Project For Excellence In Journalism Research Articles

Book Review: The Newsphere: Understanding the News and Information Environment, by Christine M. Tracy

The Newsphere: Understanding the News and Information Environment. Christine M. Tracy. New York: Peter Lang, 2012. 132 pp. $129.95 hbk. $34.95 pbk.In The Newsphere: Understanding the News and Information Environment, Christine M. Tracy seeks to position the citizen journalist movement, mainstream media industries, the growth in digital information sources, and the individual citizen within the frame- work of Neil Postman's media ecology theory and Teilhard de Chardin's cosmic conver- gence, human evolutionary theory. Tracy is an associate professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at Eastern Michigan University.The term newsphere is an adaptation of Teilhard's term noosphere, a word used to describe what the evolutionary philosopher saw as the soul of the earth that rep- resents the total pattern of thinking organisms and their activity, including the patterns of their interrelations (Teilhard, quoted, p. 112). Tracy argues that contemporary digi- tal news coverage reflects this interrelationship, which in turn has led to a breakdown of the hierarchy of production and delivery that previously created and controlled news. Thus, Teilhard's noosphere is apparent in what Tracy calls the newsphere of emerging digital information and news creation and change. In The Newsphere, news is networked, participatory, relevant, and transparent (p. 113), open to all citizens and professionals who care to create and share information and opinions. This new dynamic and dialogic interaction thereby creates a changing ecological system of exchanges among journalists and the public and changes our understanding of the meaning and credibility of public opinion, news, and information. When viewed as an ecology, news is not a product to be consumed but a conscious act to engage with and produce shared information that has value in a community: This is how cultures and societies create their histories (p. 21).Citing the work of James Carey and Michael Schudson, Tracy distinguishes media from journalism and journalism from news; in this new dynamic system, media are the forms in which news is disseminated, and journalism is the practice of and responsibil- ity for sharing that news. Understanding the flexibility and change in media forms and journalistic practice thereby becomes an essential component of studying media ecol- ogy. She includes a case study (written by Helen Nevius Adamopoulos) that offers an analysis of Baltimore, Maryland, media and content that was conducted by researchers from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism as an example of this type of media ecology research. Another case study of the widespread coverage of a 2009 Somali pirate capture of the Maersk Alabama and reactions to it in and across media and the blogosphere in the book provides an example of the specific narrative aspect of contemporary journalism storytelling across various media outlets and the ways in which mainstream media and bloggers can react to connect or correct such a story from various social, political, and economic contexts. …

Book Review: News on the Internet: Information and Citizenship in the 21st Century and Participatory Journalism: Guarding Open Gates at Online Newspapers

