MethodologyOverview
The PEJ News Coverage Index analyzes a wide swath
of American news media to identify what is being covered and not
covered—the media’s broad news agenda. The Universe: What we are Studying
Because the landscape is becoming more diverse—in platform, content,
style and emphasis—and because media consumption habits are also
changing, even varying day to day, the Index is designed to be broad.
Therefore, our sample, based on the advice of our academic team, is
designed to include a broad range of outlets—illustrative but not
strictly representative of the media universe. Note: The statistics cited here are the statistics that were accurate at the time of the launch of the Index (January 2007). When available, updated data are included in the footnotes section.
Sector Reach Each evening, the three broadcast news shows on ABC, NBC, and CBS, reach approximately 27 million viewers. The morning news shows on those networks are seen by 14.1 million viewers.[1] In addition, the nightly newscast on PBS reaches roughly 2.4 million viewers daily, according to their internal figures. Because the universe of national broadcast channels is limited to these four channels, it is practical to include all of the networks as part of our sample universe.
Sector Sample
This results in 3.5 hours of programming each day.
Sector Reach
The most likely option was to study CNN, MSNBC and Fox News. These
represent the dominant channel of programming from each news-producing
cable company. (This means selecting MSNBC as opposed to CNBC, and CNN
as opposed to CNN Headline News, and MSNBC over Headline News, which
now sometimes beats MSNBC in ratings). 1) The daytime period, to demonstrate what on-going or live events are being covered. The study includes two 30 minute segments of daytime programming each day, rotating among the three networks. 2) Early Evening and Prime time (6 PM – 11PM) together as a unit, rather than separating out talk and news or early prime and late prime. Within this five hour period, we included all programming that focuses on general news events of the day. Basically, this removes three programs: Fox’s Greta Van Susteren, which is more narrowly focused on crime, CNN’s Larry King which as often as not is focused on entertainment or personal stories rather than news events and MSNBC’s documentaries program. Because MSNBC’s audience numbers are so much lower than those for Fox or CNN, we also decided to include slightly less of its programming. Even though CNN trails Fox in Nielsen Ratings, its monthly cumulative or “cume” audience figure is higher so the two are sampled equally.
To include the most cable offerings possible each week, the study codes
the first 30 minutes of selected programs and rotates them daily. Morning
shows were not included because those shows are run at the same time
for every part of the country – meaning that a broadcast that starts at
7 a.m. on the east coast will begin at 4 a.m. on the west coast. Those
programs appear far too early for much of the country to actually view.
This is in contrast to the broadcast morning programs, which are
shown on tape delay in different parts of the country, in the manner of
other broadcast programs. Daytime Rotate, coding two out of three 30-minute daytime slots each day (60 minutes a day) Prime Time
Three 30-minute segments for Fox (90 minutes) Below is the current list of evening cable programs included in our sample as of April 2008.
This results in 5 hours of cable programming each day (including daytime).
