Canada in the American Press and the US in The

Canada in the American Press and the U.S.in the Canadian press: A Status Report

By Vernone M. Sparkes S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications Syracuse University, Syracuse, N . Y.

The flow (or lack thereof) of communications between Canada and the United States has not been subject to a great deal of systematic analysis. This is not to say there has been little attention, for Canadians in particular bemoan American ignorance of their country. Indeed, some Canadians seem to have made a hobby of documenting misrepresentation or denegration of things Canadian by the American press and entertainment industry. Witness Pierre Berton's book Hollywood's Canada,l and another article in The Canadian wherein we find such embarrassina accounts as that of a Washington bus driver who observed, "Canada? I don't know DO I h-irl nothing about it. This bus goes to Farrague Square." Then A Prize? there is the Albuquerque Liquor store clerk who ventured, "Canada; that's up north near New York state, isn't it? Only its not a state, its a whole country. Is that right? Do I win a prize?'I2

One Canadian answer to this perceived deficiency of U.S. coverage of Canada was the publication and free distribution in the United States of an information service called Canadian Press Comments. The purpose of this service was to provide Americans in positions of professional responsibility a range of comment from Canadian newspapers on selected Canadian issues.

In early 1979, however, the Canadian government an- nounced it was ending publication of Canadian Press Com- ments, with justification being that U .S. news coverage of Canada had sufficiently increased recently to make the service no longer necessary. The announcement offered no figures or data to back up the conclusion.

18 CANADIAN JOIIR VAL 5F L'OMMUNICATION For that matter, however, had the Canadian government offered justification for its suspension of Press Comments, we should have been somewhat dubious. For it is not at all clear what would be proper criteria for judging sufficiently in international news flow. Sparkes and Robinson worked from suggestions made by Karl Rosengren and compared U.S.- Canadian news exchange with trade figures and comparative Gross National ~roduct.~On the basis of these particular criteria, the exchange of news between the two countries was not judged to be terribly out of line. The adequacy of such criteria, though, has yet to be fully evaluated.

Apart from questions of sufficiency, there still remains Data By the judgement by the Canadian government that American Syracuse news coverage of Canada has in fact increased in the past Centre couple of years. That particular conclusion can be examined, at least as far as newspapers are involved, by reference to data which has been collected over the past five years by the Communications Research Center at Syracuse University. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to report on our findings from a content analysis of U .S. and Canadian newspapers in 1975, 1977, and 1979, with specific attention to changes in both the amount and character of coverage each country has given the other.

Perhaps the first syst tic study of news flow between Canada and the United States was that done by Jim Hart in 1963.~ Working from a rather limited base of four American and four Canadian dailies, Hart documented what casual observation had always suggested. The- U .S. papers seemed to pay scant attention to Canada, while Canadian papers were full of American news. Working from a considerably broader base of Canadian and U.S. papers in 1975, Sparkes recon- firmed Hart's findings.

Although comparisons between the Hart and Sparkes data are difficult, owing to the difference between the two samples, it might be noted that Sparkes found lower figures for each country's coverage of the other (column inches as percent of total foreign news inches) and a shift in the subject distribution of stories. Unchanged was the dominant role of AP and CP in the exchange.

The recently published study by David Thompson con- tains no surprises to the informed observer of Canadian-U.S. news flow either.6 Using the entire 1975 clipping file for John Merrill's list of nine elite U.S. newspapers, Thompson

CANADIAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION 19 found poor coverage of Canada in the newspapers studied, a deficiency which he largely blames on the wire services. While again different methodology makes exact comparison of findings difficult, results from Sparkes' 1975 sample line up with results from Thompson's full year. From the Sparkes data we would project an average of 164 Canadian stories per year in American papers. Thompson's data averages out to about 154 stories per year. (During presentation of results below, other comparisons with the Thompson findings will be investigated. )

Methodological Considerations :

The three samples here reported were drawn from the first quarters of 1975, 1977 and 1979. For 1975, a composite week was rdndomly selected providing one Sunday randomly drawn from all Sundays in the quarter, etc. Similar composite weeks for 1977 and 1979 were supplemented by an additional three week-days, randomly drawn from all week days of the quarter. This change was made both to streng- then the sample, and to soften the possible effect of missing wee k-end papers.