David Tewksbury and Jason Rittenberg News on the Internet: and Citizenship in the 21st Century. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2012. 197 pp.Jane B. Singer, Alfred Hermida, David Domingo, Ari Heinonen, Steve Paulussen, Thorsten Quandt, Zvi Reich, and Marina Vujnovic Participatory Journalism: Guarding Open Gates at Online Newspapers. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011. 227 pp.News on the Internet and Participatory Journalism offered a useful blend of theory and best practices for my graduate seminar in communication and technology. Each book has its strengths and weaknesses, but together they helped frame a lively discussion about the path going forward for journalists, as well as audience members.Tewksbury and Rittenberg contrast the era before online news with the current age of mobile media, content creation, interaction and conversation. News audiences are made up of citizens in a way that requires another look at classic media sociology and research. Through blogs, microblogs and various social media sites, private citizens are contributing to the social and political lives of nations (p. 11).The trend of information control shifting away from a few powerful entities toward smaller outlets and even citizens is a type of information democratization (p. 11). result, Tewksbury and Rittenberg suggest, is a shiftin habits, functions, and competition through fragmentation.While optimists see these changes with an eye toward correcting the shortcomings of traditional media, the authors acknowledge that the emerging model also supports biases and polarization. Diffusion cycles bring change, and this book places new uses within a history of media replacement over many decades. It carefully reviews the evidence for replacement and nonreplacement, but old media and new media are seen as in a struggle for attention and use.At the same time, there is worry about those leftbehind by the digital divide, which grows when state-of-the-art broadband speeds do not reach everyone: The quality of is arguably questionable if a significant portion of the citizenry cannot participate in the dominant media of their society (p. 39).Hyperlinks from blog content to mainstream sites be the most significant difference between the Web and print (p. 48). Tewksbury and Rittenberg do not settle the conceptual fuzziness between blogs and other sites-WordPress templates blur the distinction-but they try through three blog characteristics: (1) Reverse chronological structure, (2) Individual authorship, and (3) [R]elative speed (p. 50). Citing the Project for Excellence in Journalism (2006), they note that [a]nalyses of cross-site linking practices of blogs indicate that a substantial portion of posts use mainstream news as a starting point (p. 50). When it comes to media sites, media agendas still matter. Tewksbury and Rittenberg identify medium specialization, topic-based segmentation, style-based segmentation, and geography-based segmentation of sites. Already selective audiences may exercise more control through clicks. Traditional media theorists will recognize the application of cognitive learning theories to the new questions raised by Internet uses.The significance of behavior change in media use is that the old questions about properly functioning democracy remain with the new context (p. 145):The mass public model clearly defines political communication as a top-down process where the elites control information, and the public can, at best, choose whether to receive or ignore incoming messages. This model is heavily influenced by the dominance of the traditional media. . . . Changes in the media system have corresponded with changes in opportunities for audiences. These changes, in turn, cause concern for the continued validity of the mass public. It is therefore important to consider alternative models. (p. 149)It is not until chapter 8, Information Democratization, that Tewksbury and Rittenberg elaborate on the explicit locations of change-YouTube, Hulu, Comedy Central, and other video sites (p. …

Online Cancer News: Trends Regarding Article Types, Specific Cancers, and the Cancer Continuum

The Internet is one of the fastest growing news sources for many worldwide (Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2011), and cancer news is one frequently consumed form of online health information (Google, Inc., 2007). This content analysis of online cancer news (n = 862) retrieved from the four most frequented news websites describes trends regarding specific cancers, stages in the cancer continuum, and types of news articles. In general, treatment information received the most attention in online cancer news. Breast cancer received the most attention of each specific cancer, followed by digestive and genitourinary cancers. Research reports and profiles of people (more than 60% of which were about celebrities) were the most common article types. Risk, uncertainty, and clinical trials were also present across several types of cancer news articles. Implications of content trends are discussed as relevant to consumers, producers, health campaign designers, and researchers alike.

Communicating on climate change

CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0 8. The Project for Excellence in Journalism, “The State of the News Media 2004,” (The Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2004), http://www. stateofthenewsmedia.com/2004/ 9. American Meteorological Society, “Freedom of Scientific Expression,” (Statement adopted by AMS Council on February 17, 2006), Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 87, http:// www.ametsoc.org/policy/2006statement_free

Sensationalism or sensitivity: Reporting suicide cases in the news media

This article investigates the nature of sensitivity in reporting the news in cases of suicide. We examine the boundaries of privacy and the appropriate guidelines for reporting as outlined in the Society of Professional Journalists, the 9 Principles of Journalism as noted by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, and CDC. Suicide contagion and the susceptibility of the audience are explored. Specifically, we will look at two cases where the suicides were well-documented in the media: the Dateline's To Catch a Predator suicide of Louis William Conradt, Jr. and the Rutger's University first-year student, Tyler Clementi.

FAREWELL TO JOURNALISM?