Sector Reach Roughly 54 million people buy a newspaper each weekday.[4]This number does not include the “pass along” rate of newspapers, which some estimate, depending on the paper, to be approximately three times the circulation rate. In addition, specific newspapers, such as the New York Times and Washington Post, have an even greater influence on the national and international news agenda because they serve as sources of news that many other outlets look to in making their own programming and editorial decisions. So while the overall audience for newspapers has declined over recent years, newspapers still play a large and consequential role in setting the overall news agenda that cannot be strictly quantified or justified by circulation data alone. There is a growing body of data to suggest that the total audience of newspapers, combining their reach in print and online, may actually be growing slightly. Sector Sample To create a representation of what national stories are being covered by the 1,450 newspapers around the country, we divided the country’s daily papers into three tiers based on circulation: over 650,000; 100,000 to 650,000; and under 100,000. Within each tier, we selected papers along the following criteria: First, papers need to be available electronically on the day of publication. Three websites, www.nexis.com, www.newsstand.com, and www.pressdisplay.com, offer same day full-text delivery service. Based on their general same-day availability (excluding non-daily papers, non-U.S. papers, non-English language papers, college papers, and special niche papers) a list of U.S. general interest daily newspapers was constructed. The list included seven papers in Tier 1, 44 papers in Tier 2, and 22 papers in Tier 3. Tier 1: Due to its national prominence and readership, and the desirability of having at least one newspaper that was coded every day without any interruption due to rotation (in the same way the network newscasts are coded) we decided to code the New York Times each day (Sunday through Friday). We then wanted to include a representation from the other large nationally reputed or distributed papers, so each day we code two out of four of the largest papers, the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal. Tiers 2 and 3: Four newspapers were selected from Tier 2 and Tier 3 respectively. To ensure geographical diversity, each of the four newspapers within Tier 2 and Tier 3 was randomly selected from a different geographic region according to the parameters established by the U.S. Census Bureau, i.e., Northeast Region, Midwest Region, South Region and West Region. An effort was also made to ensure diversity by ownership. We rotate two of the four newspapers in Tier 2 and Tier 3 each day. The following is the current list of newspapers included in the Index as of April 2008. The Tier 2 and Tier 3 papers were changed as of the beginning of the 2nd quarter in 2008.
1st Tier
The New York Times
Philadelphia Inquirer 3rd Tier
New Hampshire Union-Leader Units of Study For each of the papers selected, we code only articles that begin on page A1 (including jumps). The argument for this is that the papers have made the decision to feature those stories on that day’s edition. That means we do not code the articles on the inside of the A section, or on any other section. The first argument for ignoring these stories is that they would be unnecessary for our Index, which measures only the biggest stories each week. If a story appears on the inside of the paper, but does not make A1 at any point, it would almost certainly not be a big enough story to make the top list of stories we track each week. The weakness of this approach, arguably, is that it undercounts the full agenda of national and international news in that it neglects those stories that were not on Page 1 on certain days but were on others. While this is perhaps less pertinent in the weekly Index, at the end of the year, when trying to assess the full range of what the media covered, those stories that appeared on the inside of the paper but didn’t vanish may be undercounted. Part of the reasoning for excluding those national and international stories that begin inside the front section of the paper is practical. Coding the interior of the papers to round out the sample for year-end purposes would be an enormous amount of work for relatively minimal gain. The other argument for foregoing national and international stories that fail to make Page 1 is more conceptual. We are measuring what newspapers emphasize, their top agenda. Given the cost versus the benefit, capturing the front page of more newspapers seemed the better alternative. In the same regard, we do not code every story that might appear on a Web site, an even more daunting task, but instead code just the top stories. The other challenge with newspapers that we did not face with some other media is that we only include stories that are national or international. National is defined as a story being covered by newspapers from different locations, as opposed to a local story that is only covered in one paper. The only local stories included in the study are those that are pertain to a larger national issue — how the war in Iraq is affecting the hometown, for instance, or new job cuts at the local industries because of the sliding economy. This results in a newspaper sample of approximately 25 stories a day.
Sector Reach About 30 million internet users go online for news each day.[5] About 6.8 million people read a blog each day, some of the most popular of which are news oriented.[6] Both online news sites and web blogs are becoming more important in the overall news agenda. Any sample of the modern news culture must include a representation of some of the more popular online news sources. Sector Sample The online news universe is even more expansive than radio and has seemingly countless sites that could serve as news sources. To get an understanding of online news sources we chose to include several of the most popular news sites in our universe as a sample of the overall online news agenda. We also wanted balance in the type of online news sites, between those that produced their own content and those who aggregated news from throughout the web. To choose the sites we were to include in our sample, we referred to the list of the top ten news sites with the most unique visitors according to the Nielsen/NetRatings from September 2006. Out of that list of ten sites, we chose five different sites that represented a mix of sites that either created their own material for their web site (MSNBC.com, CNN.com), popular sites that aggregated material from other web sites (Google News, Yahoo News), and a site such as AOL News which usually uses material from news wire services, but also creates some unique material at times as well. The sites to be coded are as follows: Site Unique Audience as of September 2006 (000) [7]
Yahoo News (90162) Units of Study For the online news sites, the study captured the site once a day from 9 to 10 a.m. Eastern time. For each site capture, we code the top five stories, since those have been determined to be the most prominent at that point in time by the particular news service. As is true with our decision about page A1 in newspapers, if a story is not big enough for the online sites to highlight it in their top five stories, it is likely not a story that will register on our tally of the top stories each week. This results in a sample of 25 stories a day.
