J201 Lecture Print journalism What factors might contribute to the quality of journalism time and space constraints news hole news cycle audience attention span presentation style edgy sensational accessible revenue stream public subscription advertising What factors might contribute to the quality of journalism structure of the news organization number of reporters number of bureaus process of news gathering procedures for sourcing verifying editing characteristics of news personnel demographics psychographics geographics characteristics of news audience demographics psychographics geographics What factors might contribute to the quality of journalism ownership family owned shareholder owned conglomerate stated partisan project or ideals liberal conservative etc unstated influence or affiliation Democratic Republican labor management etc What should you do when you find bad journalism Consider scale one article one journalist one newspaper one media company or all media Consider history a pattern or an isolated incident Consider intent was mistake accidental avoidable Consider effects who stands to gain from mistake Consider yourself do you harbor any biases New York Times example 2003 Jayson Blair 2004 Judith Miller 2005 Pew Research Center study 2005 Respond with a campaign to secure our accuracy fairness and accountability Are newspapers in trouble 2008 down to about 53 million each 2008 about the same people just aren t reading newspapers like they used to of Americans reading newspapers began to drop in 1940s overall circulation rose until 1970 was steady through 1990 population growth masked percentage decline in readership after 1990 circulation began decreasing in absolute terms newspaper reading today properties about 1 500 daily newspapers in US circulation 53 million single newspapers sold each day readership only 54 of Americans read a newspaper sometime during the week household penetration on average only 53 of households take a newspaper down from 123 in 1950 why have so many people stopped reading newspapers generational change suburbanization free weeklies reporting cutbacks chasing demographics rather than readers competition from television Baughman who is and isn t reading newspapers age young people read less ethnicity readership lowest among fastestgrowing minority population education more education more likely to read a newspaper income higher income more likely to read a newspaper comparing newspapers to TV journalistic practices 85 of newspaper front page stories are staff generated rather than attributed solely to an outside source 56 for network evening news 2 of newspaper stories use at least one blind anonymous source 14 for network evening news 52 of newspaper stories use at least four named identified sources 18 for network evening news Do people believe what they read in the papers today 59 of Americans believe their daily paper but in 1985 80 of Americans believed their daily paper people today trust papers less than local and network television news cultural divide journalists seen as out of touch and motivated more by profit than public interest yet people still turn to newspapers to make sense of the world especially during key events
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