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. See Smith (2004 Smith, Ronald D. 2004. Strategic Planning for Public Relations, Mahwah, NJ: Routledge. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], p. 191), Solomon (1992 Solomon, Norman. 1992. Unreliable Sources: a guide to detecting bias in news media, New York: Carol Publishing Group. [Google Scholar], p. 66) and Trevor Morris and Simon Goldsworthy (2008 Morris, Trevor and Goldsworthy, Simon. 2008. PR—a persuasive industry? Spin, public relations and the shaping of the modern media, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). See also http://www.nku.edu/~turney/prclass/readings/media_rel.html. 2. All quotations and statistics mentioned are from Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism (2010 Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence In Journalism 2010 “The Study of the News Ecosystem of One American City” , 11 January, http://www.journalism.org/analysis_report/how_news_happens . [Google Scholar]). 3. For a treatment of the scorched-earth approach of a newspaper publisher who is regarded as a visionary in the move from print to digital, see Carr (2011 Carr , David 2011 “Newspapers’ Digital Apostle” , The New York Times , 14 November . [Google Scholar], pp. B1, B6). For a treatment of the handful of the most successful new digital newsrooms at the local level, which depend overwhelmingly on donations and foundation grants, see The Knight Foundation (2011 The Knight Foundation 2011 Getting Local: how nonprofit news ventures seek sustainability , October , Miami , FL : The Knight Foundation . [Google Scholar]). 4. These remarks were prepared for testimony offered on April 20, 2010 at the FCC workshop, “Newspaper/Broadcast Cross-Ownership Impact on Competition and Diversity in the Media Marketplace” (Dunlap, 2010 Dunlap , Karen 2010 “FCC Testimony: media cross-ownership bears watching, but is not most critical issue” , http://www.poynter.org/uncategorized/102162/fcc-testimony-media-cross-ownership-bears-watching-but-is-not-most-critical-issue/ . [Google Scholar]). 5. See Rodney Benson and Matthew Powers (2011, pp. 49–53, 34). The French government provides roughly 13 percent of the revenues of the French newspaper industry. The total revenues of US newspaper industry in 2008 were approximately $48 billion. See the data of the Newspaper Association of America (http://www.naa.org/TrendsandNumbers.aspx). Our estimate does not include the emergency three-year $950 million subsidy the French government made to address the crisis facing French newspapers. On a per capita basis that would be like the US government making a three-year $5 billion additional subsidy.

Nontraditional News Negativity: The Relationship of Entertaining Political News Use to Political Cynicism and Mistrust

Although past research suggested that entertainment viewing may weaken political trust, only a few studies have investigated this outcome for specific types of nontraditional news shows. This study examines the relationship between exposure to three forms of nontraditional news that merge entertainment with informational content— comedy talk shows, satirical news, and cable opinion news—and political mistrust and cynicism. Using data from a national survey (n1⁄4 777) conducted in the United States, findings indicate that viewing satirical news programs appeared to be related to systemic cynicism, while exposure to all three shows was either directly or indirectly associated with distrust in politicians. Mistrust in the news media, on the other hand, appeared for comedy talk shows and satirical news use only in particular contexts. The news is often criticized for contributing to the public’s distaste for politics, especially because the tone of its political coverage is frequently negative. Yet, the growing popularity of alternative news options, such as cable opinion news (Project for Excellence in Journalism [PEJ], 2009) and satirical news, and the declining audience for traditional television news (Pew Center, 2008) indicate that individuals may be supplementing their use of traditional television news or replacing it altogether. How might the use of these more entertaining news forms affect the public’s political views? Such shows depict negativity, but possibly in ways differing from conventional news programs. While traditional news is argued to generate deep mistrust, or cynicism, All correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Lauren Guggenheim, Department of Communication Studies, University of Michigan, 5344 North Quad, 105 S. State Street, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109-1285, USA. E-mail: lguggen@umich.edu especially towards politicians, potentially leading to declining turnout and weakening democracy (e.g., Cappella & Jamieson, 1997), the treatment given to politics by nontraditional news, while portraying other types of negativity, may nonetheless produce similar outcomes. Three forms of news on American television that are both negative and designed to be entertaining include comedy talk shows, cable opinion news programs, and satirical news. While previous research has looked at traditional news, this study looks solely at these three nontraditional forms of news. Past work suggested that entertainment viewing may weaken political trust (Bennett, Rhine, Flickinger, & Bennett, 1999; Holtz-Bacha, 1990; Pfau, Moy, Radler, & Bridgeman, 1998); however, only a few studies have considered specific types of nontraditional news shows (Baumgartner & Morris, 2006, 2008; Forgette & Morris, 2006; Hoffman & Thomson, 2009; Mutz & Reeves, 2005; Tsfati, Tukachinsky, & Peri, 2009). This study expands on research about nontraditional news (also commonly called soft news or infotainment) by considering how it might produce distrusting and cynical attitudes. Content analyses are reviewed to make the case that nontraditional news targets different players within the political system for negativity. Then, the relationship between the viewing of these shows and distrust and cynicism targeted at different political actors is examined. By more closely considering the type of negativity employed by each infotainment show, as well as whom each show targets, a clearer, more nuanced understanding of how entertainment, specifically entertaining news, is associated with public distrust and cynicism may be gained. Media Negativity and Political Trust Since the early 1970s, research has attempted to connect the rise of television viewing with declining political trust, and ultimately turnout. Robinson’s (1976) ‘‘videomalaise’’ concept defined public distrust as an outcome of television news’ emphasis on negativity. Some have since argued that news (both television news and print news) negativity is common because journalists consider negative topics, such as scandals and behaviors that violate typical norms of conduct, to be newsworthy (Fallows, 1996; Gans, 1979; Patterson, 1994). However, Norris (2000) argued that if learning and other forms of political engagement are taken into account along with attitudes towards government, there is actually a virtuous rather than vicious circle, demonstrating that news actually contributes to civic health. Other survey studies also indicate that, in many cases, the news fails to contribute to cynicism or distrust and can even be related to more trusting attitudes (e.g., Holtz-Bacha, 1990; Newton, 1999; Wilkins, 2000). On the other hand, this literature stands in contrast to studies using other methodologies, such as experiments and panel designs, as well as I N T E R N A T I O N A L J O U R N A L O F P U B L I C O P I N I O N R E S E A R C H 288