Sector Reach Radio is a diverse medium that reaches the majority of Americans – 94 percent of Americans 12 years and older listen to traditional radio each week. [8] Approximately 16% of radio listeners tune into news, talk and information radio in an average week, which ranks it as the most popular of all measured radio formats.[9] Many more Americans get news from headlines while listening to other formats as well. The challenge with coding national radio programs is that much of radio news content is localized, and the number of shows that reach a national audience is only a fraction of the overall programming. On the other hand, our content analysis of radio confirms that news on commercial radio in most cities has been reduced to headlines from local wires and syndicated network feeds (plus talk, much of which is nationally syndicated itself). The exception is in a few major cities where a few all-news commercial radio stations still survive, such as Washington, D.C., where WTOP is a significant all-news operation. Sector Sample The Index includes three different areas of radio news programming. 1. Public radio: The Index includes 30 minutes of a public radio’s broadcast of National Public Radio’s (NPR) morning program, Morning Edition, each day. NPR produces two hours of Morning Edition each day, which also includes multiple news roundups produced by a different unit of NPR. Member stations may pick any segments within those two hours and mix and match as fits their programming interests. Thus, what airs on a member station is considered a “co-production” of NPR and that member station rather than programming coming directly from NPR. In order to account for this unique relationship, PEJ rotates between coding the first 30 minutes of the first hour and the first 30 minutes of the second hour of the member station that we record the show from, WFYI. This gives us a closer representation of the overall content of Morning Edition. 2. Talk Radio: The Index includes some of the most popular national talk shows that are public affairs or news oriented. Since the larger portion of the talk radio audience, and talk radio hosts, are of a conservative political persuasion, we included more conservative hosts each day than liberal hosts. Each day we code the first 30 minutes of Rush Limbaugh’s talk radio show, which is heard by more listeners than any other talk show according to Talkers Magazine (December 2006). We also rotate each day between the two next most popular conservative shows, Sean Hannity and Michael Savage. Since the politically liberal audience for talk radio is much smaller, we only code one liberal talk show a day, rotating between Ed Schultz and Randi Rhodes, two of the top liberal radio hosts based on national audience numbers. The Arbitron ratings, according to Talker’s Magazine online, for spring 2006 are as follows: Minimum Weekly Cume (in millions, rounded to the nearest .25, based on Spring ’06 Arbitron reports) [10]
Rush Limbaugh (13.5) 3. Headline Feeds: Hourly news feeds from national radio organizations like CBS and CNN appear on local stations across the country. These feeds usually last approximately 5 minutes at the top of each hour, and are national in the sense that people all over the country get the same information. They frequently supplement local talk and news shows. To get a representation of these feeds, we code two national feeds, each twice a day (9 am and 5 pm eastern time). The networks that are included will rotate over time, with the first two being CBS Radio and ABC Radio. The stations used to capture each program are selected based on the availability of a solid feed through the station’s web site. We have also compared their shows to that of other stations to ensure that the same edition is aired on that station as on other stations carrying the same program. This results in the following sample: News: 30 minutes of NPR’s Morning Edition each day, as broadcast on a selected member station. Talk: The first 30 minutes of three talk programs each day -- two conservative (Rush Limbaugh and either Sean Hannity or Michael Savage) and one liberal (Ed Schultz or Randi Rhodes). Headlines: Four headline segments each day (two from ABC Radio and two from CBS Radio), about 20 minutes total. This results in a sample of roughly 2.5 hours of programming a day.
