External links[]
Some ideas[]
Accuracy and corrections[]
- Do numbers and types of corrections correlate with anything?
- Do newspapers monitor or analyze corrections? If so, what is the result?
- What types of corrections are most common (such as name, date, etc.)?
- How much does length of time in a given subject or geographic area affect accuracy?
- Features journalists sometimes have more time and sports journalists often have less time, with other departments in between. Does that correlate with accuracy?
Copy editing[]
- How much and in what ways do bosses or papers reward individual copy editors?
- What formal or informal methods do individual copy editors or their bosses use to gauge their performance?
- What is the monetary value of potential libel suits or other legal problems that copy editors prevent?
- What do copy editors argue about, among themselves and with other journalists? Why? How are the arguments resolved?
- If you give a varied group of copy editors the same story (especially one that's messy), what will they do the same and what will they do that's different?
- Reporters sometimes set goals for themselves such as getting on 1A, enterprise work or winning awards. What goals do copy editors set for themselves?
Creativity[]
- What affects creativity? Is it different for different types of journalists?
Headlines[]
- How much do headline counts affect headline accuracy?
- How much do headline counts affect the attraction to the reader of the headline?
- How much, if at all, do bad breaks affect readers?
- Do headline sizes correlate with rack sales?
Infographics[]
- What types of errors or problems are most common in infographics?
Voting[]
- Do news organizations affect voter turnout? How and how much? (Possibly it could be correlated with community trust in institutions, anonymous sources, amount and quality of pre-election coverage, etc.)
- Do news organizations affect voters' views about third parties? How and how much?
Numbers[]
- Journalists on the whole are not good at math. But what specific types of mistakes are most common?
- In reporting on polls, how often is the margin of sampling error included?
Rack sales[]
- Does the proportion of rack sales and subscriptions correlate with anything?
Reader engagement[]
- Readers often stop reading stories before they get to the end. How much do various factors contribute to a reader moving on from any given story?
Web sites[]
- What is the current direct return on investment for newspaper Web sites? How much does it vary and why?
Wires[]
- How much do wire services vary in responsiveness to wire editors? Which are best or worst?
- Do copy editors or newspapers handle anonymous sources in wire stories differently than in local stories? If so, how and why?
Workload[]
- How much does workload affect performance?
This article is incomplete, and could use your help.