Reporting the Arts II [2003]

Reporting the Arts II [2003], conducted by the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University, analyzed the arts-and-culture coverage by three national newspapers and 17 metropolitan daily newspapers in ten markets (weekday editions, plus Saturday and Sunday editions as applicable) during the month of October 2003. Reporting the Arts II [2003] analyzed a total of 8,747 articles and 4,541 listings from 583 separate issues of 20 newspapers during the month of October 2003. The combined total of articles and listings examined in the study is 13,288. Reporting the Arts II: Sections [2003] analyzed 4,036 sections of 583 separate issues of 20 newspapers during the month of October 2003. To minimize error, each issue of each newspaper was handled by two different coders. The first was assigned the task of locating the arts-and-culture articles and listings; the second revisited the same newspaper as a double check and performed the coding data entry. Data were entered in a custom-written online interface, which contained built-in error checks to screen for illegal codes and ineligible newspaper section. Each article was classified according to the following attributes: prominence in the newspaper, byline (staffer, freelancer, syndicated columnist, or newswire), length, focus (local, national, etc.), type of article, and the artistic discipline covered.