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A majority of the public believes the media can’t be trusted.

Which global news sites are most transparent about their operations? Not necessarily the ones you would think….

Openness & Accountability: A Study of Transparency in Global Media Outlets

Main Results

Study Conclusions

Understanding Results

Why Transparency?

Study Methodology

Authors

The study used five categories to evaluate the news outlets:

Corrections: Willingness to openly correct mistakes.

Ownership: Openness about corporate ownership.

Staff Policies: Openness about conflicts of interest.

Reporting Policies: Openness about editorial guidelines.

Interactivity: Openness to reader comments and criticism.

	Excellent
	Very Good
	Average
	Poor
	Not Acceptable

	Overall Score	Corrections	Ownership	Staff Policies	Reporting Policies	Interactivity
14. ITN	0.8

Ranking: Not Acceptable (tied with Al Jazeera English).
Details of Findings:
	There is no corrections page and even doing a search on the web site does not bring up corrections.
	The owner information can be found easily. It is listed somewhere on the home page (top or bottom), within 1-2 clicks. Information about the owner is also linked to easily, within 1-2 clicks.
	No code of ethics or information on conflicts of interest. There is no information provided through the web site or outside web sites. There is a vague statement about style of reporting.
	No News Values anywhere on the web site or on the Google search were available. Even prolonged searches on search engines like Google returned no relevant results and instead returned stories with the phrase “News Values” in them instead of actual News Values.
	The outlet did not have an ombudsman. There is no link for letters to the editor. The outlet does not list any specific email addresses of reporters. No blogs were available on the Web site. No live chats were available. No information about the ability comment on the story was available.
(Mike Wish & Graham Fitts)

About ITN

Circulation/Audience

Not Available

Online Access

No log-in needed.

Parent Company

ITV http://www.itv.com/

Other Relevant Ownership and Interests

Not Applicable

Parent Company Revenue

£364 million 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