforts. How respondents perceive market-driven journalism and the extent to which newsroom and community perceptions of it are similar were specifically addressed. Results suggest that people, whether journalists or readers, neither dismiss nor embrace market-driven journalism outright.
Reader Mindset and Bias: A Closer Look at the People Who Say We Skew the News • Deborah Gump, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Reader perception of media bias has been found in several studies going back many years. A reader has at least two routes to reach a perception of bias: the actual existence of bias, or a reinforcing predisposition within himself to believe bias exists. This study is a secondary analysis of the raw data in the American Society of Newspaper Editors 1999 survey to consider the second route. Do readers who think daily newspapers are biased have a particular mindset that helps them arrive at that opinion?
Looking Beyond Hate: How National and Regional Newspapers Framed Hate Crimes in Jasper, Texas, and Laramie, Wyoming • L. Paul Husselbee, Larry Elliott, ‘ÕBrien Stanley and Mary Alice Baker, Lamar • Journalists frame issues by choosing to emphasize some issues over others, affecting news consumers’ awareness and perception of public problems and concerns. Journalistic credibility suffers from public perception that reporters do not show respect for the communities they cover and that they chase “sensational” stories because they sell newspapers or grab the attention of viewers. This study analyzes national and regional newspaper coverage of two “sensational” hate crimes to determine how reporters framed the communities of Jasper, Texas, and Laramie, Wyoming, in the wake of two brutal murders.
Talking the Talk: Expressions of Social Responsibility in Public Newspaper Groups • Diana Knott, North Carolina and Ginny Carroll, Northwestern and Philip Meyer, North Carolina • This study examines the ratio of social responsibility and profit-oriented language in publicly owned newspaper groups’ annual report letters to shareholders through the use of content analysis software. In addition, the educational and professional backgrounds of these companies’ CEOs are compared, and the corporate cultures of the companies scoring the highest and lowest on social responsibility language are discussed.
Public Journalism and the Use of Nonelite Sources and Actors • Seow Ting Lee, Missouri • This study focuses on the impact of public journalism as a practice on a paper’s use of nonelite sources and actors. In a content analysis, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a public journalism paper, is compared to the traditional, non-public journalism Washington Post The findings revealed that contrary to belief, public journalism has a limited impact on nonelite sourcing and the use of ordinary citizens as actors in news. Although more nonelite actors were used than elite actors, the coverage devoted to nonelite actors was dominated by crime victims and criminals • voiceless, passive ordinary citizens.
Web Design and Efficiency of News Retrieval: A Content Analysis of Five U.S. Internet Newspapers • Xigen Li, Louisiana State • A content analysis of five U.S. Internet newspapers found that the newspaper that earned the highest efficiency score provides a high level of immediate access to news information, and a smooth news flow. The findings regarding efficiency of information retrieval of Internet newspapers confirm that news readers are gaining more control in the hypermedia environment as the concern with user-centered efficiency of news retrieval is integrated into the Web design of the Internet newspapers.
When The Shooting Stops: A Comparison Of Local, Regional And National Newspaper Coverage Of 1990s School Shootings • Michael McCluskey, Washington • Newspapers in smaller communities have been shown to focus less on conflict than the press in larger communities, but this research looked primarily at events of local interest. This study examined frames employed by local, regional and national newspapers in coverage of five small-town school shootings in the 1990s, events of broader interest. Results showed the local newspapers focused the least and national newspapers the most on blaming societal ills, especially guns, for the shooting.
A Functional Analysis of New Hampshire Presidential Primary Debates and Accompanying Newspaper Coverage • Bryan Reber, Missouri • Texts from one Republican and one Democratic 2000 presidential primary debate were analyzed using functional theory. Acclaims, attacks, defenses, policy and character issues, and defense strategies were coded. Candidates offered acclaims over attacks during the debates. Policy issues were dominant. Fifty-one newspaper articles about the debates were coded using the same categories Coverage focused on attacks more than acclaims, policy more than character. Newspapers focused on conflict in debates and gave unproportional coverage to pithy statements
Changing Faces: Diversity of Local News Sources in the Los Angeles Times • Shelly Rodgers and Esther Thorson, Missouri • Editors and publishers across the country are attempting fundamental changes in the news process. At the Times, reporters are being asked to seek out more local women and minority sources. Whether this effort has resulted in a greater diversity of local news sources is the topic of the current study. Overall, our findings revealed a disparity between local demographics and the demographics of local news sources among most subgroups examined. In addition, some stereotyping patterns were found, but not always in the way we expected.
Pagination and the Copyeditor: Have Things Changed? • John Russial, Oregon • This study, based on a national random sample of copyeditors and supervisors, reexamines the impact of pagination on copyeditors to see whether conditions found in several earlier studies have changed. Workload, largely the result of the shifting or production tasks into newsrooms, is perceived as higher after pagination, and length of experience with pagination does not appear to diminish the impact. The ambivalence noted in earlier studies was confirmed, but it appears that individuals tend to be either positive or negative about pagination’s impact, not both, as an earlier study suggested.
