Georgia Straight's integrity ranked first in world
The Committee for Newspaper and Media Integrity has ranked the Georgia Straight as the most reputable paper in the world, as of April 7. The committee was founded by Australian researcher H. Trent Moore and Oxford University law student Aron Ping D’Souza, who are the editor and associate editor of the Journal of Applied Economy.
In a phone interview with the Straight from England, D’Souza said that a number of smaller papers fared well in the committee’s rankings because they can attract a more passionate audience. “I would venture to say people would read your newspaper in greater depth for a longer amount of time than they would the generic corporatized papers,” he said.
D’Souza said that he and Moore fund the project out of their own pockets to measure distortion in the media. They have been gathering data on newspapers since April 2009 and posted their findings on their site, www.newspaperintegrity.com, this month. According to the site, the committee was founded “to give consumers an avenue to state their opinions on the objectivity, integrity and quality of newspapers and other media outlets”. Comments and user rankings are taken into account.
D’Souza said that he and Moore initially combed the Internet looking for “key terminologies” about newspaper names, articles, and links, a method similar to the way Google ranks pages. “We surveyed millions of pieces of data and found where people were using language that would indicate reputability based on a theory called natural-language queries, and we developed preliminary data from that,” he said. “Now that people can give rankings in supplement to that chatter-theory-based argument, we can verify the method in some ways, and also we can improve the method.”
The second-highest ranking went to the Finnish paper Karjalainen. The margin of error is quite high—plus or minus 14.29 percent—but D’Souza said that with more information from users, he hopes this can be brought below 10 percent.
Comments
19 Comments
jansumi
Apr 7, 2010 at 5:40pm
This is really wonderful - although in looking at their Canadian rankings I have to wonder how it is that the National Post makes it to #5 while the Globe & Mail doesn't make the top ten at all even while it's #2 in the morst circulated and the Courier was listed as one of the worst. Some odd anomalies...
glen p robbins
Apr 7, 2010 at 5:58pm
Glad I began my online campaign for Premier at the Georgia Straight site.
joker
Apr 7, 2010 at 7:25pm
You're kidding right? April Fool's day was last week. The Straight isn't a newspaper, it's an entertainment magazine with a bunch of opinions. AND A LOT OF ADVERTISEMENTS. I dare say the ads comprise 50% of your "paper".
Pat
Apr 8, 2010 at 12:17am
I think the GS is a decent source of news with good columnists. And for me, at least, it's more of a go-to source for less biased local Vancouver news than either the Sun or Province. But, like all newspapers, the GS is far from perfect, as evidenced by their propensity to give PETA types and others with an almost George Bush-like anti-science view a regular column.
Scottie
Apr 8, 2010 at 9:07am
Joker, Yet you still take the time to read the Straight online and comment nonsensical gibberish below articles....
Foghat
Apr 8, 2010 at 11:12am
This is satire, right? I mean, with all due respect to the Straight, which has way, way more than 50% ad content, the National Post at #10? Senior Voice at #3? The National Post has less integrity than almost any other paper I've read, except for some of those free weeklies, which are just banal rather than blatantly dishonest.
Evil Eye
Apr 8, 2010 at 12:45pm
Compared to the Canadian mainstream media, which has the integrity of Adolph Hitler, it is no wonder that the Georgia Straight is number one.
Stryder
Apr 8, 2010 at 2:23pm
Hard to believe any Canwest paper would rate better than the globe and mail. Has to be a late April fools joke.
moo
Apr 8, 2010 at 5:56pm
Straight is now #2 due to a voter with a lack of integrity. Since when has voting become a reliable or even meaningful measure of integrity (truthiness). How absurd. I voted against gravity yet I still don't float around my living room...
Janie Jones
Apr 8, 2010 at 8:42pm
Congratulations Georgia Straight!