Comparing mainstream media with user news sites
Cory Bergman September 13th, 2007
For one week, the Project for Excellence in Journalism compared the news agenda of established media news sites with user news sites Digg, Del.icio.us and Reddit. The PEJ also looked at Yahoo News’ most viewed, most emailed and most recommended categories. The results? Stories on the user sites were “markedly different” than mainstream press with barely any overlap. Seven out of ten stories originated from blogs or other sites like YouTube that did not focus on the news. User sites were “more diverse, yet also more fragmented and transitory.” Which leads PEJ to the conclusion, “These user sites may be supplemental for audiences. They may gravitate to them in addition to, rather than instead of, traditional venues.” In my experience, that’s more often the case — with the exception of young men, perhaps.
And many online newsies will not be surprised by the Yahoo News analysis, which mirrors most news sites: “Most Recommended stories focused more on ‘news you can use’ such as advice from the World Health Organization to exercise one’s legs during long flights; the Most Viewed stories were often breaking news, more sensational in nature, with a heavy dose of crime and celebrity; and the Most Emailed stories were more diverse, with a mix of the practical and the oddball.”
21 Comments Add your own
1. Steve Boriss | September 13th, 2007 at 10:38 am
See my post “How can Old Media journalists claim to be ‘professionals’ while being almost completely wrong about what their readers want? Study reveals an astonishing disconnect.” at TheFutureOfNews.com
2. chip | September 13th, 2007 at 11:00 am
See my post “Someone has to report on actual news instead of the crap that people forward to each other or this country will end up totally uniformed” at ThisIsWhyOurSociety’sSoDumb.com.
3. tdc | September 13th, 2007 at 11:09 am
sounds like chip’s got one on his shoulder lately.
of course, he could be right; we should all believe the crap that will be served up tonight at 9pm as ‘actual news’ that things in ‘baghdad never looked so good’.
it’s no small wonder our ’society’ssodumb’… it comes from the top and is parroted by nbc cbs abc cnn and so on.
4. discreet_chaos | September 13th, 2007 at 11:20 am
Every time Jarvis writes that his kid gets all of his news through Digg, I just want to scream that somebody had to actually publish the story and someone had to have read it for the thing to have been dugg, so his kid’s just lazily existing off of other people’s efforts.
Now, if you take this study into consideration, apparently most of the crap that’s dugg is the filler which is not on the front page and it just makes it harder for me to understand how never directly visiting a news site could be worn like a badge of honor.
5. Joe | September 13th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
And also my post “Someone has to report on actual news well, so that people find it more interesting and useful than the silly, intriguing crap that people forward to each other” at PeopleAreLeavingTVNewsBecauseIt’sAwfulAndBoring.com (duped at ICanWriteSmarmySendupsToo.com)
6. Safran | September 13th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
I give the audience more credit. People tend to email the quirky stories, yes. But look right now at the Most Viewed stories on CNN.com:
1. Texas governor declares disasters
2. Four police officers shot
3. Fossett search revives old mystery
4. Dr. Phil to get Holloway reports
5. 2nd plane dress incident reported
6. 4th earthquake strikes Indonesia
7. $300,000 in donations for Youssif
8. Is Bush just buying time?
9. Key Bush ally assassinated
10. Grub, chow, mystery meat — combat…
People don’t just want pap. They want a well-rounded diet. It’s condescending to talk about the masses as though they don’t know what’s good for them.
Do they forward the gossip? Yes. Do they post the juicy stuff on Digg? Yup. Does that mean it’s all they’re interested in? Decidedly not.
7. Safran | September 13th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
PS: See my post at IJustWroteItAtNumber6BelowJoe.com.
8. Steve Boriss | September 13th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
Safran, So YOU’RE the one who has been squatting on that URL I’ve wanted!
9. John Proffitt | September 13th, 2007 at 8:22 pm
Well, I suppose it’s nice that someone did a study that confirms what I could have told you anecdotally. Yippee — I’m validated!
I would just point out one thing… I’m not going to e-mail a story about a Bush statement on Iraq and neither is anyone else. It might be the “most important” story of the day to a pro journalist, but why should I forward it? It’s already the top story at every pro journalism outlet anyway.
People are only going to forward advice and quirky bits to one another because everyone already has the same news in all our papers and on all our TV stations and web sites. So don’t be gettin’ all “down” on the public just because what they’re forwarding isn’t what a journalist selected for the “above the fold” headline. They don’t need to forward that top story — all the pro journalists forwarded it to each other already. It’s called the AP.
10. John Proffitt | September 13th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
Oh, and by the way, can we stop bitching about bloggers vs. journalists? Puh-leeze. That’s so 20th century. It’s not an either/or world anymore. It’s and/and. I, for one, want both kinds of outlets.
And another thing… You folks complaining about journalists vs. bloggers — you commented ON A BLOG. Obviously you’re already consuming meta-media produced by folks that didn’t write the original story. If you’re making fun of bloggers and the idiots who read them, aren’t you making fun of yourself?
