Blog Assignment #1

Survey Finds Slack Standards at Magazine Web Sites
By Stephanie Clifford
Published: February 28, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/01/business/media/01mag.html?scp=3&sq=survey&st=cse

1. The survey was conducted by the Columbia Journalism Review, which is a bi-monthly publication of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

2. Outside of the study being linked to the CJR, there were no other names listed with the study.

3. Given that the CJR is both an in-print and online publication, there appears to be no apparent bias it would give in the survey. Furthermore, their website shows that they are critical of all day-to-day press - not just those that are web-based.

4. In the New York Times link above, the author gives information about the methodology. For example, CJR "contacted about 3,000 magazines in the summer and fall of 2009, and 665 of them completed the survey." The author then notes that the full results would be released the following Monday and I found the full methodology here:
http://www.cjr.org/resources/magazines_and_their_websites/index.php?ID=4

5. The results are communicated well and are easy to understand. However, the author never defines what "less stringent" means in the findings when she states that "Copy-editing requirements online were less stringent than those in print at 48 percent of the magazines" and "Although 57 percent of the magazines fact-check online submissions in the same way they fact-check print articles, 27 percent used a less-stringent process".

6. The two pie graphs in the article are clear and concise, providing good information to the reader that is easy to understand.