Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (75Th, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, August 5-8, 1992). Part XIV: Newspapers
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DOCUMENT RESUME ED 349 621 CS 507 968 TITLE Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (75th, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, August 5-8, 1992). Part XIV: Newspapers. INSTITUTION Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. PUB DATE Aug 92 NOTE 300p.; For other sections of these proceedings, see CS 507 955-970. For 1991 Proceedings, see ED 340 045. PUB TYPE Collected Works Conference Proceedings (021) EDRS PRICE MFO1 /PC12 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Editorials; Foreign Countries; Headlines; Homosexuality; *Journalism; Journalism History; *Mass Media Effects; *Mass Media Role; Media Research; *Newspapers; *News Writing; Photojournalism; Political Influences; Press Opinion; Public Opinion; Sex Differences IDENTIFIERS Journalism Research; *Media Coverage; Media History ABSTRACT The Newspapers section of the proceedings contains the following 11 papers: "News Items in the 'Shrinking Foreign Newshole'l! The Case of the New York Times" (Daniel Riffe and others); "Newspaper Coverage of Gays and Lesbians: Editors' Views of Its Longterm Effects" (Marilyn Greenwald and Joseph Bernt); "Effects of Staff Gender on Newspaper Content" (Terri Catlett); "Constructing Gay Death in the Newspaper: Three Stories of Men with AIDS" (Roger Simpson); "'Opening the Pandora's Box': Were American Media Guilty of Negligence in Disclosing Tiananmen Protestors' Identities?" (Lubo Li); "Coverage of Persons with Disabilities in Prestige and High Circulation Dailies" (John S. Clogston); "Editorial Treatment of U.S. Foreign Policy in the New York Times: The Case of Pakistan (1980-90)" (Mughees-uddin); "Tolerance of Senior Daily Newspaper Editors for Photographs of People with AIDS and Gays and Lesbians" (Joseph P. Bernt and Marilyn S. Greenwald); "Outside the Frame: Newspaper Coverage of the Sugar Ray Leonard Wife Abuse Story" (Michael A. Messner and William S. Solomon); "The International Flow of News in Major U.S. Newspapers: The 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre" (Kangcong Zhang and Guy E. Lometti); and "Newspaper Ties, Community Ties and the Evaluation of a Local Community" (Judith M. Buddenbaum). (HB) ********************************************************************** IeproaucLinns supplies ny nONS are Lne best tnat can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR EDUCATION IN JOURNALISM AND MASS COMMUNICATION (75th, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, August 5-8, 1992). Part X1V: Newspapers. "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCETHIS U.S. DEPARTMENT OfEDUCATION MATERIAL HAS BEENGRANTED BY Office of Educational Research and improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 0 4C4d /thisdocument has been reproduced as received from the person or organization Originating it C Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction Quality RESOURCES Points of mrtv or opinions Ste tedm this docu- TO THE EDUCATIONAL ment do not necessarily represent official INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC).- OERI position or policy BEST COPY MILAILE 2 INTERNATIONAL DIVISION News Items in the "Shrinking Foreign Newshole": The Case of the New York Times Daniel Riffe Northern Illinois University DeKaib, IL 60115 (815) 753-7007 Charles F. Aust Ted C. Jones Barbara Shoemake University of Alabama Shyam S. Sundar Stanford University 3 News Items in the "Shrinking Foreign Newshole": The Case of the New York Times 1 Observers often lament the "eclipse of the overseas correspondent,""a van- 2 3 ishing species." They worry over "the plight of foreign news," itself "an endan- 4 cered species" which "continues to decline at an alarming rate." The implication 5 is that a smaller "window on the world" in American newspapers is dangerous. One critic charged the newspaper industry with "contributing to the rising level of 6 ignorance about the world that scares American educators and civic leaders." Empirical evidence that the foreign newshole is indeed shrinking consists primarily of isolated content analyses. But interpolating "trends" from widely separate data points and disparate sampling and measurement techniques is risky. Some studies examine percentage of space devoted to international news (i.e., international news space divided by total non-advertising space). While handy, such a gross approach has limitations, emphasizing sheer volume of coverage rather than what. is covered or ignored, and how. (One optimist has suggested that expanded page counts in recent years--for more features, local and business news--could make the proportion of international news seem less, even if actual number of stories 7 remained