Online Sources
The Huffington Post: The Huffington Post is a website that I read very often so I was excited to analyze it and see how credible it really is. The Huffington Post has a slogan as do most news websites. The Huffington Post's slogan is "Breaking News and Opinion". And with what I analyzed, they stayed true to that slogan, something we don't see very often.
There was A LOT of opinion and peripheral topics, but this didn't surprise me. Most all of the articles were about celebrities, pop culture and novelties. This is the reason The Huffington Post got such a bad grade. If it would have had less peripheral topics, The Huffington Post would have got a decent grade. But alas, the general public doesn't want real news, we want more puppies and videos of stupid people doing stupid things! So I can see why there were so many peripheral topics.
Everything revolves around money, and to get a profit you need to give the people what they want. As much as I would like to think that there are people who want to deliver real, hard, objective news (which I'm sure there are a few); Most people want "fun' stories, not "boring ones. That's why, in my opinion, (which probably isn't worth that much) The Huffington Post, and other sites like it, give us lots of peripheral topics.
There were however a good amount of core topic stories. And I was very impressed with these stories, especially with the sources. Before this project, I never really read the "core topic" stories on The Huffington Post. I was reading all the other crap that they have. So when this project came along, I was excited to analyze the "real" stories Huffington Post had to offer. I was impressed with what I found.
I used to think that if I wanted to know about politics etc (core topics) I would need to go to CNN or Fox because that is their main focus. That's not how I think now. From the core topic stories I analyzed, I was amazed with the effort the writers took to cite every bit of information. In most of the articles I read, the writer would write a statistic or a quote and then link that stat or quote to the source where they got it. So if you wanted to fact check something, all you had to do was click on the highlighted stat and it would take you directly to the source. Sources are so important. In Detecting Bull, McManus says "Credible information will always include a source." (McManus, 156) I support this 100%. Can we trust a website or a news source if they don't provide us with where they go their information? No. Sad as it is, we can't really trust anyone to tell us "the truth" if they don't tell us where this "truth" is coming from.
Huffington Post was not by any means perfect though. One thing they could do better at is diversity. There was not too much diversity going on, that I could see, in the articles they posted. For me at least, it's hard for me to tell the race of certain people by just looking at their names. It's much easier to grade diversity on TV than it is in print.
Overall, I was impressed with the amount of sources The Huffington Post had, which to me, is the most important part of telling whether a source is credible or not. The only reason they got a bad grade is because the amount of peripheral topics heavily out weighed the amount of core topics.
Overall Grade: F
Gawker- "Todays Gossip is Tomorrows News." This is Gawker's slogan. And boy is it accurate. There was nothing BUT gossip on Gawker! I wouldn't even consider Gawker to be a news source. Everyday I analyzed Gawker, there was no more than 2 core topic stories on the front page. And the stories that were core topic stories were covered very poorly.
Sources was a big issue for Gawker. On the few core topic articles Gawker had, there were very few sources. Like I said earlier sources are a huge factor in telling whether something is credible or not.
All of Gawker's core topic stories were very low on orientation and empathy. When I was reading the articles, I felt like I didn't really know what was going on and I didn't really feel for the people the stories were about.
There was almost no diversity in any of the core topic articles I read. Albert Einstein once said "Somebody who only reads newspapers and at best books of contemporary authors looks to me like an extremely near-sighted person who scorns eyeglasses. He is completely dependent on the prejudices and fashions of his times, since he never gets to see or hear anything else.” This quote tells us the importance of diversity. There is more than one right way to do/write/whatever something, and without diversity, we are subject to only one of the many ways.
Overall, Gawker was a poor source of news. I would not recommend looking at Gawker for anything other than gossip.
Overall grade: F
There was A LOT of opinion and peripheral topics, but this didn't surprise me. Most all of the articles were about celebrities, pop culture and novelties. This is the reason The Huffington Post got such a bad grade. If it would have had less peripheral topics, The Huffington Post would have got a decent grade. But alas, the general public doesn't want real news, we want more puppies and videos of stupid people doing stupid things! So I can see why there were so many peripheral topics.
Everything revolves around money, and to get a profit you need to give the people what they want. As much as I would like to think that there are people who want to deliver real, hard, objective news (which I'm sure there are a few); Most people want "fun' stories, not "boring ones. That's why, in my opinion, (which probably isn't worth that much) The Huffington Post, and other sites like it, give us lots of peripheral topics.
There were however a good amount of core topic stories. And I was very impressed with these stories, especially with the sources. Before this project, I never really read the "core topic" stories on The Huffington Post. I was reading all the other crap that they have. So when this project came along, I was excited to analyze the "real" stories Huffington Post had to offer. I was impressed with what I found.
