Tracking the New York Times

Evaluating the newspaper for one week definitely allowed me to see beyond the information provided to the background for lack of a better term “bias” that is presented on an almost daily basis in various different news subjects. I chose the New York Times website ny times.com to evaluate, with predetermined criteria of four different subjects which were the business, sports, arts, and front page (national and international news.) Over the course of a week I evaluated five articles from each front page and tracked in each category the mention of sex, race, titles, and sources that were mentioned. The mention of sex was with respect to the number of men quoted to the number of women. The race included the same criteria as sex. Titles were an evaluation of which people the quoted information came from and their standing within society. Finally, sources were the specific sources of information and who exactly was being quoted in relation to the issue of the story.

I began with the business section and the sex issue. Most stories I reviewed consisted of financial world and national news and business activities. My findings were that men were quoted at almost a three to one ratio to women. The characteristics of the men quoted were that they were exclusively white males ranging in age from 35 and up. Most women quoted were either low level employees of a company or small business owners. One example was a woman who started her own small delivery business and the article noted she was a mother specifically, and was one of the few African Americans I found in the section. The majority of sources were the white males in the aforementioned age group and their job titles were explicitly both defined and specific. For example, two men who were quoted were an attorney for the US Attorney’s Office of Baltimore and a Laureate Economist.

The sports section produced varying results from the business section. With regards to sex this section was dominated by men. I found few articles about women and most were not exclusively devoted to women athletes. Of the few articles I found about women they were either semi-popular sports (urban freestyle-parkour) or related to track and field. The titles of the sources were displayed differently in the articles. Most white athletes interviewed were written by name only and their position was implied by the reader. Athletes of other races were quoted as their position and name, which many who were interviewed were running backs, wide receivers, or tackles in football; and pitchers in baseball. The sources were at a two to one ratio between coaches and players. With coaches/mangers being quoted as the most frequent source. In college football articles almost all of the sources were coaches only and no players were quoted.

The arts section displayed the most equal article subjects in accordance to the criteria. Sex was mentioned from a perspective of the artistic subject of the article. Meaning it noted sex only when it was important to the reviewed/evaluated artistic piece. The titles of people mentioned were also more equal as women received articles dedicated to them only. For example one article I reviewed was a discussion of a high position senior museum coordinator in New York. Race was mentioned with regard to the artistic piece and not with regard to the source. Most of the articles were written as an insider perspective of readers who were accustomed to dealing with arts and theater prevalent in New York City.

The final section was the front page articles provided on the website. The issue of sex was explicitly mentioned in the articles with specific mention to which the person cited was and their background to the issue. Many of the sources were higher up and important ranked individuals to the issue that was being discussed. There were not as many sources from the public opinion of the issue. This section had the highest mentions of race with regard to the people mentioned in the articles. It was almost always mentioned in the article, and nationality was always made a point to be mentioned within context. The titles of the sources were much more formal and rigid than in other stories as well.

I think this assignment was an interesting one with regard to finding bias in a place where equality and “truth” is regarded as the norm and the expected. It is poignant to note that bias exists within credible and evaluated news sources even on a subconscious level. Fair and accurate reporting has become quite the daunting endeavor in a society of such diverse and varying subject material, and I think as a journalism student it is important to be able to know what to evaluate even in sources one would trust normally.