2005 Annual Report - Newspaper Content Analysis

So how likely are newspaper stories to have it all, to reach what might be called a top level of sourcing and depth? To answer this we created a Reporting Index that combined transparency of sources, a mix of viewpoints and multiple stakeholders. 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

In all, 18% of all applicable stories reach the highest level on the Reporting Index.

But that number changes dramatically by section and by circulation. On the front pages, fully 33% reach the highest Reporting Index level. The figure rose even higher to 52%, more than half of the stories among the largest papers. As circulation size decreases, so does the percentage of high-level stories, finally reaching just 15% among the smallest papers.

Sports stories were the least likely to meet the three-tier threshold. Just 4% of all sports stories qualified, 12% among the largest papers and 2% among the smallest.

Coverage on the metro section-fronts fell in the middle. These stories were half as likely as A1 stories to meet the reporting index - 16% of all metro stories.

Frame

Beyond topic, the project this year also looked at how journalists approached each topic, or the way they framed the story.

Did they build stories around conflict, consensus, how readers can take action, winners and losers - or is there no clear thematic or narrative frame to the story, more of a here's what happened yesterday, straight-news account?

While a wide range of frames appeared, some were more common than others.

Looking just at news stories (excluding columns), more than a third, 36%, had no narrative frame. Most were simply written in the inverted pyramid style; they described what happened yesterday, offering a grab bag of facts that did not fall into any clear narrative theme.

After that, the most common frame was a feature style, wherein the writer told a good yarn. This approach characterized 12% of news stories.

After that, three frames appeared regularly - building stories around a conflict of some kind, building stories around winners and losers, and building stories around explaining how things got to this point and where they would go from here. Each of these made up 10% of all news stories.

Interestingly, readers were more than twice as likely to find stories framed around conflict as around consensus - 10% versus 4%. Just 7% focused on identifying a problem that needed solving, or something that wasn't working. Only 3% reported how readers could do something, take action - news you can use.

The biggest difference between circulation groups - for both news stories and columns - was that smaller papers were more likely to write stories with no thematic or interpretative frame. The smaller papers used the inverted pyramid in close to half of all stories (44%), as against only 30% at mid-sized publications and just over a fourth, 26%, at the largest papers. This may go hand in hand with the finding that larger papers were more likely to include journalistic opinion.

Frame of Newspaper Stories by Section Fronts, 2004