Does The Audience Reward News Quality?

Abstract

Following the 4th conclusion of the 1st Congress on Basque Journalism («Journalismin Basque will only go ahead, if some minimun quality standards are guaranteed»), this research aims to assess the direction of the news quality published in Basque media in the last years. The first on Basque media’s news quality found out that the excellence of Basque journalism is higher than the news quality of other media published in the Basque Country in other languages —French and Spanish— (González Gorosarri, 2011a). This new research will evaluate the influence of the economical crisis of 2008 in the Basque media. For such a purpose, based on author’s previous research (Basque media’s news quality, from 1983 until 2008), up to five hundred news reports will be analysed. The sample includes the main three Basque media (EiTB —broadcasting—, Berria —daily— and Argia —weekly—), as well as the most read news reports on the Internet and on Twitter, in order to determine if it corresponds to the media offer. The present research has verified that the journalistic quality is not so decisive in the demand for information.