METHODOLOGY

This study analyses transparency in regards to the websites of 25 major news outlets in the United States, the United Kingdom and the Middle East:  

The Study's Background

The research team originally set out to evaluate the transparency of news outlets—especially those with a global audience—in the United States, the United Kingdom and the Middle East.   From an initial qualitative evaluation of the 25 news sites selected for their reach and their range, it quickly became apparent that the majority of news outlets did not have a consistent standard of transparency. The research team then moved to assess the transparency of the strongest and weakest news outlets and developed quantitative and qualitative coding that would capture both end of the spectrum.

After extensive training on quantitative and qualitative content analysis, 21 members of the research team evaluated the 25 news outlets on the basis of five criteria (see Understanding Results) by using a coding survey uploaded to surveymonkey.com.  The 5 major categories that were looked at were: 

1. The outlet’s corrections pollicy: Willingness to openly correct mistakes.
2. The outlet’s willingness to give information about their corporate (or other) owners.
3. The outlet’s candor about its internal staff policies.
4. The outlet’s candor about its internal reporting and editing policies.
5. The outlet’s openness to reader comments and criticism.

In order to ensure reliability, each news outlet was evaluated by at least two coders.    In addition to quantitatively recording their findings, each pair of coders also kept written observations on each news outlet and recorded the link to the area of each news site in which the news outlet addressed a given transparency question. Two research members later went through the original findings to check the answers. Each answer was reviewed and checked to make sure the observations were consistent with the news outlets’ Web site.

The Research Team

Dr. Susan Moeller supervised the research team at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park. Twenty-one undergraduate journalism majors and one College of Journalism visiting professor conducted the initial evaluation of the 25 news outlets. The students were: Nicole Alberico, Meagan Bond, Catherine Citroni, Leah Cowdrey, Jackie Cutler, Kristina Ellingsworth, Graham Fitts, Danielle Hayner, Matthew Johnson, Chelsea Jones, Hadass Kogan, Mark Leff, Sarah Merkey, Carrie Peirce, Nicole Porcaro, Lisa Rassenti, Lauren Scott, Nicholas Sohr, Lauren Vitrano, Christopher Williams and Michael Wish.

Rafael Lorente was the College of Journalism visiting professor. After the initial evaluation, Seniors Jackie Cutler and Matthew Johnson checked the findings by conducting a second evaluation and collaborated with Dr. Susan Moeller to create a coding system for the findings. Jad Melki also contributed significantly to the research design and the analysis of the quantitative and qualitative data. Meagan Bond gathered the background information on each news organization. Other members also contributed by updating the initial results with more current information. (See Authors for details).