A Comparative Analysis of Homelessness Coverage in Two Kansas-based News Publications

One day I wondered if I was being biased in my perception of a certain publication’s coverage so I decided to do a comparative analysis. The results were worse than I anticipated and I submitted the study as a class project for a Diversity in Media class.

The abstract and discussion is copied below. The full study is HERE and the appendixes are HERE.

Abstract

A total of 36 articles published between November 2022 to April 2023, 19 from the Lawrence Journal-World and 17 from The Lawrence Times, were analyzed to compare the publications’ coverage of the city-run North Lawrence campsite for people experiencing homelessness. The analysis revealed significant variations in the types and diversity of sources utilized, indicating varying degrees of proactive reporting by each publication. Additionally, an examination of word frequency identified differences in the focus and diligence of the two publications.

Discussion

A significant difference was found in the use of sources between the two publications. The Lawrence Times incorporated a more diverse range of sources, with 53 unique sources identified, whereas the Lawrence Journal-World only cited 15 unique sources (Table 1). Additionally, Lawrence Journal-World relied heavily on self-citing and city officials as sources, and The Lawrence Times prioritized camp residents, city officials, community members, and independent research (Table 2).

A notable disparity was observed in the level of source interaction between the two publications. The Lawrence Times actively engaged with 59 sources, such as in-person interviews and on-the-scene reporting, while Lawrence Journal-World only interacted with 7 (Table 5).

Additionally, the Lawrence Journal-World referred to itself in 14 out of 19 articles, indicating a deliberate preference for self-citation. However, without an interview, any explanation for this decision would be speculative. On the other hand, The Lawrence Times cited itself only twice. In both cases, the self-citations were used to summarize information from a previously published article and were consistent with the narrative of the current article.

Based on the findings, it appears that The Lawrence Times has a more active engagement with the community and represents a more diverse range of sources. In contrast, the Lawrence Journal-World relies on a limited set of sources, mainly city officials and press releases, and displays minimal involvement in community reporting. These results suggest that the Lawrence Journal-World primarily reports from within the newsroom and relies heavily on pre-packaged information provided by city officials.

The words used most frequently for both publications were “city,” “said,” “people,” “Lawrence,” and “camp.” Both publications also had “site,” “north,” and “homeless” in the top 20 list of total words used (Table 7, Table C1).

An observation of note is the 10th most used word per publication, which was “police,” for LJW with 40 occurrences, and “residents,” for LT with 52 occurrences.

The difference in the top 20 unique words between The Lawrence Times and the Journal-World highlights their differing priorities in reporting. The inclusion of words such as "Tony," "fence," and "Ashley" in The Lawrence Times' top 20 unique words, and the Journal-World's use of "release," "death," "World," "Journal," and "dead," suggests that the Journal-World prioritizes crime coverage and self-referencing, while The Lawrence Times focuses on highlighting the deceased individuals and what is important to the camp residents (i.e. the fence) (Table 8).