Editors' Comments

Newspaper Research Journal, Fall 2008 by Utt, Sandra H

The failure of many college newspaper staffs to achieve diversity in their newsrooms may be contributing to the nation's commercial newsrooms' failure to achieve any significant racial diversity.

If the nation's daily college newsrooms are training grounds for future reporters, editors and photographers, as they most surely are, then it follows that the seeds for diversity ought to be planted there. Yet, that's not happening at many college newspapers, according to a recent study by Hardin and Sims, who found that editors at college dailies are still disproportionately white males.

While the study represented only about half of the 1 00 or so daily campus newspapers in the country, its authors correctly state that the findings should be an impetus for more research into campus newspaper staffing practices and policies.

While readers in a study in this issue didn't seem to care about the sources of opinion pieces they read online, they valued the professionally produced online newspaper for factual content over amateur bloggers.

In this experimental study, Siff, Hrach and Alost found much greater belief in the fairness, quality and believability of the professional online newspaper. Their participants were college students, and they rightly assert that many, if not most, college students don't read opinion provided by professional newspapers and so don't really have a basis to judge.

They do suggest a change in online content-that newspaper editors and managers place less emphasis on opinions and focus more heavily on online news reports. They also note the ongoing need to give readers more information about how news is gathered and sourced and about standards in place to ensure accuracy and fairness.

Still another study in this issue deals with online content, this time by looking at political blogs in professional newspapers just before the 2006 congressional elections. While one would expect the most interaction between readers and political bloggers at such a highly charged time, it didn't happen. The postings were not there.

The somewhat surprising results prompted Dailey, Demo and Spillman to ask whether publishers might be wasting valuable resources on political blogs. They also suggest the need to investigate new ways to draw in more reader comments.

Not all young adults are disinterested in news. Some young people are looking for news that will help them make choices, give them something to talk about with friends and give them a "sense of their place in the world." The good news is they are using traditional news sources.

According to a study by Lewis, these young adults perceive news from traditional sources as helpful in their daily lives. These same young adults also are significantly more likely to use traditional news sources in the future, he writes, less likely to use "fake news programs" or entertainment and social networking as information sources in the next five years.

This may be the time for yet another serious discussion between educators and industry representatives about the kinds of technology skills they want their new hires to have. While the Becker, et al. annual report shows more graduates are required to use the Web in their jobs, a convenience sample of print majors shows a majority of those surveyed are not prepared to do this. Granted, the study by Adams can't be generalized; however, it makes one wonder how widespread this lack of skills may be and whether the students will be prepared for newspaper jobs. The negative finding was compounded by students' stated belief that technology skills are not all that important. Determining today what will be needed tomorrow may be like hitting a moving target; however, Adams rightly asserts the need for a clearer understanding of what will be expected of graduates in newsrooms now and in the very near future.

The symbiotic relationship between city officials who want to communicate with their constituents and the newspapers' role as a forum where ideas, policies and actions can be debated is a longstanding one. In a brief, but important, article in this issue, Lacy, St. Cyr and Varouhakis ask reporters about their perceptions of changes in city hall coverage during the past 1 0 years as newspapers cut staffs.

As expected and consistent with documented staff declines, among their findings was that the numbers of reporters covering city hall and the space devoted to coverage had declined at large and medium dailies, while small dailies seemed unaffected. All this leaves an unanswered question they raise for future research: "How are changes in city hall coverage affecting community engagement with local politics, policies and issues?"

Once again, research challenges conventional wisdom-this time the often commonly held belief that publicly owned newspapers provide less staff-produced content and that "financial pressures lead publicly held newspapers to skimp on coverage of civic life."

A study in this issue by Beam shows the opposite as he looks at coverage in eight newspapers, four with private ownership and four with public. At least in these newspapers, Beam finds more similarities than differences in coverage as well as slightly more staff-produced content in the publicly owned newspapers.