Journalism’s Mike Gasher compares news coverage of traditional and online newspapers
Do online newspapers focus more on international news than their print versions? That’s the question posed by the Geography of News Project, a research initiative launched in 2000 by Journalism Professor Mike Gasher, PhD (comm. studies) 99.
Mike Gasher’s research looks into online newspapers’ global news coverages. Against expectations, the research shows that papers’ international coverages have not increased, Gasher points out.
Gasher and his research assistants examine the flow of news from media outlets, including The (Montreal) Gazette, The National Post, Le Devoir, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, Libération, The Times of London and Ha’aretz. “We’re looking at journalism as a form of cartography or map making,” describes Gasher, who is also the director of the Department of Journalism. “In stories, pictures, everything that journalism produces, we’re asking what kind of ‘map’ they draw of the community and the larger world.”
The Geography of News Project seeks answers to questions such as: given The New York Times’s devoted international readership, how local can—and does—its online version remain? Or how does an event in Pakistan tie into the interests of the online news readers of The Globe and Mail?
“News judgment is based on what is of interest to readers. Once online, you don’t have to restrict yourself,” says Gasher.
“So the question is: what kind of news package do you put together? What area does the paper feel primarily responsible for and what area does it orient that news towards? If something happens in Haiti—and our Haitian population in Montreal is a large one—is it a local, national or international story? One of the first things journalists learn is to imagine their readers when they’re writing. And that’s much more complicated today.”
The Geography of News has yielded some surprising results. Despite a wider potential reach and fewer time limitations, online versions have not fanned out. For example, the online Globe and Mail is more likely to report on events in Toronto and Ontario than on what’s happening in, say, Saskatchewan. The United States, the United Kingdom and France remain the focal point of the papers’ international news in spite of online newspapers’ abilities to access reports and reach audiences that span the globe. Africa and South America continue to be largely invisible online.
Gasher feels that newspapers’ websites are still experimenting with their coverage because they have to familiarize themselves with online advertising and readership markets. He dismisses the idea that print media is becoming an endangered species and stresses that there is actually more print today than ever, although papers have been shrinking in size. “People ask that question. But they also asked if movies would still be around when television came along. And I can’t think of a news medium that has really disappeared, except newsreels,” Gasher says.