An additional change was made in the 1979 sample. One difficulty in comparing similar samples of Canadian and American papers is that there is commonly no Canadian Sunday paper. The big week-end Canadian paper is on Saturday. Obviously the Canadian Saturday paper is not the equivalent Saturday vs. of the adjacent Sunday paper in the U.S. For full equival- Sunday papers ency, it was decided to use a fully complimentary period for each country, using an adjacent Saturday, Sunday (U.S. only), and Monday.

In spite of these adjustments in the sampling method, it was still considered that the samples were comparable for purposes of evaluating quantitative and qualitative changes in U.S. coverage of Canada (and simultaneously Canadian coverage of the U.S.).

All foreign news stories were coded for column inches, placement in the paper, country, subject, source, and type. All but the last of these coding categories are quite straight- forward. Under "type" coders had to exercise judgement as to whether the story was most properly classified as:

20 CANADIAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION Hard news (news of the day, factual report)

Continuous (reporting over more than one day, following development)

Background (going beyond the immediate event to con- textual or historical information)

Non-Current feature (in particular travel items or cul- tural reports)

Editorial/Opinion (clearly labelled such on the editorial page. Syndicated columns included)

Where stories seemed to fit more than one category, they were scored according to what seemed to be the most dominant trait.

Results:

Results In general, return on the samples was good. Results Were Good are listed in the brief table below.

Sample Return Rates 8 For U .S. papers For Canadian papers 1975 84.2 per cent 90.2 per cent 1977 90.8 per cent 88.9 per cent 1979 96.1 per cent 93.8 per cent

The only problem with the adjusted samples represented in the above return rates lies with the 1979 Canadian sample. Both 1975 and 1977 used an eleven paper Canadian group, while the 1979 sample involved only eight papers. At the time of the 1979 sample both the Vancouver Sun and Montreal Star were on strike, and the Edmonton Journal sample was lost due to a misunderstanding.

Table 2 presents the basic results of the study. Here it can be seen that Canadian coverage of the United States has gradually decreased over the past six years, w.hile American coverage of Canada has even more gradually increased. The

CANADIAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION 21 data illustrates the importance of utilizing column inches rather than story count when it comes to foreign news. The figures for average inches per newspaper issue show an increase of over 100% in U.S. Canadian coverage. The number of stories, however, does not increase that much. The key is found in the average story length figures, where we see that length of stories about Canada in the U .S. press increased both from 1975 to 1977 and from 1977 to 1979. It is interesting to note that on the Canadian side, inches, number and length all show notable decreases, but again the inch figure is the most telling.

We see too from these figures that the portion of the Foreign 'News foreign news hole each country devotes to the other has been Hole' Up in changing. Changes in the I1 .S. figures are somewhat masked U.S. by the large general upswing of foreign news coverage in 1979 (thus reducing the actual percentage constituted by Canad~annews). The figures generally shggest that 1977 was somewhat of a "dead" year, while 1979 was an active one. Irr fact several major international developments were reported in our. sample papers for 1979, including the Iranian pglrtical crisis, developments in China-U .S. relations and Chrna- Vretnam relations, Mid-East treaty, Pope John's visit to Mexico, and the civil war in Uganda. (Subsequent sampies will tell us how much of the 1979 increase was due to these international developments alone, and how much was a basic increase in foreign news hole. 1

It should be noted at this point that the figures here ;resented are summary or average figures across all U.S. papers (that is 11 issues of 20 papers) and across all Cana- dian papers. The one difficulty of this approach is that the papers are not fully comparable in social importance. The N.Y. Times, for example, reaches more people, and possible more important people, than say the Buffalo Daily News. Accordingly, a weighting by circulation would be a refinement over present methods. For cresent purposes, however, it was judged the balance bas sufficient.

A different kind of problem is encoclntered wrth the data presented in Table 3. Here the amount of Canadian news in a selection of U .S. papers IS presented. A rather inconsrs- tent pattern is immediately evident, and we should be cau- tious in any interpretation. The problem Ires in the fact that not every newspaper will choose to publish the same foreign news story on the same day. This fdct might explain, for example, the rather low showing of the Wash~r~~jton-Post.

2% CANADIAN JO!JRNA L OF CO?IMUNICA TIn%' David Thompson found a much more respectable Canadian coverage when he examined the entire year for 1975 than found in this sample (projected: 73 stories per year; actually found : 131 stories).

Even with this qualification, however, some patterns are notable in Table 3. In descending order, the biggest con- sistent carriage of Canadian news is by Buffalo, Miami, and San Francisco. Notably farther down the list are the N.Y. Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Washington Post. Boston and Seattle are probably where they should be, with Houston and Los ~n~elessomewhat of a surprise.

