Fico, Frederick and Drager, Michael (2001).  News Stories About Conflict Generally Balanced.  Newspaper Research Journal, 22(1), 2-11.

Fico and Drager’s article provides results from a content analysis of 615 local conflict stories in 15 mid-sized newspapers.  They found that the stories are “generally fair” but had “some imbalance in terms of space and prominence.”  Journalistic conventions, such as reliance on official sources and definitions of what is newsworthy, result in biased reporting according to Fico and Drager.  Their hypotheses assert the newspaper’s role in the market influences the number of journalists on staff; a large newsroom staff means more conflict reporting will be done; the more conflict reporting taken on by a staff, the more balanced the stories will be.  To test a story’s balance, they look at the numbers of opposing sources and prominence given to opposing sources.  Perfectly balanced stories appeared in 27 percent of the sample and one sided stories appeared in 11 percent of the articles analyzed.  They found a positive correlation between a newsroom’s conflict story priority and their articles’ tendency to be fair.  Their conclusion is that although sources were balanced, the prominence given to one source over another was not balanced.  They also found that the more coverage a paper devoted to a certain conflict, the more likely they would find an imbalance in sources.

Newspapers should strive for unbiased conflict reporting if only to avoid alienating their audience, which would result in economic troubles for a news organization according to Fico and Drager.  Economic imperatives are important because other theorists have argued that cost cutting measures have resulted in an increase of biased reporting because less experienced reporters are sent overseas.  Sourcing is another important element that can explain how bias is constructed in news stories.  Their finding that the number of opposing sources is not enough to create a balanced report is especially pertinent.

Abstract by Meghan Maskery

Missouri School of Journalism

MA ‘07