The expectations that sit at the top of the hierarchy relate more to how the news is gathered and presented than to actual content, although local news and weather also top the hierarchy. It reveals that the organization of the typical four-section daily newspaper closely parallels how Americans view their news and information needs.
Sports stands apart as a very clear and distinct category of coverage.
While sports are of intense interest to real fans, they have limited breadth of appeal. Thus, the interest figures reported below are far lower than we saw for the news topics just discussed. The third editorial category emerging from our analysis of the structure of news content is business and personal finance. Most central to this category is national business. Interestingly, science and technology emerges as part of this category, perhaps because of the appeal of high tech industries including computers, software and the Internet.