DOI: 10.3886/icpsr35590
title: Reporting the Arts II [2003]
title: Archival Version

description: 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.
description: The purpose of the study was to look at a spread of cities that are more comparable with each other than the "culture capital" New York or the "entertainment capital" Los Angeles.
description: 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. Specifically, the study coded 7,217 articles on arts-and-cultures at 17 metropolitan newspapers and 1,530 articles from three national daily newspapers. Cities were selected for inclusion in the study based on their geography and size and an interest in comparing cities with and without established arts scenes, broad arts presence, and newspaper competition. 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. National newspapers included in the study were The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. Metropolitan newspapers included in the study were the Charlotte Observer, Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News, Houston Chronicle, Miami Herald, Philadelphia Daily News, Philadelphia Inquirer, Portland Oregonian, Providence Journal, Contra Costa Times, Oakland Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner, and the San Jose Mercury News. Neither national magazines such as Parade nor unpaginated pullot advertising supplements were included.
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 sections. A field was designated to flag articles whose inclusion or exclusion was ambiguous, and they were resolved by the project's research analyst. The verbal description of each article was checked to make sure that it conformed with its code. For a double check all articles with the same code were grouped and proofread by coders to flag inconsistencies in categorization. Because any coder error in long articles would have a disproportionate effect on the findings, items of outlying length were coded twice. Every section of each newspaper was scrutinized for articles and listings on arts and culture. Excluded were stories on culture in the sociological sense: food and drink, religion, philosophy, education, and the humanities. Non-arts media stories were excluded: non-entertainment television, including news, sports, and advertising; magazines; other journalism; spectator sports; consumer fashion; media business; Internet; Web site and online media; technology; consumer electronics; and telecommunications. The cities and newspapers scrutinized in this study do not, statistically speaking, amount to an accurate portrayal of American arts journalism. Other clusters of case studies might have yielded somewhat different results. The quantitative content analysis at the heart of this study, and especially over-time comparisons, are subject to error. Obtaining, filing, examining, and coding thousands of articles in hundreds of papers amounts to a complicated process rife with opportunities for mistakes. These are compounded when measurements happen at two points in time and are made by different groups of coders. The published report has emphasized only trends that were discernible even when accounting for a double margin of error. The researchers are confident, though, that the larger picture of transforming newsrooms and communities is accurate for the country as whole today. 
The researchers chose to conduct the content analysis during October because it is a busy time for arts coverage. The cities and the papers -- which were picked to encompass a wide range of types -- add up to an illustrative cross section of communities and news organizations, analyzed at the peak of their annual performance. The month of October should have resulted in 584 separate issues of the 20 newspapers in the study, however the Oakland Tribune of October 6 was missing. A few issues were delivered with missing sections (33 sections were missing in total). Ten of the missing sections were specialist arts sections. As a consequence, the data are somewhat understated for The Plain Dealer (missing one weekend supplement), The Houston Chronicle (missing one weekend supplement), The Oakland Tribune (missing two weekend supplements and the October 6 daily arts and leisure section), The Oregonian (missing one weekend supplement and two daily arts and leisure sections), and The Providence Journal (missing one daily arts and leisure section).
description: 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. Sections were classified according to one of seven categories: news, business, sports, daily arts and lifestyles, weekend arts, nonarts features, and advertising. The number of pages for each section was counted and expressed as a proportion of the newspaper's total.
description: The selection of newspaper markets was based on several criteria: geography and size, an interest in comparing cities with established arts scenes (Chicago and Philadelphia) to those that are the product of demographic and industrial development in recent decades (San Jose, Charlotte) or that reflect new multicultural patterns (Miami, the Bay Area). Researchers also sought cities traditionally associated with a strong, singular arts presence (such as Cleveland) and ones with a broad range of them; cities where one newspaper dominates the media scene (Houston, Providence) and ones marked by newspaper competition (Denver, Chicago). The choice of markets enabled the researchers to analyze one major metropolitan area with overlapping newspaper markets, three big cities with competing daily newspapers, and seven smaller single-newspaper cities. In one market (San Francisco) five titles were analyzed; in three markets (Chicago, Denver, Philadelphia) two titles were analyzed; the remaining seven markets have only one metropolitan daily. In addition three national weekday newspapers were analyzed (and Saturday and Sunday editions where applicable).
description: Datasets: 
DS0: Study-Level Files
DS1: Reporting the Arts II [2003]
DS2: Reporting the Arts II: Sections [2003]
description: Articles and listings about arts and culture in metropolitan daily newspapers.
description: Reporting the Arts II [2003] was conducted by the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University.This data collection was previously distributed by the Cultural Policy and the Arts National Data Archive (CPANDA). The CPANDA Identification Number (study number) for the entire data collection is c00013. The CPANDA Identification Number for Reporting the Arts II [2003] is a00188, and for Reporting the Arts II: Sections [2003] is a00200. CPANDA conducted the following processing steps for release of this collection: produced a codebook, checked for undocumented codes, performed consistency checks, provided frequencies, performed recodes, and reformatted the data.Quick facts for this data collection, "How has Newspaper Coverage of Arts-and-Culture Changed from 1998 to 2003?" and "What is the Focus of Arts-and-Culture Content in Newspapers?" are available from the Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies (CACPS) at Princeton University.Andrew Tyndall, research analyst, contributed to this project.