Reading Sources — Press Release, Wire Service, Original Paper — Quiz

1.

Explain what churnalism is, and describe one structural reason — identified by Davies (2008) — why it became prevalent in UK journalism.

2.

Why should the presence of the same story in many different news outlets not be taken as evidence of independent corroboration?

3.

Describe the steps involved in tracing a science news story back to the original research paper, including at least two specific tools.

4.

The Cardiff University study (Lewis et al., 2008) found that what proportion of UK national newspaper stories were based on the publication's own original reporting?

5.

A press release is best understood as:

6.

Which of the following is a reliable indicator that a news article was based primarily on a press release?

7.

If ten different news websites all publish stories about the same research finding using similar language and the same quotations, what does this most likely indicate about the evidence base?

8.

Unpaywall is a tool that helps readers:

9.

What might a direct comparison between a press release and the news article based on it reveal about how the information was changed in transmission?