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"Really Simple Syndication” isn’t that simple...

If you think RSS feeds are giving you the same stories that you can find on a news site, think again.

International News and Problems with the News Media’s RSS Feeds

Main Results

Study Conclusions

Understanding Results

What is RSS?

Study Methodology

Authors

Reliability: Do RSS search results match website's search results?

Inclusiveness: Does RSS offer non-staff & archived stories (if also come through website search)?

Key info: Does RSS give headline/summary, date, time, reporter?

Timeliness: Are RSS stories as timely as those from website search?

	Overall Score	Reliability	Inclusiveness	Key Info	Timeliness
1. Los Angeles Times	3.25

THE HEADLINES: Three RSS feeds were searched through the Yahoo! Pipes software: World, Editorial and Video. On average, the three RSS feeds returned just under 50 percent of “today’s” stories that appeared on the Los Angeles Times website search for the same keyword. The RSS feeds usually contained the biggest stories of the day, but let smaller ones slip through the cracks.
Other Issues:
	There were regularly stories on the website from the AP, Reuters and CNN; certain of the CNN stories came through on the RSS feeds, but the wire stories did not.
	The stories that came up through the RSS feeds appeared to be very timely relative to the website.
	There was no pattern in the stories that were not included in the feeds.
	The RSS feeds were consistent in what they pulled from the website. When 10-12 consecutive searches were run through the feeds, the results remained the same.
	Search results for the RSS feeds gave the articles’ headlines/summaries and sometimes included other information such as the date, who reported the story (if it was a story from a non-LA Times staff writer), and the place from which the story was reported. The website searches returned the stories’ headlines/summaries, date and byline.
	Multimedia content came through both the website and the feeds on occasion.
(Leah Cowdrey and Nick Sohr)

About the Los Angeles Times

Circulation/Audience

851,832 daily 1,231,318 Sunday as of March 2006

Online Access

Some stories require registration, but registration is free

Parent Company

Tribune Publishing Company http://www.tribune.com/

Other Relevant Ownership and Interests

-Chicago Tribune http://www.chicagotribune.com/
-Newsday http://www.newsday.com/
-Baltimore Sun http://www.baltimoresun.com/
-South Florida Sun-Sentinel http://www.sun-sentinel.com/
-Orlando Sentinel http://www.orlandosentinel.com/
-Hartford Courant http://www.courant.com/
-23 TV stations http://www.tribune.com/about/index.html
-The Chicago Cubs http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=chc

Parent Company Revenue

$5.52 Billion for 2006

A center of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism and the School of Public Policy. Copyright © 2006 International Center for Media and the Public Agenda. 1117 Journalism Building, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742