Similar cautions are necessary in any interpretation of the Subject profile data in Table 4. For one thing, the figures are based on story count, and might not parallel inch count. To check one possible point of bias, the contribution of travel stories to the total U.S. coverage of Canada was calculated. The resulting figure of 14.5 per cent for inches is quite different than the figures derived from a story count. Mean story size for the other topics proved to be similar, however, and so comparative analysis is without serious bias.

Perhaps most notable is the increasing attention in Canadian papers to gover and political matters in the United States, while Ameri pers pay very little attention to Canadian political matters. The exception is in 1977, Canadian which would correspond with increased separatist activity in Business High Quebec. Canadian economic and business matters, on the other hand, are of relatively high interest to American papers, and in fact the Business section of most papers proved to contain considerable Canadian news.

It can be suggested that the Canadian papers are more "serious" in their coverage of the U .S. than are U .S. papers in their coverage of Canada. U .S. coverage of Canada shows a wider distribution of subject matter. Attention to violence and corruption (crime) is about the same for both presses. In line with David Thompson's findings, there is little American attention to bilateral issues. But for that matter, there isn't much Canadian attention either.

A coding category used with the 1977 and 1979 samples was that of Type (defined above). Table 5 shows the distribution of these types, with Hard News by far and away the most dominant. Neither country appears to provide a great

L'AhlALiI/ 'i7,?.V.4 L C)F COMMUNICATION 23 deal of "in depth" reporting on the other. In Table 6 is found some variation of story type when controlling for subject category. Here only the three "serious" topics are examined (Business, Politics, and Social Issues). In the Canadian papers, American social problems receive more in depth coverage than do politics or economics. In the U.S. papers, it is Canadian politics which receives the heavier proportion of in depth reporting, (what there is of it). Still, for all subject categories, the heaviest type of story is the hard news variety.

As noted previously, both Hart and Sparkes, and later Dominant Rrle Thompson, found a dominant role by AP and CP in the flow of CP - AP zC ?ZWS between Canada and the U.S. The two agencies have a cooperative agreement whereby AP gets its Canadian news from CP, and CP gets its American news from AP. In Tables 7 and 8 we see that there have been some changes between 1975 and 1979. The role of the AP/CP connection is still strong in U.S. papers, but reduced considerably. The slack is made up by an increased use of "staff ." Lack of precision in newspaper source attribution makes it difficult to have total confidence in this data, and it is probably safe to say that "staff1I attribution most often does not mean a correspon- dent in Canada. More often than not, stories with no other source attribution have been prepared from other sources. Nevertheless, the direct AP/CP pipeline appears to play a smaller role.

A similar drop in AP/CP sourced news is found in Cana- dian papers. Here, however, the combined services still account for almost half of the American news in Canadian papers. Adding AP, UPI, and Reuter, and N.Y. Times, almost 70 per cent of news that Canadians receive about the U .S. through our sample papers originates with sources which are not particularly writing for the Canadian audience.

Discussion :

What, then, of the Canadian government's decision to drop the Canadian Press Comments service? The present data indicate that there has indeed been an increase in the amount of Canadian news carried in the American press. How signifi- cant this increase might be, in terms of facilitating a more informed public opinion, etc. remains a matter of judgement, and hopefully, future research. Improvement there has been, however. The relationship of this increase in Canadian

24 CANADIAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION coverage to any general increase in foreign news coverage remains to be established.

The high amount of Canadian news in the Miami Herald might surprise some not familiar with Canadian tourism habits. During the time of our sample (Winter) the population of southern Florida has a goodly number of Canadians. The Miami Herald is supplying a home service to visitors as much as enlightenment for the permanent population regarding things Canadian, then. One of the indications of this difference is found in the breakdown of Subjects in the Miami coverage, where it is found that political and government stories dominate (78 per cent) over the category most popular in the rest of the American papers, economics.

The diminished role of CP/AP in U.S. coverage of Canada is a welcome development if it holds. UP1 recently has expanded and consolidated its activities in Canada, which should improve its Canadian coverage. The important point, , however, is that CP reports on Canada, for Canadians, and the resultant materials, selection of stories, etc. are not necessarily the ones which will best serve the American reader. It is for this reason that the continued heavy reliance of Canadian papers on AP (throudh CP) might be con- AP Reliance sidered problematic. the coverage that Canadian Problematic newspapers give to the,Or. Uni # d States, a high percentage of that coverage still originates with American reporters, writing for American readers.

