The Internet and News: Changes in Content on Newspaper Websites (original) (raw)

Abstract

Journalists justify their professional practice as a service that informs the citizenry necessary for democracy, but trends over the last century, since the rise of professional aspirations among journalists, have involved a steady move away from textual practices of current event coverage centered on citizens and nearby places and toward journalists' own opinions of more distant issues. But the rise of the internet, in direct competition with print news, has accompanied several shifts in the news journalists produce. A content analysis for three mainstream U.S. newspaper internet sites in 2005 continues a project that has gathered measurements for the same newspapers since the 1890s and replicates a 2001 study, when most U.S. papers had established a presence online. On one hand, politics, as a core topic in public spirited journalism, has continued the older trends for the who, what, when, and where in story content: toward relatively long, analytical stories with explanations from officials and groups and references to other time periods and more distant places. On the other hand, accident stories typify the new, emergent news: short, less analytical, event-centered coverage linked to individuals, other current happenings, and an especially local focus. On their web editions, the larger, wealthier news organization tended toward the older news, but the smaller or less profitable organizations moved toward the new kind of news. The focus on current events and local politics may be salutary for the informed citizenry, but the loss of context for events makes it unclear whether the internet is an entirely positive news outlet. (255 words)

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