I used to think that if I wanted to know about politics etc (core topics) I would need to go to CNN or Fox because that is their main focus. That's not how I think now. From the core topic stories I analyzed, I was amazed with the effort the writers took to cite every bit of information. In most of the articles I read, the writer would write a statistic or a quote and then link that stat or quote to the source where they got it. So if you wanted to fact check something, all you had to do was click on the highlighted stat and it would take you directly to the source. Sources are so important. In Detecting Bull, McManus says "Credible information will always include a source." (McManus, 156) I support this 100%. Can we trust a website or a news source if they don't provide us with where they go their information? No. Sad as it is, we can't really trust anyone to tell us "the truth" if they don't tell us where this "truth" is coming from.
Huffington Post was not by any means perfect though. One thing they could do better at is diversity. There was not too much diversity going on, that I could see, in the articles they posted. For me at least, it's hard for me to tell the race of certain people by just looking at their names. It's much easier to grade diversity on TV than it is in print.
Overall, I was impressed with the amount of sources The Huffington Post had, which to me, is the most important part of telling whether a source is credible or not. The only reason they got a bad grade is because the amount of peripheral topics heavily out weighed the amount of core topics.
Overall Grade: F
Gawker- "Todays Gossip is Tomorrows News." This is Gawker's slogan. And boy is it accurate. There was nothing BUT gossip on Gawker! I wouldn't even consider Gawker to be a news source. Everyday I analyzed Gawker, there was no more than 2 core topic stories on the front page. And the stories that were core topic stories were covered very poorly.
Sources was a big issue for Gawker. On the few core topic articles Gawker had, there were very few sources. Like I said earlier sources are a huge factor in telling whether something is credible or not.
All of Gawker's core topic stories were very low on orientation and empathy. When I was reading the articles, I felt like I didn't really know what was going on and I didn't really feel for the people the stories were about.
There was almost no diversity in any of the core topic articles I read. Albert Einstein once said "Somebody who only reads newspapers and at best books of contemporary authors looks to me like an extremely near-sighted person who scorns eyeglasses. He is completely dependent on the prejudices and fashions of his times, since he never gets to see or hear anything else.” This quote tells us the importance of diversity. There is more than one right way to do/write/whatever something, and without diversity, we are subject to only one of the many ways.
Overall, Gawker was a poor source of news. I would not recommend looking at Gawker for anything other than gossip.
Overall grade: F
Buzzfeed- One of the co-founders of The Huffington Post was the founder of Buzzfeed. So naturally, there were a lot of similarities between Buzzfeed and The Huffington Post. Buzzfeed was a fun website to analyze. I personally check Buzzfeed multiple times a day. I enjoy the funny pictures and weird articles. But I also use Buzzfeed as a primary source of news. Even though Buzzfeed had a lot of peripheral topics, I thought they did a good job with the core topics as well. So I was excited to analyze Buzzfeed and find out how relibable it really was for core news topics.
I was glad to find out that Buzzfeed did fairly well in the analysis. Buzzfeed, like Huffington Post had a big selection of sources. Buzzfeed used the same technique as Huffington Post in citing sources. They would embed the sources right on the page, and if you clicked on it, it would take you to where the information came from.
Buzzfeed had more diveristy than Gawker and The Huffington Post, but still scored relatively low in comparison to the cable news networks.
I was glad to find out that Buzzfeed did fairly well in the analysis. Buzzfeed, like Huffington Post had a big selection of sources. Buzzfeed used the same technique as Huffington Post in citing sources. They would embed the sources right on the page, and if you clicked on it, it would take you to where the information came from.
Buzzfeed had more diveristy than Gawker and The Huffington Post, but still scored relatively low in comparison to the cable news networks.
Overall Grade:F
1. Which news source earned the highest grades overall?
- Buzzfeed and The Huffington Post were very equal. Buzzfeed however had a little more diversity than The Huffington Post
2. Which news source earned the lowest grades overall?
- Gawker definitely had the worst overall grade. Everything on Gawker was gossip and the core topics they did have hardly had any sources.
3. Which stories were the least substantive but the most reported across
news sites?
- Paul Walkers death was widely reported, and although it is sad, it is not a substantial story.
4. What did you find surprising from your results?
- I was suprised at how many source Huffington Post and Buzzfeed had to offer. Typically when you think of these websites, substantial stories and lots of sources don't come to mind, but they did and extremely amazing job. Especially in providing sources.
5. Did one of the mediums have more reliable news sources than another
medium? Did one of the mediums consistently have more unreliable news sources?
- Buzzfeed and Huffington Post were about neck and neck when it came to sources. Gawker wasn't even in the race.
6. Which news sources portrayal of itself diverged most from its actual
news coverage?
- All three of the online sources I analyzed were sound with their slogans, they gave the news coverage they said they would.
7. Based on class readings and all of the aggregate information you’ve
gathered throughout the term, what are some ways that you think these news
sources need to improve their work?
Diversity. Diversity is very important and it was something that all 3 online sources lacked.
