The Research Report RSS
Thu, 21 Aug 2008
Too Good to Be True?
New research about what viewers want from television news
By Posted at 09:00 AM
The decade-long collaboration between the Project for Excellence in Journalism and several academics led by Wellesley College political scientist Marion Just concludes that the more local TV invests in quality reporting, the bigger its audience tends to be. Crime news and celebrity news, contrary to all popular and professional wisdom, they say, aren’t as appealing to TV viewers.
... Read MoreFri, 2 May 2008
Getting Bit
When sound bites get snack-sized
By Posted at 09:00 AM
Anyone who buys the beltway complaint that television news reporting shrivels both politics and public discourse has two new reasons to worry: sound bites are getting shorter and video reels are getting longer. That means less talk of policy solutions and more rolling shots of diplomatic handshakes, tarmac striding, and presidential cowboys whacking underbrush on Texas ranches. In the Journal... Read More
Thu, 24 Apr 2008
One of the Guys
It's still rare for a reporter to be both fierce and female
By Posted at 02:00 PM
Veteran Washington post media critic Howard Kurtz is known for hurling slings and arrows at members of his own profession. So his recent ode to ABC correspondent Martha Raddatz was unusual—up to a point. For all his praise of Raddatz for “putting herself in the thick of things,” Kurtz apparently could not sidestep the old gender trap. He finds... Read More
Thu, 7 Feb 2008
Leaps and Bounds
Paranoia: as American as your (possibly poisoned) apple pie
By Posted at 09:00 AM
Perhaps not since colonial Salem have fears of conspiracy been so pervasive. And though old women are no longer persecuted for dancing with the devil (we’re fairly sure), a new study shows that paranoid tendencies in American thinking are still strong. Only instead of wayward outsiders, would-be conspirators are seen at the heart of the establishment, engaged in covert... Read More
Fri, 28 Dec 2007
Who Hates the Press?
From Watergate to the present, confidence in the media has been spiraling down
By Posted at 09:00 AM
A new study traces more than thirty years of changing public attitudes toward the news media, and unhappily finds that to know journalism is to disdain it. Timothy E. Cook and Paul Gronke, in the July edition of Political Communication, find that “for the heaviest consumers of the news (the more educated, the better-off, older respondents),…familiarity with the news... Read More
Thu, 4 Oct 2007
What Journalism Can't Do
In covering catastrophe, how can journalism make a difference?
By Posted at 09:00 AM
Suppose you volunteer to participate in a psychological experiment. You answer a set of questions and receive a small cash payment in return. As you are leaving the lab, you are handed an envelope from Save the Children and a photo of a starving seven-year-old girl, Rokia, and asked if you would like to donate some or all of... Read More
Tue, 7 Aug 2007
The Good-Citizen Quiz
What Americans know
By Posted at 08:30 AM Comments (1)
At least three misjudgments are common around American Independence Day: thinking one’s feet are faster than the fuse on a bottle rocket, believing there’s always room for one more “freedom dog,” and hailing the colonial past as a civic golden age. We conjure images of illustrious ancestors holding forth in packed town halls, declaring independence, and debating the Constitution. Citizens... Read More
Tue, 26 Jun 2007
When Does the White House Watchdog Bark?
More often than you think
By Posted at 08:30 PM
The veteran UPI correspondent Helen Thomas, recently dislodged from the front row of the remodeled press briefing room, has seen a lot in her forty-six years covering the White House. The octogenarian’s tenure has spanned nine presidents and two generations of journalists. But in some recent books, the famously combative Thomas claims that her colleagues’ willingness to ask tough... Read More
Thu, 1 Mar 2007
A Long View of Layoffs
A reason to worry less about the future of the newspaper industry
By Posted at 08:30 AM
The present wave of cost- cutting, job-eliminating, and bureau-closing is just one reason journalism is widely believed to be an industry in crisis. But a pair of university studies concerning the profession’s past and future may slightly temper fears of its imminent demise.
At a glance, the news is indeed bad. A systematic, national survey of journalists, conducted... Read More
Mon, 1 Jan 2007
The Limits of Live
The Research Report
By Posted at 08:30 AM
Two recent studies, one American and one British, indict TV news for its growing emphasis on live, unscripted reporting. Fast-breaking, popular, with a contemporary air of informality, such reporting is also measurably thinner, more opinionated, and less densely sourced than other news forms. Typically consisting of anchors (or “presenters” in British parlance) interviewing or chatting with reporters in the... Read More
