Philip Meyer

The Influence Model and Newspaper Business

The influence model posits that newspaper content quality increases societal influence and news credibility. Both drive circulation and profitability. The link between credibility and circulation is supported with a sample of newspapers in communities supported by the Knight Foundation.

Preelection Polls and Issue Knowledge in the 1996 U.S. Presidential Election

Many media leaders and some survey researchers in the United States have begun to question whether preelection polls to determine the relative standings of candidates have any useful purpose. Some even say that such polls harm the democratic process. Their arguments follow an attention-displacement model in which public attention paid to polls reduces the amount of attention available for substantive issues. The counterargument proposes a catalytic model in which polls ignite interest in a campaign and lead voters to consider the issues that account for the standings. We used a panel design in a twenty-market sample to test for poll knowledge and issue knowledge in August and November 1996. We found that poll knowledge in August had a small, positive, and decidedly significant effect on issue knowledge in November. The effect persists after age, education, prior issue knowledge, and interest in the election are held constant. Therefore, catalysis appears to be the stronger of the two competing models.

A Workable Measure of Auditing Accuracy in Newspapers

Past studies of newspaper accuracy have been directed at understanding the sources and nature of errors rather than providing a measurement system reliable enough for a newspaper to monitor its own performance. An independent judge can obtain acceptable levels of reliability and validity, but this procedure is relatively expensive. This study of errors in the Charlotte Observerweighed trade-offs in validity and reliability to find a workable measurement application.

THE JOURNALIST: FRIEND OR FOE?

If there is conflict between the aims of the journalist and the aims of the public opinion researcher, we may take some comfort in the fact that it is short-run conflict. In the long run, when elections are decided and controversies cooled, we can each search for facts with scholarly dispassion. Usually, we can be searching and dispassionate even in the short run. We-journalists and researchers-are, after all, bound by the two basic premises of any code of ethics: one ought to tell the truth, and one ought to keep ones promises. Situations arise, and the typical case of the leaked political poll is one, in which these two maxims are in conflict. The obvious way to avoid such a situation is to be careful about what you promise lest it keep you from telling the truth. Researchers have, in my experience, made promises to political clients which, if they did not require the researcher to lie, at least required him to stand mute and passively permit an untruth to go uncorrected. A candidate may commission polls in ten counties and then announce or leak the results for the two that show him ahead and suggest that these are typical of his entire state or district. Strictly interpreted, the new AAPOR disclosure rule requires the researcher to, set such a distortion straight. Or does it? If no one asks the incriminating question, does the researcher have an affirmative duty to supply the damaging answer? Even if the question is asked, might the researcher sidestep his duty with the justification that the disclosure rule requires clarification only of data already released and not of other data, however relevant to the interpretation of the first? If we reporters are inept at asking questions, researchers may be tempted to invoke such rationalizations. And sometimes we are inept. There have even been cases of reportorial ineptness preventing a researcher from correcting a political clients distortion. We are sometimes manipulated, and the politician is more adept at manipulation than the typical researcher. One thing the politician understands is that newsmen who cover politics usually follow one of two quite different operating modes. In one mode, the reporter-source relationship is one of some degree of mutual hostility and distrust. Both reporter and source recognize

Videotex as a Marketing Problem

The capability for creating a service and the willingness of customers to pay for that service are not always related. Videotex is now in the transition from being driven by technology to being driven by the marketplace. As a new medium of communications, it will not create information, but it may add value to existing information by providing speed, selection, and interactivity. The degree to which the market will support that added value remains to be determined.

Elitism and Newspaper Believability

Survey of Detroit readers indicates how paper treats ‘plain folks’ is more likely to cause dissatisfaction than how it treats counterculture or authorities.

Use of an Electronic Database to Evaluate Newspaper Editorial Quality

Electronic database searching opens new avenues for newspaper research. One strategy for evaluating quality of newspapers is to compare newspapers for spelling, grammar and style errors. An electronic database search was utilized to evaluate the editing precision of 58 news organizations and their ratings were compared to their Pulitzer Prize records. A non-linear relationship was found. Winning a small number of Pulitzers correlates positively with editing precision, but the effect diminishes rapidly with additional Pulitzer Prizes.