Universe of OutletsEach day, then, the NCI includes approximately 11 hrs of broadcast (television and radio), 7 newspapers (approximately 25 stories), and 5 news web sites (25 stories). The current universe is as follows:
Newspapers (Thirteen in all, Sun-Fri)
Code 2 out of these 4 every day Code 2 out of these 4 every day
Philadelphia Inquirer Code 2 out of these 4 every day
New Hampshire Union-Leader
Evening news
Daytime (2–2:30 pm) – code 2 out of 3 every day
Nighttime CNN – code 3 out of the 4 every day
Nighttime Fox News – code 3 out of the 4 every day
Nighttime MSNBC – code 2 out of the 4 every day
Headlines every day
Talk Radio
1 out of 2 additional conservatives each day
1 out of 2 liberals each day That brings us to 35 outlets each weekday. (7 newspapers only for Sunday) Universe Procurement and Story InclusionNewspapers For each of the seven newspapers included in our sample, we code all stories where the beginning of the text of the story appears on the front page of that day’s hard copy edition. If a story only has a picture, caption, or teaser to text inside the edition, we do not include that story in our sample. We code all stories that appear on the front page with a national or international focus. Because we are looking at the coverage of national and international news, if a story is about an event that is solely local to the paper’s point of origin, we exclude such a story from our sample. The only exception to this rule is when a story with a local focus is tied to a story that we have determined to be a “Big Story” – defined as one that has been covered in multiple national-news outlets for more than one news cycle. For example, a story about a local soldier who has come back from the Iraq War has a local angle but is related to a national issue and is important in the context of our study. We code the entirety of the text of all the articles we include. If an article includes a jump to an inside page in the hard copy edition, we code all the text including that which makes up the jump. When possible, we have subscribed to the hard copies of the selected newspapers and have them delivered to our Washington, D.C. office. This is possible for national papers that have same-day delivery methods (the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and USA Today). For these papers, we use the hard copy edition to determine the placement on the front page of the edition, and to get all the text we will code. We use the LexisNexis computer database to determine the word count for each of the stories. For all of the other papers that we are not able to get hard copies of within the same day of publication, we take advantage of internet resources that have digital copies of the hard copy editions. Pressdisplay.com and Newsstand.com have subscription services offering same-day access digital versions of the hard copy. From these digital versions, we obtain the text of the relevant articles and also determine the word counts. To get the word counts, we copy the text of the articles (not including captions, titles, bylines, or pull-out quotes) into the Microsoft Word software program and run the "word count" function to get the final number. When necessary, we go to the paper’s web site in order to find the text of articles that are not available on either of the two web services. Through examination of each individual article, we are able to determine when the text of the article on the web site is the same as it would be in the hard copy of the paper. Network and Cable Television For all television programs, we code the first 30 minutes of the broadcast, regardless of how long the program lasts. As with newspapers, we code all stories that are news reports that relate to a national or international issue. Therefore, we do not code stories that are part of a local insert into a national show. For example, each half-hour, NBC’s Today Show cuts to a local affiliate which will report local stories and local weather. We do not include those local insert stories. We also exclude from our sample commercials, promos, and teasers of upcoming stories. We are only interested in the actual reporting that takes place during the broadcasts. Any story that fits the above criteria and begins within the first 30 minutes is included in the study, even if the story finishes outside of the 30 minute time period. A three-minute story that begins 28 minutes into a program would be coded in its entirety, even though the final minute ran after our 30-minute cutoff mark. The exception to this rule is when a television station is showing a speech or press conference that runs longer than the 30-minute period (often much longer). In those cases, we cut off the coding at the 30-minute mark in order to prevent that event from unduly impacting our overall data. The method of collection of all television programs is the same. PEJ subscribes to DirectTV satellite television service, and we have 9 TiVo recording boxes hooked up to the DirectTV signals. Through these TiVo services, we digitally record each broadcast and then archive the programs onto DVDs. There is redundancy in our recording method so that each show is recorded on two machines in order to avoid problems in our capture that might result from techincal error. Occasionally outlets deviate from the regularly scheduled news programs. When the deviation is a special