11. discreet_chaos | September 13th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
Um… I was taking a swing at Jarvis because he’s written or has said several times (click my name for one example) that Digg and similar services are more efficient than actually publishing stuff and that his kid is “informed”, though he doesn’t go directly to any news sites. Clearly, as this study proved, you should have a balanced diet of news and because there’s gaping holes in distributed links, you have to actually visit a publisher’s website to be well-informed.
As for myself, I read a lot of newspaper and television sites, plus I have a regular round-robin of blogs. And, what I forward through email is usually stuff about arcane subjects, places or people that I know, so that whomever I’m targeting doesn’t miss the story which would be of interest to them for a particular reason. Much like I visit LR a few times a day, comfortable in the knowledge that the gang will point the way toward things that I may have missed.
12. Brink | September 14th, 2007 at 4:48 am
The overwhelming majority of blogs–this one included–have a specific agenda, i..e, they’re intentionally biased.
People who say they “get their news” from them–just like the folks who, a few years back, said they “got their news” from Rush Limbaugh–are doing no such thing. They’re reading opinion that backs up what they already believe to be true.
There are very, very few blogs that exist to provide news without a bias.
13. Safran | September 14th, 2007 at 6:58 am
Vs. Thinking Alert.
14. John Proffitt | September 14th, 2007 at 10:11 am
Brink… I think there’s bias here at Lost Remote in that there are only certain topics covered or mentioned. There’s no mention of cooking news, for example. I suppose that’s a kind of bias. But I wouldn’t call it bias in the way we normally think of “bias in the media.”
This is the strength of blogs / web sites / social sites — they allow a writer and readers to delve more deeply into a topic than you could do in a general-purpose mass medium outlet like a traditional daily newspaper. Plus, they allow for combination of media content into a single spot that focuses on a given topic.
There are strengths in mass media and strengths in niche media. And I grant you there are biased, opinionated sources and there are sources that try hard to present a “fair and balanced” picture, as best they can. But the medium/format does not, in my opinion, create or promote a particular politica/social bias.
15. Brink | September 14th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Sure it does.
Ask yourself what motivates most bloggers to blog.
Hint: It ain’t for the thrill of providing unbiased news coverage.
16. Steve Safran | September 14th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
I think bias gets a bad rap. What’s wrong with bias? I’m biased. You are too. In my case, I have a bias towards media outlets that use the web in interesting and profitable ways. So I highlight those. I also share my opinion, with which everyone is free (and likely) to disagree. I also have an agenda: to promote the best practices of the web and convergence media.
If anything, those who swear to be unbiased are the ones to watch out for.
17. Brink | September 14th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
The problem is, people tend to read those blogs that are biased toward the side they favor, instead of reading the whole story. They want to be told they’re right. But that validation does nothing to inform them of ALL the facts.
I don’t want to read slanted stories. I want to see both sides. And professional journalists are most likely to give us both sides, because that’s their job.
This differs from the efforts of a blogger, who, while he/she may “report” on events, has no reason to mention those which run counter to his/her bias, even if (or especially when) they tend to prove him/her wrong.
18. Steve Safran | September 14th, 2007 at 9:06 pm
Point taken, but people are getting their news from media outlets that reinforce their own politics too, aren’t they?
The problem comes when those “unbiased” news outlets cede their fundamental job - questioning authority - to the blogs. Suddenly, the blogs are accused of bias when all they’re doing is the work the journalists should have done in the first place.
This is why I don’t go in for the “Vs.” argument. People need a full diet of all of the above. There are professional journalists getting both sides of the story - even when there aren’t two sides - but they’re biased, too. We need to be our own journalists now - taking in lots of information, questioning it, and coming up with our own conclusions.
Good debate.
19. Steve Boriss | September 15th, 2007 at 5:46 am
Steve, Agree this is a good debate, and in it I see the symptoms of the unraveling of the old model. The split between objective and biased news is an artificial one invented in the early 20th century and dying today. It didn’t exist before then in America, and it never existed through today among London’s papers.
Bias fills-in the gaps to handle differences in consumer preferences, the unknown and unknowable, and the unreconcilable differences among individuals’ worldviews. No one ever asked news consumers whether or not they preferred objective news. It would be a rare human being who actually would or, for that matter, is so open-minded and industrious that he wants to hear all sides of the story then take the time to figure out all of these complicated public policy issues by himself. Bias is good, unavoidable, entertaining, and consumers want it.
One more match to throw on this diminishing fire. Any news outlet which dismisses differences between mainstream articles actually published and most viewed/voted-on/forwarded/etc. without at the very least understanding why that is and thinking about ways to get more of these reactions to their stories is in a fatal state of denial.
20. Brink | September 15th, 2007 at 6:07 am
You guys just love call-in talk radio shows, don’t you?
21. Safran | September 16th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
Nah. They make me wait too long.
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