1. Which news source earned the highest grades overall? Why?

The news source that earned the highest grade overall came from Print. Deseret News scored the highest with 56% because this news source contained very few peripheral stories. Deseret News focused on core stories within Utah and the nation. The next highest news source was NBC with a score of 49%. NBC did a great job of showing more than one side to the stories it was reporting on. They also had a lot of core stories each day.

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2. Which news source earned the lowest grades overall? Why?

The news source with the lowest grade overall was United Press International with a score of 8%. This is because a large margin of peripheral stories shown across there front page. They also had up to seven unnamed sources per article which destroyed their overall score. The next lowest ranked source was Reuters, also wire, with a score of 18%. It had many unnamed sources with little diversity. 

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3. Which stories were the least substantive but the most reported across news sites?

When it came to local news sources, the article about the mayor from North Ogden was mentioned in broadcast and print for being killed in Afghanistan. For all four categories, this was during election week for local elections around the nation, the shooting that happened in the bar in California, the forest fires in California, and the girl scouts suing the boy scouts. Out of all of these news articles, we found that the local mayor's death and the suing of the boy scouts were the least substantive.  

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4. What did you find surprising from your results?

When comparing all of our categories, we were surprised to see how highly ranked BuzzFeed was among the other sources. We don't think this is because BuzzFeed is a credible source, but because so many of our sources are unreliable. We were surprised at how much all of our articles failed to score above an F and at how often they credited unnamed sources in their quotes. Another interesting thing we found was how different topics were from being national and local news sources.  

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5. Did one of the mediums have more reliable news sources than another medium? Did one of the mediums consistently have more unreliable news sources? 

Reuters, United Press International, BuzzFeed, and Wall Street Journal all had five or more unnamed sources. BuzzFeed and UPI scored the highest with seven unnamed sources within one article.

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6. Which news sources portrayal of itself diverged most from its actual news coverage?

For the most part, each of our different news outlets framed themselves in the same way the public saw them. This means they presented themselves in a way that was true to their stated company values. For example, BuzzFeed is known for being a media-entertainment web source full of click bait. The company's values align with this public image in their bio which states they, "lead in news delivery and entertainment, specifically across Facebook, YouTube, and Snapchat" (BuzzFeed, n.d., para. 1). 

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7. Based on class readings and all of the aggregate information you’ve gathered throughout the term, what are some ways that you think these news sources need to improve their work?

The news sources could improve their work by actually naming all of their sources, gathering information from more diverse sources, and by showing more sides to each story. 

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8. How would you tweak the news scorecard to improve it? Or do you think it was a comprehensive analytical tool?

We think that having peripheral news only score 1 point, really destroys the total score of each medium. We think sometimes it can be important to still report on topics that aren't necessarily considered a "core" story. For example, changes in giant retail companies, local crimes in local newspapers, and historical achievements. It could even include new accomplishments within the nation. 

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9. What recommendations would you give to news consumers based on this analysis?

Think about what kind of news you're looking for and go to the correct format; wire, print, web, or broadcast. Just because something is popular doesn't mean it's true. We also would recommend looking at all sources being named in an article. If there are unnamed sources, don't completely trust these stories. Look out for bias in the news stories, who's saying what and why? Check the diversity of sources in the article. Having more diverse sources in the article will help it's credibility.

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