News Use on the Front Pages of the American Daily

Abstract

Three news-use patterns identified in study of front pages of 101 papers. Although few authors agree on the definition of news, textbooks and some research suggest that dimensions or attributes exist to guide the professional. Terminology may vary slightly, but the dimensions/attributes are generally agreed to be timeliness, proximity, prominence, impact, conflict, magnitude, oddity and visual. Yet little examination of the professional's finished product-the news'appearing in a publication itself-has been attempted to determine whether any or all of the attributes are part of the news or if patterns of use appear in publications across the United States. This study examines the front pages of a national sample of dailies in the United States to describe their use of the attributes and to determine if any patterns of use are evident. Prior Studies Several researchers have used hypothetical Q-sorts to discover how those responsible for the would choose among sets of stories that exemplify particular attributes. Ward made early use of the technique, identifying high impact stories and conflict stories as preferred by 10 city editors. Badii and Ward identified three dimensions earlier identified by Ward: (1) significance: including impact and magnitude; (2) normality: including oddity, conflict and normal; and prominence: including known and unknown principals. Conflict, impact and known-principal stories were preferred by the editors queried.1 Atwood found that newspeople preferred more stories with prominence than did their subscribers and were perceived by their subscribers as preferring these types of stories. (He held time and location constant.) Clyde and Buckalew found that top-level editors selected timeliness while lower-level editors stressed conflict and known-principal attributes. However, there was strong consensus among their editors for conflict, proximity and timeliness as values.2 Culbertson's traditional journalists identified timeliness and proximity as important; interpretive (impact) was important for the nontraditional journalists. Buckalew found that television editors in smaller markets selected more stories with proximity-a local orientation-while larger market editors chose more timely stories.3 Although they didn't use a Q-sort when they asked journalists to define news, Burgoon, Burgoon and Atkin identified five categories similar to the dimensions: consequence (similar to impact), interest (similar to oddity), timeliness, proximity and prominence. Their newsroom personnel ranked timeliness and proximity as highest priorities for the previous day's paper. Looking at actual use, Stempel, who examined national in 25 large-circulation dailies, supported the concept of as multidimensional. His factor analysis suggested six characteristics or dimensions of national news: suspense-conflict (similar to conflict), public affairs, human interest (including prominence), timeliness, positiveness (the good news) and political controversy.4 The researchers who have attempted to identify editor/journalist preferences for the attributes have identified different preference patterns for different editors. Consistency seems most evident with the preference for conflict stories with timeliness and proximity also voted choices. However, except for the Stempel study, which dealt exclusively with national and international news, these preference studies rely on a hypothetical situation. Whether the preferred attributes are evident in the journalists' pages or broadcasts or in nonnational is a different question entirely. In order to determine news-attribute preferences for newspapers, this study analyzed the front pages of a composite week of 101 daily newspapers published in the United States.5 The study had two objectives: 1) To describe the content of the front pages of the dailies 2) To determine whether the content on the front pages represents a distinctive pattern of use among the dailies. …