There remains, still, the question of "how much is enough." The only meaningful answer must come from the public. Here Agenda Setting and Image studies, comparing communities served by newspapers with different Canadian coverage patterns, might begin to suggest meaningful para- meters. Further, Readership studies can help us understand how to best service the public with foreign news coverage, whether from Canada or Cameroon. For example, a recent study by Sparkes and Winter found that emphasis on conflict in foreign stories does not enhance reader interest, while emphasis on relevance or affinity does.7 Such findings point immediately to the source problem discussed above. It cer- tainly cannot be expected that CP originated Canadian news, and AP originated United States news is going to provide this emphasis for audiences in other countries.

CANADIAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION 25 Footnotes

1. Pierre Berton, Hollywood's Canada: The Americanization of Our National Image, (Toronto: Canadian Magazine Reader's Service, 1975). 2. Walter Stewart, "0-oh Say, What They See," The Canadian, 1976. 3. Gertrude Robinson and Vernone Sparkes, "International News in the Canadian and American Press," Gazette, Vol. XXIII, No. 4, 1976. 4. Jim A. Hart, "The Flow of News Between the United States and Canada," Journalism Quarterly, 40: 70-71 (Winter 1963). 5. Vernone M. Sparkes, "The Flow of News Between Canada and the United States," Journalism Quarterly, 55: 260-268 (Summer 1978). 6. David Thompson, "The Coverage of Canada In the U.S. News Media," Carleton Journalism Review, Summer 1978. 7. Vernone Sparkes and James Winter, "Public Interest in Foreign News," Communications Research Center, Syracuse University, Syracuse, N.Y., 1979.

TABLE 1

Newspaper Used

1. Canadian 2. United States

Calgary Maid Atlanta Cbnstitution Eidtmonton Journal Boston Globe Halifax Phil Star Buffalo Daily News Pbntreal Star Chicago Tribune Ottawa Journal Cincinnati Post Regina Ieader-Pos t Cleveland Plain Dealer Saint John' s Evening Tklegram Dallas Times-Herald Toronto Star Denver Post Taronto Globe and Phil DesPbines FEqister Vancmver Sun Cetroit Fkee Press Winnipeg Free Press Houston Chronicle Los Angeles Times Miami Herald Milwaukee Journal Minneapolis Star New York Tims Phi ladelphia Bulletin San Francisco Chronicle Seattle Post-Intelligencer St. Lmis Post-Dispatch Washington Post

26 CANADIAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION

Table 3

Volume of Canadian News in Selected U.S. Papers

Average Inches Percent of per Issue - Foreign News

Boston

Buffalo

Chicago

Cleveland

Detroit

Houston

Los Angeles

Miami

N.Y. Times

San Francisco

Seattle

Washington

* With large travel stories removed

28 CANADIAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION Table 4

Subject Profile of Canada-U.S. News Flow (Percent of Stories)

U.S. in Canada Canadian in U.S. Press Press

Business/ Economics Politics/ Gov't. Social Issues Human Interest Corruption/ Violence Ed./Sc./ Hea 1th Sports Disaster/ Accident War/Civil Disorder Defense Culture/ Religion Judicial Foreign Rel, Can.1U.S. Relations Travel Issues

;k not available 9:" 9:" equals 14.5% in column inches

CANADIAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION 29 Table 5

Types of Stories in U. S. -Canadian News Flaw

U.S. News In Canadian News Canadian Papers In U. S. Papers

Hard News 77.2% (967)* Cbntinuing Ikvelopnent 6.9% (86) Background 6.7% (84) Non-olrrent Feature 6.2% (78) Editorial 3.0% (37)

* n of stories

Table 6

Distribution of Subject by 'Qpe of Story (selected)

Developnent and Hard News Background Editorial Other

1 U.S. News In Canadian Papers

Business/ Ekon . Gov't/ Politics Social Issues

2. Canadian News In U.S. Papers

Business/ Eon. mv ' t/ Politics ScciCl1Issues

30 CANADIAN JOIIRNAL OF COMMUNICATION Table 7

Sources of Canadian News in U.S. Press (1975 and 1979)

AP/B U.P.I. REUTER N.Y. TIMES PAPER S'IIAFF Cm-ER

TOTAL 100% 100%

Table 8

d Sources of U.S. News In ian Papers

*/m 1:. P. I. mm N. Y. TIMES sm PAPER STAFF mHER

CANADIAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION 31