program produced by that news outlet (such as “A Special Look Into Iraq With Wolf Blitzer”), we code the same 30-minute period that we would have coded otherwise in order to get a realistic account of what news would be available to the consumer who tuned in at that time. However, when a show is pre-empted for a special live event, such as a presidential campaign debate or the State of the Union address, we do not include that period as part of our sample. Radio The rules for capturing and selecting stories to code for radio are very similar to television. We code the first 30 minutes or each show regardless of how long the show lasts. We also exclude local inserts from local affiliates, and continue coding any story that runs past the 30-minute mark. For each of the radio shows selected, we have found national feeds of the show that are available on the web. As with television, we have two computers capturing each show so as to avoid errors if one feed is not working. The actual recording is done using a software program called Replay A/V which captures the digital feeds and creates digital copies of the programs onto our computers. We then archive those programs onto DVDs. Online For each of the web sites we are including in our sample, we capture and code the top 5 stories that appear on the site at the time of capture. Our captures occur between 9 and 10 am eastern time each weekday. The captures physically occur with a coder going to each site using an internet browser and saving the home page and appropriate article pages to our computers, exactly as they appear in our browsers at the time of the capture. We rely on people rather than a software package to capture sites because some software packages have proved invasive to Web sites. As with newspapers, some stories are longer than one web page. In those cases, we include the entire text of the article for as many web pages as the article lasts. Because each web site is formatted differently, we came up with a standard set of rules to determine which stories are the most prominent on a given home page. We spent a significant amount of time examining various popular news sites and discovered patterns which led us to the best possible rules. First, we ignore all advertisements, audio/visual features, or extra features on the sites that are not reported news stories. We are only interested in the main channels of the web sites where the lead stories of the day are displayed. Second, we determine the top “lead” story. That is the story with the largest font size for its title on the home page. The second most prominent story is the story that has a picture associated with it, if that story is different than the story with the next largest title. By considering many sites, we realized that a number of sites associate pictures with stories that they find particularly interesting, but are clearly not intended to be the most important story of the day. However, we do want those stories to be in our sample because the reader’s eye will be drawn to them. Having figured out the first and second most prominent stories, we then rely on two factors to determine the next three most prominent stories. We first consider the size of the headline text and then the height on the home page. Therefore, for determining the third most prominent story, we look for the story with the largest title font after the top two most prominent stories. If there are several stories with identical font sizes, we determine that the story that is higher up on the page is more prominent. In cases where two articles have the same font size and the same height on the screen, we choose the article to the left to be the more prominent.
Coding Procedures and Intercoder ReliabilityA coding protocol was designed for this project based on PEJ’s previous related studies. Nineteen variables are coded, including coder ID, date coded, story ID number (these three are generated from the coding software automatically), story date, source, broadcast start time, broadcast story start timecode, headline, story word count, placement/prominence, story format, story describer, big story, sub-storyline, geographic focus, broad story topic, lead newsmaker, broadcast story ending timecode, and campaign mention. The source variable includes all the media outlets we code. The variable for broadcast start time applies to radio and TV broadcast news and gives the starting time of the program in which the story appears. Broadcast story start timecode is the time at which a story begins after the start of the show, while broadcast story ending timecode is the time at which a story ends. The variable for headline identifies whether the story is part of a regular news round-up segment. The variable for story word count designates the word count of each individual print/online news story. The placement/prominence variable designates where stories are located within a publication, on a website, or within a broadcast. The location reflects the prominence given the stories by the journalists creating and editing the content. Story format measures the type and origin of the text-based and broadcast stories, which designates, at a basic level, whether the news story is a product of original reporting, or drawn from another news source. Story describer is a short description of the content of each story. Big stories are particular