Web Credibility in Online Journalism
A
Senior Thesis Showcase
Whitney Downing
Maryville College Class of 2009
Maryville College Class of 2009
The Star is a local newspaper for Port St. Joe, Florida. The newspaper covers local and Florida events.
Extent of Community Involvement:
The Star does not have any places for the community to give input at all. No stories are equipped with comment boards, and there are no forums. There is one place at the very bottom of each page where the paper has a poll posted, but it is hard to find. The Star does have a large Letters to the Editor section, but there is nowhere for the general public to respond to these letters from their peers. The Star does include local engagements, anniversaries, and births prominently on the site, however, and since it is a primarily local paper, the number of stories on local figures are much more prominent, such as “Daniels Family Busy Planning Nov. 8 Reunion.” Another positive about the site are the number of places for reader-submitted items. Readers are allowed to submit photos, videos, and events. There were no videos submitted at the time of this writing, but there were a great number of user-submitted photos. The process to submit a photo was easy and comprehensive, but I had to make an account with a separate site in order to submit a video. The Star has a good start on its level of community input, but it would be better for the site to include a place for reader commentary. For a site that places so much importance on local community events, it would be more credible for it to actually be able to include direct input from that community. Grade: C
Format of Stories:
The Star does a good job of mixing its story types. Not only does it feature traditional written pieces for the site, but it has very prominent areas for videos and photos. However, stories do not include photos or videos, and it is almost impossible to tell which stories and multimedia are linked. Since even print newspapers include photos with stories, it does not speak well for The Star that it does not include photos on its online stories. Even a simple link to related photos and videos would be better than nothing. The photos and videos that are shown on the site are interesting and well executed. I especially liked the video “A Taste of the Coast.” It was fun to see the local art. However, I could only get to the most current list of videos from the Home page. The Multimedia tab only got me to three videos. This is a lack of continuity that does not project a credible image. While The Star did a good job of including other media types, it does not link them through, thus hurting their credibility. Grade: C
Editorial System:
The Star has a very small editorial hierarchy. It is so small that Tim Croft, the head editor, writes general news stories. I cannot find very many news reporters represented at all in the stories, and the most prominent writers appear to be Tim Croft, Marie Logan, and Despina Williams. While a small staff can be very close-knit and easily managed, too small a staff can be biased. The Star has done well to stay generally unbiased in its reporting, but such a small reporting and editorial staff can be too small to be able to accurately judge its own performance. Grade: D
Updates:
The Star is woefully short on updates. As of November 3, the last visible update to the main page was on October 29. I am not sure what the update schedule is, but it does not cover every day, much less breaking news. Such a low update frequency gives off the impression of an understaffed online presence. All of the news appears to be uploaded at the same time, or in five minute sections. Looking back at the archives, stories on the site were updated sporadically, with story uploads on the 9th, 24th, and 29th. With no set update schedule, regular readers do not know when to check the site, and cannot count on the site to have updated information. Grade: D
Blogs:
No blogs were available on the site. The Star still relies on an Op-Ed section, which is not often updated. Due to lack of data, Grade: F
Final Thoughts:
The Star is still stuck in the first net-news generation. To say little of the site style, which features pop-ups and too much adspace, the site does not effectively, or at all, utilize the internet's opportunities for enhancing the viewing experience. A viewer might as well read the newspaper, because with so little to bolster it, the paper's site serves little purpose for the general public. Final Grade: D