One of the new features we’ve added in our redesign/relaunch is a chart of different news organizations’ performance.
It’s not perfect but it’s the first time that anyone can go on the site and do some comparisons.
We currently regularly check the following news sources:
Top Ten Newspapers by Daily Circulation
Also checked daily:
Wire services checked daily:
Checked weekly: websites of news magazines
A couple of caveats before anyone over-interprets these pie charts:
How a story is graded on our ten criteria is converted into a star score of 0 to 5 stars. The overall average, after 1,650 stories reviewed, is 3.03 stars out of 5.
E-patient Dave DeBronkart wrote a piece about our new site on the e-patients.net website and did his own comparison of news organization grades that he looked up. He wrote:
“Among the best ratings:
- LA Times (130 stories) got 4 or 5 stars 55% of the time, and 0-2 stars only 20%
- Associated Press (238 stories): 57%; 0-2, 18%.
- NY Times (114 stories): 4-5 52%, and 0-2 stars 21%
- NPR (39 stories): 4-5 stars 57%, and 0-2 21%
- USA Today (50): 4-5 52%; 0-2, 24%
- Washington Post (41): 4-5 51%. That’s good, but a surprising 36% earned 0-2 stars.
Among the lesser stellar:
- Newsweek (10 stories): two had 5 stars, four had 3, four had just 2
- Time (21): 4-5 stars 39%; 0-2 stars 34%.
- CNN (33): 4-5 stars 36%, 0-2 34%.
- US News (33): 4-5 19%; 0-2, 26%.
Most amazing to me is that WebMD, which is often recommended as reliable, earned 4-5 stars just 39% of the time, and was more likely (43%) to earn just 0-2 stars.
See why a health information seeker needs to know this? Someday perhaps your doctor’s office will have an “information coach,” but even then, Health News Review will still be more accessible. Besides, even the best of these outlets had 0-2 stars 18% of the time. You really do need to evaluate each story separately.”
Opinions on other issues in news, journals, PR, advertising, marketing
The tale of two “negative” studies. Or, how spin is applied to make research findings look more impressive. A must read. https://johnmandrola.substack.com/p/the-tale-of-two-negative-studies
The @nytimes chose to interview one of the editors of the @AnnalsofIM (publisher of this paper) who "gushed with extraordinary glee: It’s huge! There are very few things that reduce your mortality by 30%."
Turns out coffee is not one of those few things despite all that glee. https://twitter.com/garyschwitzer/status/1533202075928215558
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