Editors' Comments

Newspaper Research Journal, Fall 2004 by Grusin, Elinor Kelley, Utt, Sandra H

While we don't normally run essays, we're publishing one in this issue because it goes to the heart of Newspaper Research Journal's goal of bridging the divide between academia and the world of working journalists. The authors make a strong case for expanding the definition of scholarship in journalism and mass communication beyond the traditional peer-reviewed scholarly work. They offer an in-depth look at what happened at one university and provided ample anecdotal evidence that more universities are accepting non-traditional, "professionally oriented" scholarship.

This issue of NKJ offers two different approaches to studies of the relationship between quality and increased newspaper circulation. The first looks at one newspaper, the family-owned Arkansas Democrat Gazette, and chronicles the steps taken by owners not only to survive a newspaper war but also to reach the pinnacle of circulation success.

Mary Jane Pardue writes about the management philosophy of the owners of this once "underdog" newspaper and their refusal to sacrifice news quality to maximize profits. Their ideas worked, according to the latest ABC report, which showed the Little Rock newspaper had reached the highest Sunday city zone penetration in the nation-71 percent.

A second study by Cho, Thorson and Lacy takes a broader look at newspaper quality and circulation. Their study of 27 newspapers again reinforces findings from previous research that investments in larger newsroom staffs, more and better local coverage and better in-depth reporting correlate with increased newspaper circulation.

Further offerings in this issue include a national survey of who writes letters to the editor. In add ition to findings supported by previous research-that letter writers are above average in income, age and education-this newest survey shows that political leanings have little to do with letter writing, although "strong political feelings in general might."

One factor that chills letter submissions is newspapers' "must sign" policies, according to Reader, Stempel and Daniel. They found that one in three of those who don't write letters said they'd do so if they could be anonymous.

One additional thought. We hope that some of you are either already working on a study of the presidential election coverage or at least planning to do one. We'd be very interested in seeing something on both editorial and advertising content. As always, the accusations of bias in news columns abound, and we find ourselves repeating information we learned from the research of Guido Stempel and others that the content studies just haven't shown that to be true in the past. It would be helpful and interesting to see something on this most recent and intense political campaign.

Elinor Kelley Grusin

Co-editor

Sandra H. Utt

Co-editor