A content analysis of 36 newspapers in 12 states were examined to determine if balanced reporting of pesticide and water issues existed in 1995. There were two hypotheses explored in this study: One, that journalists tend to bias their reporting of pesticide and water issues by using more mentions from environmental groups than other sources; and two, that journalists tend to bias their reporting by using more negative terminology than positive terminology when reporting on pesticide and water issues.An on-line search using the Lexis-Nexis newspaper database produced 302 usable articles for this study. The number of mentions of environmental groups, government agencies and agri-industry officials were listed in coding sheets. Also, negative versus positive terminology was coded.A chi-square analysis of coded data derived from the selected articles demonstrated that journalists use a balance of sources when reporting on pesticide and water issues. However the analysis also shows that journalists frequently use more negative terminology, such as "toxic," or "contaminated," than positive when writing about pesticide and water issues.Recommendations at the end of this study are made to help reporters understand more thoroughly the definitions of some of the terminology they use in writing about pesticide and water issues. / Department of Journalism
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:handle/185621 |
| Date | January 1996 |
| Creators | Gordon, Ken |
| Contributors | Ball State University. Dept. of Journalism., Sharpe, Melvin L. |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | v, 58 leaves ; 28 cm. |
| Source | Virtual Press |
| Coverage | n-us--- |
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