Journalism.org: Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism

Journalism.org: Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism

Variations on Sun’s role in climate change

Publication of the recent Opinion piece by Nicola Scafetta and Bruce West struck me as potentially blurring the distinction between a peer-reviewed journal article and an opinion piece. Presumably, opinion pieces are held to a dramatically lower standard than journal articles are in terms of peer review, burden of proof, and weight of scientific evidence. Yet publishing something dubbed “opinion” that contains scientific declarations of fact or scientific assertions effectively blurs the crucial distinction between opinions and peer-reviewed research articles. Physics Today’s audience seems to have a broad focus and therefore to be less likely to evaluate the substance of the scientific claims raised in that or similar pieces.As has been noted in journalism circles, from the perspective of the public and no doubt elements of the science community as well, “the distinction between reporting and commentary has seriously eroded.” 1 1. Project for Excellence in Journalism, The State of the News Media 2004: An Annual Report on American Journalism, http://www.stateofthenewsmedia.org/2004/journalist_survey_prc1.asp. The same may well be true for scientific journals; distinctions between opinions and research articles are largely meaningless to those outside science, and that blurring may misinform public perceptions.The net effect is that the scientific community is more or less obligated to respond to scientific claims made in opinion pieces just as if they had met the standards of scholarly peer review. The burden of proof then switches from those making claims to the science community at large for disproving each and every such claim.I urge the editors of professional science journals, including Physics Today, to revisit their policies and procedures regarding what constitutes an article versus an opinion. Such distinctions are not without consequence.REFERENCESection:ChooseTop of pageREFERENCE <<1. Project for Excellence in Journalism, The State of the News Media 2004: An Annual Report on American Journalism, http://www.stateofthenewsmedia.org/2004/journalist_survey_prc1.asp. Google Scholar© 2008 American Institute of Physics.

