Complete report

The data for this study were collected in two parts. The first part was based on telephone interviews of 500 adults 18 years of age or older in all 50 states of the United States, and the second part was collected from 491 print editors (39.2%), 241 online editors (19.3%), and 519 editors that were responsible for both print and online (41.5%) in current U.S. daily newspapers.

The sample of the general public survey was a random digit dialing (RDD) design using the U.S. 2000 Census Bureau's statistics in terms of demographic measures such as age, gender, ethnicity, education, income, and etc. The random digit aspect of the sample was used to avoid response bias and to provide representation of both listed and unlisted numbers (including not-yet-listed). The design of the sample ensured this representation by random generation of the last two digits of telephone numbers selected on the basis of valid area code and telephone exchanges.

The sample of the newsroom editors was randomly selected from the International Yearbook of Editor & Publisher (2006 Ed.) that contains the information about all daily newspapers in the United States. The job titles of print editors included managing editor, executive editor, editor, and news editor, whereas those of online editors were online editor, web editor, multimedia editor, and etc. Because there are more print editors than online editors in the database, a "snowball" sampling method was use to identify more online editors. For example, when interviewing a print editor, the interviewer would ask the editor if there was an online editor in the same newspaper and, if so, to acquire the contact information.