topics that occurred often in news media during the time period under study. Sub-storyline applies to stories that fit into some of the long-running big stories, reflecting specific aspects, features or narrower elements of some big stories.The variable for geographic focus refers to the geographic area to which the topic is relevant in relation to the location of the news source. The variable for the broad story topic identifies which of the type of broad topic categories is addressed by a story. The variable for lead newsmaker names the person or group who is the central focus of the story. The campaign mention variable identifies whether the story names any mention at all of a U.S. campaign or election. The team responsible for performing the content analysis is made up of twelve coders, a coding administrator and a senior research methodologist. Several of the coders have been trained extensively since the summer of 2006 and most of the coders have more than a year's worth of coding experience. Two major tests of intercoder reliability have been conducted in order to ensure accuracy among all the coders. The first test was conducted just prior to the launch of the weekly News Coverage Index in January 2007. For the first test, two random datasets were combined for running intercoder reliability statistics. In total, 126 stories from 16 outlets within various media categories (newspapers, online, television, radio) were randomly selected to assess reliability, resulting in roughly 9% of one week’s total story count (one week’s total story count ranges from 1,200 to 1,400). Overall, 22 stories were coded by seven coders (17%), 66 stories were coded by six coders (52%), and 38 stories were coded by five coders (30%). For the more difficult or subjective variables, including story format and broad story topic, we conducted further testing. Ninety stories from 10 outlets within various media sectors were randomly selected for reliability assessment for these variables as well as for the newly added variable for campaign mention. Most of the coders coded all of these stories. Data shows that the percent of agreement for all the variables in the Index was above 80. A second test of intercoder reliability was conducted in April and May of 2007. For this test of intercoder reliability, we divided the variables into two groups and tested those variables separately so as to ensure the accuracy for each variable. Housekeeping Variables The first group of variables we tested for was called the housekeeping variables. These are variables that are necessary for each story, but often involve little to no subjectivity from the coder. For this test, we selected a random sample of 151 stories from each of the five media sectors we cover. Each story was coded by two coders. This represented more than 10% of the number of stories we code in a given week. Of those stories, 32 were print stories (newspaper and online) and 119 were broadcast stories (television and radio). For our housekeeping variables, we achieved the following levels of agreement:
Print (32 cases)
Broadcast (119 cases) Main Variables The second group of variables we tested was referred to as the main variables, and are variables that take more training to comprehend and determine. Having already demonstrated that we had a high level of agreement for all of our housekeeping variables, we then had the coders participate in an additional test to determine the level of agreement for these main variables. We randomly selected 116 stories from both print and broadcast mediums, which represented about 8% of the stories we code in a typical week. The level of agreement for each of our main variables was as follows:
Format: 89% All the percentages of agreement for the above variables were calculated using a software program available online called PRAM.[11] Since the inception of the News Coverage Index in January 2007, as new coders were hired and included in the coding team, they were given extensive training from both the coding administrator and from other experienced coders. New coders were not allowed to participate in the weekly coding for the project until they had demonstrated a level of agreement with experienced coders for all variables at an 80% level or higher. Each coder works between 20 and 37.5 hours a week in our Washington D.C. office and was trained to work on all the print and broadcast mediums included in the sample. The schedule for each coder varies, but since all of the material included in the Index is archived, the actual coding can be performed at any point during the week. To achieve diversity in the coding and ensure statistical reliability, generally no one coder codes more than 50% of a particular media sector within one week. Each coder codes at least three mediums each week. In the case of difficult coding decisions about a particular story, the final decision is made by either the coding administrator or a senior member of the PEJ staff. The physical coding data is entered into a proprietary software program that has been written for this project by Phase II Technology. The software allows coders to enter the data for each variable, and also allows coders to review their work and correct mistakes when needed. The same software package compiles all of the coding data each week and allows us to perform the necessary statistical tests.
