I. Gathering Data

With your partner (s), review the newspapers in your packet.  First, determine exactly where each paper is from – you might want to consult a map or atlas.  Is the newspaper from a metropolitan center?  A suburb?  A rural area?  What region of the country is it from?  Are other newspapers in your packet from nearby communities?

If you aren’t familiar with the areas the newspapers come from, consult appropriate reference works to determine the major economic and demographic characteristics: what are the important industries in this area?  What kinds of people live there (ethnic mix, age groups, etc.)?  Is it a growing, stable, or contracting community?

Next, examine the front page of each newspaper.  Carefully note which stories, if any, appear on the front pages of all the papers, which stories appear in more than one paper but not all, and which stories are unique to a particular newspaper.  What are the characteristics of the stories that appear in multiple papers?  Of those that appear in only one paper? 

Check the source of national and international news: does it come from the newspaper’s own staff?  From the Associated Press?  From another wire service?  Does the paper use more than one service?

Look through all the newspapers.  If there are national or international stories that made the front page in some papers, but not all, can you find those stories in the other newspapers in your packet?  Where do they appear? 

Now look at the front page of the local section of the newspaper (for smaller papers, like the American News, this might not be a completely separate section).  What kinds of stories appear in each newspaper?  Can you identify any common patterns?  What are they?  Who writes the stories that appear in this section?

Then look at the sports page of the newspaper.  What national stories, if any, make the front page of this section?  Is there more or less variety in the selection of stories for this section than for the front page?  Which stories are given the greatest prominence in each paper?  Who writes the stories?  Are they all news stories (i.e., reporting of events), or are there features or columns on the first sports page?

II.  Interpreting Data

Use your observations of the newspapers to draw some conclusions about the news values these papers reflect.  What values or judgments do all of the papers seem to hold in common?  How do local concerns or events affect the selection and placement of news stories?  Consider the reasons for some of your observations – e.g., why does one newspaper place a story on the front page while another paper puts the same story on page five, and yet another paper omits it entirely?

Write your conclusions in a two- to three-page collaborative paper.  Be sure to identify the newspapers that you reviewed, and to mention specific community factors that you felt influenced each paper’s news values.  Point to particular stories that support your conclusions.  Your discussion should be fairly detailed; don’t settle for broad, superficial generalizations, but connect particular issues to particular stories.   

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