8. How would you tweak the news scorecard to improve it? Or do you think
it was a comprehensive analytical tool?
- I felt like this score card was very good and most importantly, objective.
9. What recommendations would you give to news consumers based on this
analysis?
- Pay attention to sources! Citing sources says a lot about a corporation.
Broadcast
CNN- What I came to find with broadcast news is that the time of day really influences what kind of news you’re getting. For example for all news channels, I found the afternoon had many more peripheral topics than core topics. In the evening however, there were hardly any peripheral topics covered, most all the stories were core topics and were much greater in length.
Overall, CNN had great diversity in the gender and race category. Probably the best of all the news sources I watched. They also did a good job in explaining both sides of an issue. When they had a debate, they made sure both parties were represented, something that some other news channels failed to do.
As far as sources go, I felt like all 3 channels did a mediocre job at best. It is amazing to me that such big news corporations will not cite where they got their information. How can we believe something that doesn’t have anything to back it up? I also felt like when they did in fact cite people, they would use their word out of context, which made the opposite party come off as unintelligent. But i’m not too surprised about that. I understand that there really isn’t a 100% objective news source out there, there is bias in everything. It’s the news corporation's job to frame the media in a way that makes them come off as more reliable or trustworthy, and they do everything they can to make that happen.
Overall grade:F
MSNBC- MSNBC came off to me as extremely unfair. I was watching “Hardball with Chris Matthews” and surprised at how much framing and bias was going on. In the segment I watched, Chris Matthews would play a small clip of something some Republican said (usually something they would take out of context to make the Republican come off as unintelligent) and 2 other Democratic journalists would proceed to tear this poor guy apart. At least in CNN they would have a Republican representative on the show so he/she could tell their side of the story. This is not what happened on MSNBC. Now I’m sure this doesn’t happen all the time, but in the segment I watched, this is what was going on.
Again, with sources, MSNBC did a mediocre job. WE NEED MORE SOURCES!
With diversity, MSNBC did very well in the afternoon broadcasts, There were an equal amount of both men and women, and people of all different races. However, in the evening broadcasts, there were significantly less diversity on the broadcast. There was almost no women and almost no ethnic diversity. This was very interesting and I’m still not quite sure why this is.
Overall grade:F
Fox- One thing about Fox stood out to me. Fox had the least amount of peripheral topics of all the news channels I watched. Even during the afternoon. This to me, says a lot about Fox News. If we are looking for peripheral topics, we have a lot of other options. I feel like if we are watching Fox, CNN or MSNBC etc. we should be getting hard news coverage of our CORE topics, and I think Fox news did the best at just that. While yes, there was still some peripheral topics covered, the bulk of the show was dedicated to on-going news coverage of important “core topic” issues.
Fox also had great diversity. More so in the afternoon shows than the evening shows. I would be really interested in finding out why that is, or if it was just a weird phenomenon that just happened the days I watched the news.
Fox did a better job with sources than the other 2 channels I watched, but once again, you can always have more sources.
Overall grade: F
1. Which news source earned the highest grades overall?
- All of the news networks I analyzed had an overall F grade. But Fox had the highest average.
2. Which news source earned the lowest grades overall?
- MSNBC earned the lowest overall score.
3. Which stories were the least substantive but the most reported across news sites?
- I didn't notice a trend across the three news channels in reporting unsubstantial stories.
4. What did you find surprising from your results?
- I was surprised at low little people cited their sources on tv! I think it's because it's a lot harder to analyze pictures and videos. In Detecting Bull, McManus says "Typically, we don't apply logic to pictures." (McManus, 189) It's a lot harder to look for sources in videos and pictures and I think the news corporations know that, that's why there aren't that many sources.
5. Did one of the mediums have more reliable news sources than another medium? Did one of the mediums consistently have more unreliable news sources?
- MSNBC seemed to have the most unreliable sources. A lot of what they said was pure opinion and when they did cite a source, it was usually out of context.
6. Which news sources portrayal of itself diverged most from its actual news coverage?
- Fox news has a slogan. It is "Fair and Balanced". Nothing could be further from the truth. While I felt Fox News had the best score of the three, there was still a ton of bias. Not "Fair and Balanced". But this is not just a problem with Fox. In Detecting Bull, McManus said "both democrats and republicans have been guilty of distorting the factual record and smearing the other.." (McManus, 210)
7. Based on class readings and all of the aggregate information you’ve gathered throughout the term, what are some ways that you think these news sources need to improve their work?
- They need more sources. If you want me to believe what you have to say, then you have to cite your sources.
8. How would you tweak the news scorecard to improve it? Or do you think it was a comprehensive analytical tool?
- Again, I felt the score card was great and most importantly, objective.
9. What recommendations would you give to news consumers based on this analysis?
- If you want the truth, look for it online and fact check it. Don't even bother watching the news.
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