Filling the Void

From Digital Culture & Society

Boehmer, J., Carpenter, S., & Fico, F. (2017). Filling the Void. Digital Journalism, 6(3), 369–388. https://resolver-scholarsportal-info.proxy.library.brocku.ca/resolve/21670811/v06i0003/369_ftv.xml

https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2017.1297683

Context

This article describes the frequency in which government conflict appeared in local news articles, and compares the differences in non-profit news organizations and for-profit news organizations. This article also attempts to describe if non-profit news organizations can "fill the void" that other news organizations fail to achieve. It attempts to show the factors that cause for-profit news organizations to not show the conflicts as frequently. The study revealed that non-profit news organizations are more likely to cover issues relating to political and governmental issues. The study also showed that journalists who worked for non-profit organizations were more likely to contribute more articles when compared to for-profit news organizations. This is important as it contributes to the frequency in which readers receive news, and shows that non-profit organizations tend to provide more news relating to important issues.

Overview

This study was conducted in 2018, and uses a content analysis of news stories published online by five non-profit news sites and five for-profit news sites. The study aimed to compare the differences in news reporting between the two types of news sites. This study also compared the differences of journalists frequency in news reporting, their salaries and its effects on news reporting, as well as the frequency in which government issues and conflicts were reported between the two types of news sites. In conducting the study, it was ensured that the news sites were covering the same geographical location in order to ensure a valid sample. The study was conducted using over 2275 articles in total. Crosscut (Seattle, WA), MinnPost (Minneapolis, MN), Voice of San Diego (San Diego, CA), New Haven Independent (New Haven, CT), and Texas Tribune (Austin, TX) were chosen as the non-profit sites, meanwhile Times (Seattle, WA), Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN), UT San Diego (San Diego, CA), Register (New Haven, CT), and American Statesman (Austin, TX) were chosen as the for-profit sites in this study.

Strengths and Weaknesses The strengths of this study are that it used a wide variety of articles for a large representative sample, and the considerations of numerous factors such as salary, motive, etc. when comparing article frequency and the types of articles that were written. A weakness of this study is the small amount of news sites that were used in this study. The main point of this study was to evaluate the frequency of government conflict being covered in the news; however, this study may have benefited by evaluating the main topics that were being represented in the news as well. Another strength of this article is that it shows that more staff working on a news organization -- typically at for-profit organizations -- tended to correlate with higher individual workloads, as opposed to what is usually expected with more staff members. Additionally, a weakness of this article is that it was posted in 2018 which makes it possible that some information in it may be out of date.

Assessment

Generally, I believe this is a strong and interesting study as it shows the differences in non-profit and for-profit news organizations when it comes to the frequency of articles that cover government conflict. Anyone who may be in a remote or rural community may benefit from this article as it will allow them to better understand what types of news organizations may give them more variety of information and allow them to stay up-to-date with recent government events, as opposed to certain other news organizations or news conglomerates that share only specific news pieces. This is a strong article that anyone can read and it makes a good case over the effects of what to consider when reading news articles from different organizations and how they may cover certain topics, as well as factors that affect the coverage. Overall, this article makes a strong case for non-profit journalism and its benefits over for-profit journalism with regard to government conflict coverage.

- Tyler Swartz - Ts18fq 10:28, 6 December 2023 (EST)