Sungkyunkwan University (PDF) | Politico | TechCrunch
Minha Kim of Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul set out to study "whether or not objective reporting actually inhibits political participation." Seventy students taking a course in newswriting were divided into two groups. Half were given a "straight news" article about a 2008 controversy in Korea -- the country's importation of beef from the U.S. despite consumer protests that it wasn't safe -- and half were given an opinionated one.

The students who were politically knowledgeable “were immune to the agitating voice" of the opinionated article, Kim found. But nonobjective stories “exerted profound persuasive impact” on those who were not “sufficiently politically equipped to guide their judgments and actions by self-organized mature knowledge.” Those students were far more likely to attend a protest against the government importing American beef.

In addition, Kim found that the type of media that students consumed influenced their actions.

Traditional media such as newspapers and television did not significantly influence the subjects’ attitude toward the protest. It was the Internet and interpersonal communication that resulted in the subjects’ criticism of the Korean government policy to import U.S. beef. The more frequently subjects used the Internet, the more positive they were toward the protest.

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Texas Observer | Politico | The Washington Post | AJR
Washington Post higher education reporter Daniel de Vise "employed some unusual, perhaps even unethical, techniques" while preparing a piece about the Collegiate Learning Assessment, writes the Texas Observer's Forrest Wilder: He allowed officials at the University of Texas at Austin who were quoted in the piece to review the draft of his story and suggest changes.

Wilder obtained emails between de Vise and the UT brass via a public-records request, and the quotes he chooses make de Vise look eager to please: "Everything here is negotiable," he told the school's director of media outreach. "If you or anyone at the university has any concerns about it, I implore you to direct them to me. I'm one of a very few reporters here who send drafts to sources!"

De Vise also stressed his track record, Wilder writes:

In another email, de Vise wrote that he's "never had a dissatisfied customer in this process. And that includes an article a few months ago about a school with one of the nation's worst graduation rates.”

Two journalism profs (one at UT Austin!) criticized de Vise's process. Wilder also spoke to my Poynter colleague Kelly McBride, who disagreed: “I actually think that what those emails show is a very genuine effort on the part of the reporter to get not only the facts right but get the truth while remaining independent." McBride, Wilder says, told him that "the survival of the print news business has caused her and others to rethink the rules."

Writing in Politico late Tuesday, Dylan Byers called Wilder's story "pretty damning." De Vise's actions "went beyond getting the truth: UT officials wanted to scrub or alter quotes because they reflected poorly on the institution," Byers says. (more...)

Associated Press | Reuters | Gallup
A survey by Sony and Nielsen shows that television coverage of major news events are more memorable than entertainment and pop culture events like the finales of popular TV shows and the Super Bowl. The top 5 most memorable moments:

1. September 11 attacks (2001)
2. Hurricane Katrina - the levees break (2005)
3. OJ Simpson murder verdict (1995)
4. Challenger Space Shuttle disaster (1986)
5. Death of Osama bin Laden (2011)

News events dominated the top 20. Reuters reports:

"What's interesting for me is not what's on the list, but what's not on the list," said Brian Siegel, vice president of television for Sony Electronics. "There wasn't entertainment - no Super Bowl, no 'Friends' finale. It was all news and events ... Memories that are ubiquitous among all of us."

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The Media Blog | The Guardian | Press Complaints Commission
The U.K.'s Press Complaints Commission rebuked the Daily Mail's Mail Online for publishing a story last October saying Amanda Knox had lost the appeal of her murder conviction in Italy. Mail Online publisher Martin Clarke blamed "human error and over-zealousness" for the SNAFU, Will Sturgeon writes on The Media Blog.

The Guardian's Roy Gleenslade reports that the Mail "said that it was standard practice in such high-profile cases for two alternative stories (plus supporting quotes) to be prepared in advance, and cited the fact that other news outlets had also initially published the wrong verdict due to some confusion in the courtroom."

The problem is that the supporting quotes, like the scene they described — and this may not surprise anyone who follows Mail Online's rollicking adventures in journalism — were entirely fictitious.

Malcolm Coles saved the Mail story, which was taken down within minutes of being posted and featured this gripping scene:

Amanda Knox looked stunned this evening after she dramatically lost her prison appeal against her murder conviction. ...

As Knox realized the enormity of what judge Hellman was saying she sank into her chair sobbing uncontrollably while her family and friends hugged each other in tears. (more...)

Reuters | GigaOM | Nieman Journalism Lab
Felix Salmon has answered every oxpecker's dream with his provocative suggestion, spurred by The New York Times' expose of bribery at Wal-Mart's Mexico operations, that the newspaper consider selling its scoops to hedge funds. The story broke over the weekend, when no one could make money from it, though the drop in Wal-Mart's stock price on Monday showed that investors valued the information. His suggestion is intriguing, in the same way that it's intriguing to watch an economist explain to a homeless man that he won't give him spare change because it's an inefficient use of his capital.

"It’s entirely normal, and perfectly ethical, for news organizations, including Reuters, to give faster access to the best-paying customers," Salmon wrote Tuesday. "What’s more, good journalism is increasingly being done by people who unabashedly have skin in the game."

I see no ethical issues with this. At all. And that's not because Salmon just sent me $5 via PayPal to give this some attention and juice his traffic figures. (more...)

This American Life | Poynter
In the wake of its retraction of Mike Daisey's exposé on Apple, "This American Life" has pulled three Stephen Glass stories done in the late 1990s. In a Friday blog post, the show says that staff recently learned that the stories were still available on its website. "We'd taken these down years ago and then they went back up without any of us noting it when we did a redesign of the website in 2010."

A few days earlier, in describing the unanswered questions about the show's editorial process, Craig Silverman and I pointed out that the shows were online. In one of them, Glass tells a (literally) unbelievable story about his job as a telephone psychic: that a female caller told him that her father used to beat her with a bicycle chain when his football team failed to score, and that her husband was having sex with another woman, in the next room, while she was on the phone with Glass.

"This American Life" explains that it's common for journalists to do radio shows retelling stories published elsewhere. "We trust that since we're talking to fellow journalists who already published their work in mainstream publications, the work had been edited and vetted as true." (more...)