A higher standard than ‘balance’ in journalism on climate change science

The initial “State of the News Media” study by the respected Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism in 2004 reported that an “epochal transformation” was under way in the mass media, “as momentous probably as the invention of the telegraph or television.” Savvy news consumers are alert to putting up their defense mechanisms when the media start warning that the sky is falling. That precaution might be especially apt when it’s the media’s own sky that is said to be caving in. That said, however, few now question that major underlying – make that foundationshattering – changes are in the works in the ways the media and others distribute news and information. Perhaps more important still are the changes in how the media’s customers – readers, viewers, and listeners – go about getting their news and information. So much so that the PEJ’s 2007 State of the Media report opened with just the declarative sentence, “The pace of change has accelerated” (http://www.stateofthenewsmedia.com/2007/). You can point to the 24/7 access to digital news over the internet and the worldwide web. You can point to the declining circulations at most major metropolitan newspapers, the further consolidation of media ownership, and also to the declining advertising revenues and earning ratios. You can point to the shrinking newsroom staffs, to fewer and fewer foreign bureaus and specialized beat reporters. Get the picture of the media in transition? Back up now. Back to the day when most of today’s experienced journalists were taking their first news writing classes in college, or just starting their on-the-job training under hard-charging ink-in-the-veins editors. From virtually their first days in the classroom and on the job, the nation’s best journalists had instilled in them several bedrock principles of sound and responsible news Climatic Change (2008) 86:13–17 DOI 10.1007/s10584-007-9318-4

Opportunity Lost: Blogs on Local TV Station Web Sites

With concern about shrinking audiences for local television newscasts (Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2005), many TV stations are investigating ways to maintain viewer interest (Whitney, 2005). One possible way to involve viewers with the station's offerings is to drive them online, to the station's web site. To do so, it's necessary to offer content that goes beyond the online versions of current news stories. The weblog, or blog, might be one method to entice viewers to visit the station's web site, and thereby develop a relationship with viewers beyond that of broadcaster and viewer. This study examines the blogs of local television stations in the top 50 Nielsen markets as of May 2006. The author seeks to determine who writes the blogs, which formatting features blogs have in common, and what types of content are found on the blogs. The study also addresses the current state of blogging on television station web sites and whether blogs are offering viewers an outlet to engage with the stations. The results will provide a snapshot of blogging by local television stations, which can be used for comparisons as blogging develops in the future.

Signals and noise

How the mass media cover scientific subjects matters in many ways, whether scientists like it or not. Stem cells, genetically modified organisms, cloning, the environmental or health implications of chemicals or climate change: whatever the subject, media coverage has helped to shape public perception and, through it, affected how science is translated into policy, most notably in regard to the environment, new technologies and risks (Weingart et al , 2000). Conversely, political, economic and other interests have long tried to influence media coverage of particular topics to affect the public's understanding and perception, and scientists are now becoming more aware of the power of the media. Consequently, the intersection of mass media, science and policy is a particularly dynamic arena of communication, in which all sides have high stakes. The integral role played by the media is not surprising, as it is still the main source of information and opinion for millions of readers and viewers—and voters—through newspapers, magazines, television, radio and the internet. As people gain most of their political, economic or other news from the media, so they do with scientific stories. Various studies have shown that the public gathers much of its knowledge about science from the mass media (Wilson, 1995), with television and daily newspapers being the primary sources of information (Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2006; NSF, 2004). Given their wide reach, it is therefore important to investigate the media's coverage of scientific topics and how it influences both science and policy. In this viewpoint, we survey the media's portrayal of climate science and man‐made climate change—dubbed ‘global warming’, or anthropogenic climate change—and its coverage in the USA and UK as an important example of how science, politics and the media intersect and interact. More specifically, we explore how external influences and internal factors shape …

