By the Project for Excellence in Journalism and Rick Edmonds of The Poynter Institute

What were Americans getting from their newspapers in 2004? How did papers cover the two big stories of the year, the war in Iraq and the national election? Is the quality of reporting in newspapers different in some measurable way from other media?

To answer these questions, the Project conducted an extensive examination of 16 newspapers over the course of 28 randomly selected days - a month spread out through the year.

The answer, similar to the answer a year ago, is that readers of newspapers get coverage that is more a traditional mix of hard and soft news than in other media, and that is more focused on institutions than in other media. Newspaper readers also get stories that are generally more deeply sourced and longer and broader in scope than in other media. And they get information from more anonymous sources than in other media, though less than they did a year ago.

The Project studied 16 newspapers from a range of circulation sizes over the course of a month. First, four dates for each day of the week were randomly selected - 28 days in all, randomly selected from January 13 to September 26, 2004. Then U.S. daily newspapers were divided into four circulation categories, and four papers from each group were selected at random, looking, when possible, for geographic diversity. The Project then examined, in detail, every article that began on three section fronts: front page, metro front and sports front. In all, 6,589 articles were studied.¹ [1]

Subjects of A1 Newspaper Articles by Year

Percent of All Stories

	1977	1987	1997	2003*	2004*
Government	33%	33%	30%	27%	35%
Foreign Affairs	27	27	21	21	14
Military	1	3	*	3	2
Elections	--	--	--	--	9
Domestic	9	9	14	22	14
Entertainment/Celebrities	*	2	2	1	1
Lifestyle	4	5	6	8	7
Crime	9	6	10	4	4
Business/Commerce	8	6	5	5	4
Science	1	4	5	5	3
Accidents/Disaster	7	3	2	3	3
Sports**	--	--	--	--	3
Other	2	3	4	1	2
Totals may not equal 100 because of rounding. *Analogous percentages are based on the largest circulation category in the 2003 and 2004 studies. **Before 2004, sports was included in the lifestyle subject category. For 2004, due to the inclusion of the sports section front, it is listed.