2005 Annual Report - Newspaper Content Analysis

Number of Viewpoints in Newspaper Stories

The second component of measuring the depth of reporting was to count the points of view reflected in stories that involved some controversy. Here, again, newspapers look pretty solid. The larger news hole afforded print may explain part of that.

Over all, about one in two stories involved no dispute at all. These were stories about weather, accidents, fires, celebrities, charities and the like, in which there was no conflict over either the facts or their interpretation. That also applied to straight news accounts of events, including game reports on the sports pages.

With stories that did involve some dispute, newspapers stood out for reflecting two or more sides of the story. Nearly 8 in 10 stories that involved a dispute or controversy of some kind (76%) contained a mix of opinions such that no one opinion made up more than two thirds of the story.

Presence of Multiple Viewpoints, Newspapers

(Based on stories with multiple viewpoints)

Just 10% contained only a passing reference to another view, and 15% contained only one view. What's more, these percentages remained pretty consistent in wire and staff reporting, though there were some slight variations across circulation size.

This mix is similar to what was found on commercial network evening news where 72% offered a mix of views. Network morning news offered an even greater mix-86% of all stories. Cable news, however, was much more onesided. Just 25% of all stories studied offered a mix of views.

Number of Stakeholders

The third measure of reporting depth was how many different interested groups, or stakeholders, were mentioned or consulted in the story. Stakeholders are different from viewpoints in that different groups of stakeholders might share an opinion on a subject, though they arrived from a different starting place. Teachers and students, for instance, might largely agree on a school controversy, though they are clearly different stakeholders with different interests.

Here newspapers offered a good deal of depth, though some differences stand out between papers of different size. In 39% of all stories studied, journalists cited four or more stakeholders. Another 19% included three different stakeholders or interest groups; 32% contained two.

Just 10% of the stories over all contained only one stakeholder, and a disproportionate number of those (16%) were columns. When columns are excluded, the number of stories with four or more stakeholders rises to 40%.

Number of Stakeholders, Newspapers

Looking just at front-page coverage, the depth is even greater. More than half (54%) of all front-page stories included four or more different stakeholders. At the largest papers, the share grew to nearly three-quarters of all front-page stories (73%). (Smaller papers were less likely to cite four or more stakeholders on page 1 - just 39% - but still, only 10% of their coverage contained just one.) Lead stories for the online sites studied were similar to front pages in this regard, with 56% including four or more different stakeholders.

Stories on the metro section fronts varied more, with 31% including two viewpoints, 23% offering three and 32% containing four or more. But here again, large papers stand out as offering more depth. Fully 54% of their metro section-front stories contained four or more stakeholders, compared to just 28% for the smallest papers and 26% for mid-sized.

The sports section-front, perhaps wrapped up in the "us versus them" mentality of games, was most likely to offer two stakeholders (44%).