What is news to John Q. Public?

In this day and age you, the so-called "users" of the Internet, wield so much power. You have seriously damaged the print industry by canceling your newspaper subscriptions in favor of Yahoo News and YouTube. And you are even put in charge of deciding what is newsworthy online at user-driven content sites like Delicious, Digg and Reddit.

But what is your editorial judgment and how does it differ from the experienced, veteran editors who previously had control over what stories were published?

The Project for Excellence in Journalism, formerly affiliated with the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, thinks it has some answers. In a study due for release on Wednesday, the group concludes that news items chosen by "users" tend to be "more diverse, more transitory, and often draw on a very different and perhaps controversial list of sources."

For the report, the group compared the news items that appeared in 48 mainstream news outlets for one week in June to those that appeared on Reddit, Digg and Delicious, which is owned by Yahoo.

"In a week when the mainstream press was focused on Iraq and the debate over immigration, the three leading user-news sites--Reddit, Digg and Delicious--were more focused on stories like the release of Apple's new iPhone and that Nintendo had surpassed Sony in net worth," according to the study.

However, Reddit, Digg and Delicious aren't necessarily a good comparison because they tend to be tech-heavy. The study acknowledges that in this paragraph buried in the report: "On both Digg and Delicious, roughly 40 percent of the stories were devoted to technology and science. They were only about half as common on Reddit (22 percent), but that was still more than 10 times the coverage in the (mainstream news) Index that week. There, technology and science stories accounted for just 2 percent of the stories."

The study also looked at the differences in items selected for Yahoo News and user-driven pages. The Most Recommended page was most likely to include useful items, such as articles on the Chinese pet food recall. The Most Emailed stories tended to be diverse, and the Most Viewed had the most sensational types of stories. Yahoo News' user-ranked stories tended to be more about health, lifestyle and crime.

"On Yahoo News--even when picking from a limited list of stories Yahoo editors had already pared down...users' top stories only rarely matched those of the news professionals," the report said.

[damontallen]

Elephant

Do you remember the story about four blind men in a room with an elephant trying to decide what it is? The one touching the leg said it was a tree, etc... The point is that people usually don't get all to their news from one source and looking at the focus of one source will not give you the entire picture. Admittedly people will have a tendency to focus on news that relates to their own lives but there is simply too much information for one person to take in. To overcome the problem of information overload people do what they have always done, divide and conquer. We work in groups with each member focusing on one area but communicating relevant information to each other to form a complete picture. Its like the story I started with except everyone involved is aware its a large animal. Now there are exceptions to this but I doubt that many people who read news online go a week without giving or receiving news from someone they know.

[rhett121]

No $H1T ?!

Are you A-holes just now figuring this out? Gees, a third grader <br />knows more about public interest than you do!

[js-bach]

I think for some, people look for "quick" insight to what's going on in the world. My local newspaper is slanted so I told them they needed to be more open to everyone in terms of political views and local politics. It is their choice to continue as they do. On-line, I find what is of interest to me but I usually pick a major network site or an even more familiar site of mine.<br /><br />It is sad people tend to be more interested in Apple, Inc., than say the Gaza/Israel conflict but at the same time, they are inundated with "news." And, again, what is the definition of news? For some, it''s an announcement from CNET and for others, It's what PE Obama ate for lunch.<br /><br />Newspapers also cost money. On-line news is free with the exception of your Internet bill. Along with news, an individual is allowed to do absolutely everything such as banking, shopping, reading the local news, art announcements, crossword puzzles and the list goes on all at the touch of the fingers.