Information and Interaction: Online Newspaper Coverage of the 2000 Iowa Caucus • Jane B. Singer, Iowa • By the time of the 2000 Iowa caucus, there were an estimated 70 million active Internet users in the United States alone, at least 5,000 Web sites devoted to U.S. politics • and five Iowa newspapers willing to tackle the challenges of providing online coverage of an event that, in a more traditional media world, had always been “their” big story. This exploratory study examines these papers’ efforts to use the attributes of the online medium to go beyond “shovelware.”
Reporting of Public Opinion Polls in American Newspapers: The Case of the 1998 U.S. Senate Race • Young Jun Son and Rasha Kamhawi, Indiana • Published poll results can be misleading if they are not accompanied by methodological information that explains how the results were obtained. This study investigates whether metropolitan daily newspapers provide their readers with sufficient information to evaluate poll stories. Using the guidelines of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) for reporting surveys and polls, a content analysis was conducted. The amount of information disclosed is still far from accurate. National newspapers did worse than state newspapers.
Kincaid v. Gibson: Turning Back a Page to Harsher Times for the Collegiate Press? • Sigman L. Splichal and Lynn D. Carrillo, Miami • For more than 30 years, since Dickey v. Alabama State Board of Education, courts have afforded journalists at state colleges and universities broad First Amendment rights. Collegiate editors enjoyed virtually unfettered freedoms so long as they did not materially disrupt their institutions. In 1999, the 6th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a decision by a federal district court in Kentucky that called into question those rights, applying to college publications legal reasoning previously limited to high school expression.
To Quell The Quarrels • Examining The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Israeli/Palestinian Coverage • Judith Sylvester and J. Denis Wu, Louisiana State • The Philadelphia Inquirer has been receiving criticism from both the Jewish and Palestinian communities concerning the paper’s Mideast coverage. In response, a content analysis was conducted to examine the coverage. Results revealed that the Inquirer provided its audience with a great deal of information about the conflict. This study found that the paper provided a balanced coverage of both political entities. Weakness in coverage rested mainly in heavy reliance on Israeli sources compared with Palestinian sources.
Online Newspapers: Collating Banner Advertising with Editorial Content • David R. Thompson, ON-TRAC Consulting • More and more online newspapers are becoming self-sustaining profit centers. Effective online advertising is one element in the success of online ventures. This paper reports a content analysis of online newspaper practice regarding delivering appropriate advertising messages to an audience by collating editorial content and banner ads. For example, a banner ad for ordering tickets to St. Louis Cardinals games may appear on the same “page” as a sports story about Mark McGwire’s latest home run streak.
Truth, Moral Force, and Public Service: What Newspaper Letters to the Editor and Editorials Said About Journalistic Ethics in 1835 • Brian Thornton, Northern Illinois • This research examines published editorials and letters to the editor at the time of one of the first and most bizarre newspaper frauds in this country – the infamous moon hoax of 1835, perpetuated by the New York Sun and reporter Richard Adams Locke. The purpose is not simply to recount details of this colorful journalistic lie with its quasi-scientific revelations of man-like creatures living on the moon.
Two Topic Teams and how They Grew: Education and Public Life at The Virginian-Pilot • Leslie-Jean Thornton, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • It was projected in 1999 that by 2000 forty-two percent of U.S. daily newspapers with circulation above 25,000 would be using teams in their newsroom as part of a management structure that has grown in popularity since the early 1990s. The largest of the few papers to inaugurate teams in 1991 was The Virginian-Pilot. This paper explores the growth of the Pilot’s first two successful topic teams, which cover education and public life.
Daily Newspaper Use of Web Addresses: Longitudinal Analysis of New Content Form • Jean M. Trumbo and Craig W. Trumbo, Wisconsin • This analysis assesses the frequency and characteristics of URLs featured in newspapers. Using a sample from 35 daily newspapers, we show that attention to the Web has grown steadily since 1994, as has the inclusion of URLs in such content. Most URLs are in the .com domain, and almost all are external to the newspaper. Other results examine where in the newspaper Web addresses appear, and look at the rate of dead URLs across time.
Weekly Newspapers and Problems with Attracting Young Journalists: A Survey of South Carolina Newspaper Management and Journalism Students • Jennifer Wood, South Carolina • The problems South Carolina weekly newspaper management was having in attracting and retaining young journalists was this paper’s focus. Through a mail survey with a 65 percent response rate, much was learned about newsroom managers’ attitudes in regards to hiring journalism students and whether hiring and retention was a problem at South Carolina weekly newspapers. Through the journalism students’ survey results, editors were able to get a glimpse of what these students expect from future employers.
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