A Matter of Life and Death? Examining the Quality of Newspaper Coverage on the Newspaper Crisis

A Matter of Life and Death?Examining the Quality of Newspaper Coverage on the Newspaper “Crisis”
H. Iris Chyi, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
The University of Texas at Austin
Seth C. Lewis, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
University of Minnesota
Nan Zheng
Ph.D. Candidate
The University of Texas at Austin
Incoming Assistant Professor
James Madison University

State of the newspaper 2008-2010
Declines in circulation and advertising revenue
Reduced delivery
Bankruptcy
Layoffs & buyouts
Some went online-only
Some folded

Emotional sentiments in NP coverage
“Extra! Extra! Are Newspapers Dying?”
By Lieberman (2009), USA Today
“Some Senatorial Tears for the Ink-Stained Wretches”
By Milbank (2009), Washington Post
“Paper’s Peril Hits a Nerve”
Pérez-Peña (2009), New York Times

Did journalists over-react to market downturn?
“Publishers and journalists have become their own worst enemy,” because “they are running around arguing the sky is falling. And they're making the situation appear far worse than it is” Picard (2009).

Self-coverage
“The newspaper does not, perhaps it cannot, turn upon itself the factual scrutiny, the critical acumen, the descriptive language, that it regularly devotes to other institutions” (Carey, 1974).
“Journalists have never covered their own industry with the same interest and vigor that they have covered other industries” (Picard, 2009).

Self-coverage
Publisher of the New York Times: “There is nothing more difficult for a news organization than covering itself.”
Self-coverage is more challenging because it often involves navigating conflicts of interest within news organizations (Turow, 1994).

Business reporting
Requires specialized knowledge about the economy and the industry
is more demanding than “writing about a football game, a school board meeting, a robbery, and new music fad, or a political campaign” (Welles, 1991).

This study examined
whether the coverage
was based on media economics data
placed the crisis in the historical/economic context
privileged certain sources
assigned blame for the crisis
used sensational language
generated certain impressions regarding newspapers’ vitality

Method
A content analysis of Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and New York Times articles
From March 1, 2008 to March 1, 2010
Full-text keyword searches through LexisNexis retrieved all articles containing “newspaper” and “circulation”
A total of 144 news articles

Number of stories over time

RQ1: To what extent was the coverage on the newspaper crisis based on media economics data?

RQ2: How much contextual information was provided in such coverage?

RQ3: What types of sources were cited in such coverage?

RQ4: What was presented as the cause(s) of the crisis?

RQ5: How many stories used death imagery?
More than a quarter (27.8%) of the stories used death imagery
e.g., death, perish, die, dying, kill, etc.

RQ 6: Does such coverage give an impression of optimism or pessimism about the state of the newspaper industry?
Pessimistic (83%)
Optimistic (17%)

RQ7: Did different newspapers frame the newspaper crisis differently?
The WSJ and NYT took surprisingly similar approaches when covering their industry’s crisis.

Summary
Short-term > long-term perspective
Emphasis on human drama (personnel issues)
Little historical context, lackinga wider worldview
Sourcing privileges management
Assigns blame to everyone but not newspapers
Generates negative impressions

Implications
Exaggeration of crisis
Closure of the second paper in town is nothing new and has contributed to increased profitability (Picard & Brody, 1997).
Most businesses try to hide failures -- not newspapers.
What does this suggest about coverage of other industries?

Newspapers could do better in covering their own industry, with more context and sobriety.

A Matter of Life and Death? Examining the Quality of Newspaper Coverage on the Newspaper Crisis

by Iris Chyi

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