Total Media Combined: Creation and WeightingThe basis of measurement used to determine top stories in broadcast and cable is time, and in text-based media, it is words. Thus for cable news, for example, we refer to the percent of total seconds that a certain story received. In other words, of all the seconds analyzed in cable news this week, ground events in Iraq accounted for xx% (or xx seconds out of a total of xxx). The industry term for this is “newshole”—the space given to news content. The main Index considers broadcast and print together, identifying the top stories across all media. To do this, words and seconds are merged together to become total newshole. After considering the various options for merging the two, the most straightforward and sensible method was to first generate the percent of newshole for each specific medium. This way all media are represented in the same measurement—percent. Next, we needed to create a method for merging the various percentages. There were several options. Should we run a simple average of all five? Should we average all print and all broadcast and then average those two? Or, should we apply some kind of weight based on apparent audience? Because each medium measures its audience differently (ratings per month in television, weekly circulation in newspapers, unique visitors in online), any system based on audience figures raises serious issues of discontinuity. Nonetheless, several of our advisors thought some kind of weight should be applied. Various options were considered, including a combination of different metrics, such as audience data alongside supplemental survey data. One consistent measure is that of public opinion surveys. The same question is posed about multiple media. Two such questions are asked regularly by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. One asks about “regular usage” and the other asks where people go for “national and international news.” Before arriving at a method, we tested multiple models: Model 1: compile percentages for big stories for each of the five media sectors (newspapers, online sites, network TV, cable TV and radio), and then average those five lists into one final list. Model 2: Divide the media sectors into two groups, text-based media (newspapers, online sites) and broadcast (network TV, cable TV, and radio). Average the lists of percentages between the two groups to get one final list. Model 3: compile percentages for big stories for each of the five media sectors, and then add the weighted five lists together into one final list. The weights given to each media sector were calculated by averaging the three most recent survey data in terms of where people get news about national and international issues, collected by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press (June 2005, November 2005, and August 2006). First, we take the average response for each media sector across the three time periods. Next, we rebalance the average percents to match the five media sectors in the Index—newspapers, online, network TV, cable TV, and radio—to equal 100%. Thus, the weight for newspapers is 0.28, for online is 0.16, for network TV is 0.18, for cable TV is 0.26, and for radio is 0.12. Model 4: compile percentages for big stories for each of the five media sectors, and then add the weighted five lists together into one final list. The weights assigned to each media sector were generated based on the regular media usage survey data, collected by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press in their Biennial Media Consumption Survey 2006. Thus, the weight for newspaper is 0.307, for online is 0.218, for network TV is 0.165, cable TV is 0.201 and for radio is 0.109. By testing two trial weeks’ data, we found that the lists of top five stories were exactly the same (top stories’ names and their ranks) using all four of these models, although some percentages varied. In the end, the academic and survey analysts on our team felt the best option was model 3. It has the virtue of tracking the media use for national and international news which is what the Index studies. Also, People Press asks this question at least once every six months so we can reflect changes in media use. We adopted this model and plan to update the weights when appropriate.
Updated April 16, 2008[1] Data from 2007 indicate that the three evening networks reach about 26 million viewers and the three morning newscasts average about 12.7 million people daily. Nielsen Media Research, used under license. [2] Data from 2007 indicate that 2.5 million viewers watch cable news during prime time hours and 1.5 million watch during daytime hours. PEJ Analysis of Nielsen Media Research, used under license. [3] For November 2007, the O'Reilly Factor averaged 2.3 million viewers a night while Larry King Live averaged 931,000 viewers. Nielsen Media Research on Media Bistro.com. [4] For 2006, the total weekday newspaper circulation is about 52 million. 2006 Editor and Publisher Yearbook Data. [5] According to the December 2007 survey, 27% of adults go online for news each day. Pew Internet, December 2007 survey. [6] Pew Internet, 2005 survey. [7] Nielsen/NetRatings from September 2006 are available at http://www.cyberjournalist.net/news/003791.php. Nielsen/NetRatings from May 2007 are available at http://www.cyberjournalist.net/news/004247.php. [8] By the spring of 2007, 93% of the population 12 and older listened to radio on a weekly basis. Arbitron ratings, Spring 2007. [9] Arbitron, “Radio Today: How Americans Listen to Radio, 2007 Edition,” April 13, 2007. |
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