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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
5. Miami Herald	2.6

Ranking: Good (tied with LA Times).
Details of Findings:
	There is a corrections page, but it requires some searching to find. The corrections page contains current as well as archived corrections.
	There is a link at the bottom of the homepage to the “about us” page. Once in this page you can go directly to a page that has a long list of information including detailed information on who owns the paper.
	Within two clicks of the homepage there is a page that has a long list of information about the paper. The page speaks only briefly about the ethics of the paper and within this text there are two links to “ethics guidelines”. The links however, are broken and do not lead anywhere.
	Within two clicks of the homepage there is a page that has a long list of information about the paper. The page, however, only alludes to its news values without specifically stating them.
	There is no ombudsman. Letters to the editorcan be found on the opinion page which is linked to from the homepage. E-mail addresses can be found for all reporters directly under their bylines. There is a large array of blogs on the site. There does not appear to be chats with reporters although there are message boards that users can post to with each other on any given topic. There are often times when readers can comment on pages of stories. Most of the bigger stories can be commented on and there is even a small icon attached to the headlines and links on pages saying comments can be posted.
(Graham Fitts and Mike Wish)

About the Miami Herald

Circulation/Audience

312,109 daily.

Online Access

No log in required.

Parent Company

The McClatchy Company.

Other Relevant Ownership and Interests

31 daily and 46 non-daily newspapers, including:
The Sacramento Bee
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
The Kansas City Star
The Charlotte Observer
The Raleigh News & Observer

Parent Company Revenue

$2.4 Billion (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