APME | Attributes of good journalism online

Attributes of good journalism online

To explore the specific attributes that compose "good journalism" online, both local news users and editors were asked a total of 26 questions on a seven-point scale where "1" is "very harmful to good journalism online" and "7" is "very beneficial to good journalism online."

TABLE I: Mean scores regarding attributes of "good journalism" online

Question Items	Public Mean Score (n = 161)	Editor Mean Score (n = 1,251)
Basics of good journalism
1. Verifying information	6.36	6.73
2. Getting the facts right	6.60	6.83
3. Correcting mistakes quickly & prominently	6.26	6.67
4. Journalists taking responsibility for accuracy	6.26	6.75
5. Users taking responsibility for accuracy	5.07	5.11
24. Journalists limiting their roles to being independent observers & producing fair news coverage or clearly labeled commentary	6.11	6.31
25. Journalists joining the conversation online and giving personal views	4.21	3.15
Interaction with readers
7. Asking for user comments on many stories	4.54	5.10
10. Requiring users who participate to state their real identities	4.04	5.17
9. Inviting users to participate without using their real identities	4.08	3.05
Depth of local coverage
16. Providing depth by links to content published by other sources	5.32	5.61
17. Providing depth by providing many layers of content produced by local journalists	5.43	5.92
18. Providing depth by providing databases or similar information that users can explore on their own to find answers to their questions	5.78	5.88
Other attributes
6. Labeling news and opinion	5.69	6.36
8. Creating places on the site to connect users with common interests	4.81	5.09
11. Applying same standards to news produced by citizens as to news written by journalists	5.50	5.21
12. Allowing citizens to report their own stories in their own ways	4.13	3.97
13. Creating content intended to attract a diverse group of users	5.11	6.18
14. Journalists actively seeking varied viewpoints from people to comment on the news	5.29	6.09
15. Letting users' interests and views determine what ideas and opinions are posted online	3.85	4.20
19. Giving the public ways to provide information for news stories	5.36	6.01
20. Keeping advertising & news clearly separate	6.17	6.51
21. Providing convenient links from news stories to related advertising	3.82	3.17
22. Journalists enforcing standards on such matters as crude language and personal attacks	5.73	6.04
23. Users enforcing standards on such matters as crude language and personal attacks	5.41	5.21

Notes:

The question items were measured on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (very harmful to good journalism online) to 7 (very beneficial to good journalism online).

n (general public) = 161; n (editors) = 1,251.

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