constant. That optimism, however, seems unwarranted in the face of the linage and revenue problems that economic recession has created for newspapers.) A complementary approach to the "shrinking newshole" might look at its effect on events, topics or countries covered, by counting items, not inches. Given the role of newspapers as windows on the world, this approach seems equally valuable. The present case study explores foreign news item count as a means of exam- ining the New York Times' coverage of international news, sampling across 22 years (1969-1990). The longitudinal design minimizes the distortion that historical events (e.g., the Iranian hostage crisis) might cause if smaller time periods (a week, several months, or one or two years) are examined. Evidence of the Shrinking Foreign Newshole 8 In 1953, the International Press Institute reported that foreign news was on 9 average 8% of total newshole in American newspapers. In 1977 Gerbner and Marvanyi estimated foreign news content of nine American dailies to be 11.1% during the week 10 of May 24, 1970. In a 1973 ANPA report, Bogart, Orenstein, Tolley and Lehman examined only news items over five inches long, and found an average of 10.2% of 11 newshole space was international news. Later NAB studies pegged foreign news at 12 6.3% in 1977 and 6% in 1982. Markel and March in 1976 reported that 20 of the largest newspapers allotted 10% of news space to foreign news over a two -year study 13 period. Most recently, Emery found 2.6% of non-ad space allocated to inter- national news in 10 major newspapers during the November 1987-January 1988 period. Why the Shrinking Newshole? The cost of foreign reporting is often blamed for the decline in foreign coverage. As Kaplan concluded, "(I)t is far easier and, above all, cheaper to rip the continuously moving stories from the wire service machines adorning most news- rooms than to employ, train and dispatch qualified journalists possessing the 14 necessary specialized backgrounds to staff foreign bureaus." Foreign correspon- 15 dents can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. For years the number of corres- 16 pondents declined, but Kliesch's 1990 census reports a "sharp reversal" of that trend. Some chains, which may control as many as 100-150 member papers' access to 17 international news, do not maintain overseas bureaus. Volume of coverage is also impacted because the correspondents who are overseas often cover large areas (as 18 many as 15 countries). Increased restrictions on correspondent access in parts of the world might have an effect on the volume of news. Hostile environments or governments pose risks that have included harassment, kidnapping, imprisonment, expulsion andeven 2 19 murder. Studies have explored the impact of such constraints on correspondents' 20 reporting (e.g., through "news borrowing," or "listening post" reporting). Others would argue, however, that the real culprits behind reduced foreign coverage are the changing role of newspapers and preferences of readers. "Newspa- pers have been supplanted by television as the prime source of news for many Americans--CNN brings world events into American living rooms nearly as they hap- 21 pen." As a result, newspapers--particularly corporate-owned ones--have changed. "The response has been to cut costs, which means foreign news coverage, and to search frantically for ways to increase circulation, which means relying on news 22 formulas that stress the-world-doesn't-matter-to-us-parochialism." Readership surveys show foreign news rates particularly low in the 25-30 age group that "the 23 industry is trying hardest to woo." Professionals sense this reader parochialism. Interviewing correspondents, Emery found "great concern about these newsroom decisions and provincialism they shared the view that they were writing for a lazy audience, where ignorance 24 about geography and history allowed the U.S. government to frame news agendas." But nearly 25 years ago, Time's Thomas Griffith challenged the accuracy of such images of readers: "Unfortunately, the premature boredom of American newspaper editors is most acute in the area of foreign news. They assume that Americans are 25 weary of unsolvable problems in unpronounceable places." Indeed, a 1978 Harris survey found that while 41% of the public surveyed expressed great interest in foreign news, only 5% of the polled reporters, editors and news directors believed 26 consumers had such interest. In 1990, surveys from 20 markets around the country 27 found 45% of those surveyed indicated interest in international news. Research Objectives This case study examined the New York Times over a 22-year period (1969-1990), 3 6 using representative samples of dates from each year. But if our initial focus was on sheer quantity of coverage, we also assessed changes in the quality of coverage. For example,