Political Polling and the New Media Culture: A Case of More Being Less

Changes in journalism—including newsroom cutbacks, an emphasis on repackaging secondhand material, and the demands of 24-hour news—have expanded the reliance on polls as news, including polls of a sort once considered not reliable for publication, and led to a more superficial understanding of the 2004 presidential race. The prolif- eration of outlets offering news, which has resulted in greater competi- tion for audience, has also intensified the motivation of using polls in part for their marketing value rather than purely their probative journal- istic value. The more synthetic style of contemporary journalism has increased the tendency to allow polls to create a context for journalists to explain and organize other news—becoming the lens through which reporters see and order a more interpretative news environment. A greater dependence on horse race tracking polls by the media has rein- forced these tendencies and further thinned the public's understanding toward who won and away from why. Growing audience skepticism and political polarization have created an environment of distrust about the methodology and integrity of polling. All of these factors, in turn, are frustrating the efforts of academic and commercial pollsters to maintain standards and deepen understanding among journalists about public opinion research and how to use it as journalism. The editors and reporters around the table had always appreciated the candor of the man who was running the meeting, one of the paper's assistant manag- ing editors. He did not disappoint them this day. The gathering was a two-day retreat of the political team of the Los Angeles Times, including myself, to plan its coverage for the upcoming presidential election. The year was 1991, which in political time was an epoch ago or maybe two. Like strategic planning meetings held months before a campaign TOM ROSENSTIEL is founder and director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, a research insti- tute on the news media affiliated with the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. The author would like to acknowledge Scott Keeter of the Pew Research Center and Cliff Zukin of Rutgers University for their help in the preparation of this article, as well as the staff of the Project for Excellence in Journalism for their invaluable help in conducting much of the research that has informed this analysis. Address correspondence to the author; e-mail: tomrosen@journalism.org.

NRJ Books: The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect

The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect By Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel (New York Crown Publishers, 2001), 205 pages This book's jacket shamelessly bills it as of the most important ever written about news, but if thousands of journalists read it and change their attitudes and behavior accordingly, that may well be true. Kovach, the well-known former editor of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, former curator of Harvard's Nieman Foundation for Journalism, and former Washington bureau chief for the New York Times, has worked together again with Tom Rosenstiel, late of the Los Angeles Times and Newsweek, to produce their second book for and through the Project for Excellence in Journalism and its Committee of Concerned Journalists. For the record, this reviewer is a member of the Committee but has received no funding from the project. In a highly readable style, with a sharp eye for the anecdote, with which they start nearly every chapter, Kovach and Rosenstiel posit and then support-- through a combination of facts, logical arguments and appeals to concepts such as professionalism and democracy-one major point in each chapter. Each of those major points will be familiar to most readers. Yet not all of the details will be, and together the major points and details are highly persuasive-especially when one knows that Kovach and Rosenstiel have distilled several years' worth of hundreds of formal interviews and comments in public forums, many from the country's best journalists. Their nine major points are: * Journalism's first obligation is to the truth. * Its first loyalty is to citizens. * Its essence is a discipline of verification. * Its practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover. * It must serve as an independent monitor of power. * It must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise. * It must strive to make the significant interesting and relevant. * It must keep the news comprehensive and proportional. * Its practitioners must be allowed to exercise their personal conscience. There surely is nothing controversial in those statements, unless one believes-with respect to the ninth point-that journalists shouldbe professional automatons only. But some aspects of how Kovach and Rosenstiel propose journalists reach those nine goals, and what they knowingly left off that list (fairness and balance, among other usual points), may raise a few eyebrows-- although not this reviewer's. Kovach and Rosenstiel, like Jack Fuller, Loren Ghiglione, Gene Roberts and many others, argue that journalists need to develop sources, ask questions, organize and interpret information and provide analysis that the public can't do for itself. This means that journalists need to be more highly educated, better trained and more specialized than ever-the journalist as both expert and thinker / analyst. Journalists must choose the best sources, not the most interesting or the most available, while broadening coverage to what concerns the public, not what only concerns elite sources-such as tactics in presidential campaigns. Imagine the Family Research Council and others of its ilk being quoted only on matters on which they have true expertise-which would mean never. Kovach and Rosenstiel argue that the public wants the truth-not just free speech or commerce and certainly not only mere facts. They urge journalists to ask good questions, not simply ask bad questions loudly or persistently. They are deeply concerned, like Thomas Kunkel and Rem Rieder at American Journalism Review (and this reviewer), about the fact that much American journalism is simply boring even when the news isn't. And Kovach and Rosenstiel provide plenty of evidence for how and why, if much print journalism is dull, most broadcast journalism doesn't even warrant that name. …