2005 Annual Report - Online Content Analysis

Journalist Opinion 

To critics, the Internet is sometimes dismissed as a medium dominated by subjective opinion. How true is that of the major news sites?

The online content studied was largely free of unattributed journalistic opinion. Fewer than one in ten of the lead stories (7%) contained opinion from journalists. That mirrors the finding for newspaper front pages (6%), though if we include metro and sports sections, the figure more than doubles to 15%.

Looking at the sites individually, MSNBC was the most likely to include journalist opinion, though still to no great degree - 19% of stories studied. The Bloomington Illinois Pantagraph was the least likely, with just 1%.

In the end, online stories were more likely than most other media to score well on what we call the "Reporting Index."

To be included stories had to meet the following conditions:

1. Four or more transparent sources
2. A mix of viewpoints
3. Four or more stakeholders

More than a quarter (26%) of the online stories studied reached the highest levels of depth and transparency. That is four or more fully identified sources, four or more stakeholders, and a mix of views.

The percentage is slightly less than for newspaper front pages, where 33% of all stories met the criteria. But it is eight percentage points above newspapers over all. On network evening news, 10% of the stories followed this model.

Lead Story Topics

When it came to the topic agenda on Web sites - what stories they led with on their front pages - the Web looks a good deal like the front pages of major newspapers, and much more traditional than either cable or broadcast television news.

Government made up a third of the stories (33%), followed by other domestic issues (24%), foreign affairs (16%), the campaign (8%) and disasters/accidents and weather catastrophes. The numbers mirror almost exactly the figures for the front pages of major national newspapers, except for the focus on disasters and accidents.

Inside those numbers are some interesting wrinkles, given the youthful nature of the Internet audience and the potential for addressing more issues on the Web. While domestic affairs was the second most popular topic, for instance, that broad category heading is somewhat deceptive. A big majority of the lead domestic-affairs stories (79%) concerned terrorism. No other single area of domestic news - public health, education, the environment, transportation, sprawl and health care - reached even a single percentage point.

Story Length

With an online environment, one can make conflicting arguments about how long stories should be. The Internet has the potential for infinite depth. Yet some people believe the computer screen is better suited to shorter stories than long scrolls of text or multiple clicks to page through a story.

Is there an optimal length? Do sites vary much?

Over all, the lead stories on the Web were similar in length to newspaper front-page articles. Roughly half of the Internet lead stories were between 500 and 1,000 words (48%) as were 44% of front-page newspaper stories. Another 32% were over 1,000 words. This was true of 40% of newspaper front-page articles.