WHAT MAKES AN ISSUE RELEVANT TO NEWSPAPER EDITORIALS? An empirical approach to criteria of editorial-worthiness

MONT’ALVERNE, CAMILA; MARQUES, FRANCISCO PAULO JAMIL

doi:10.25200/BJR.v18n1.2022.1475

CAMILA MONT’ALVERNE

University of Oxford, Oxford – Oxfordshire – United Kingdom. E-mail: camila.montalverne@politics.ox.ac.uk

CAMILA MONT’ALVERNE. Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford. Ph.D. in Political Science (UFPR). Her main research interests are in the area of political communication, focusing on political journalism, media trust, and media and elections. Collaboration in the article: theoretical and methodological design; data collection, analysis, and discussion of the results; writing and editing of the text. E-mail: camila.montalverne@politics.ox.ac.uk

http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6100-4879

FRANCISCO PAULO JAMIL MARQUES

Universidade Federal do Paraná, Curitiba – Paraná – Brazil. E-mail: marquesjamil@gmail.com

FRANCISCO PAULO JAMIL MARQUES. Ph.D. in Communication and Associate Professor at the Federal University of Paraná, Brazil. CNPq research fellow (grant (310724/2020-1). Visiting Scholar at Michigan State University (School of Journalism, 2021–2022) (CAPES grant 88887.478242/2020-00). Lead scholar at the Research Group on Media, Politics, and Technology (PONTE), investigating Political Journalism and Digital Democracy. Collaboration in the article: conceptualization of the research; theoretical and methodological development; data collection, analysis, and discussion of the results; writing and final editing of the text. E-mail: marquesjamil@gmail.com

http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5256-1964

CAMILA MONT’ALVERNE. Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford. Ph.D. in Political Science (UFPR). Her main research interests are in the area of political communication, focusing on political journalism, media trust, and media and elections. Collaboration in the article: theoretical and methodological design; data collection, analysis, and discussion of the results; writing and editing of the text. E-mail: camila.montalverne@politics.ox.ac.uk

FRANCISCO PAULO JAMIL MARQUES. Ph.D. in Communication and Associate Professor at the Federal University of Paraná, Brazil. CNPq research fellow (grant (310724/2020-1). Visiting Scholar at Michigan State University (School of Journalism, 2021–2022) (CAPES grant 88887.478242/2020-00). Lead scholar at the Research Group on Media, Politics, and Technology (PONTE), investigating Political Journalism and Digital Democracy. Collaboration in the article: conceptualization of the research; theoretical and methodological development; data collection, analysis, and discussion of the results; writing and final editing of the text. E-mail: marquesjamil@gmail.com

Desk Review Editor: Lia Seixas

Editorial value	Description
The power elite	Readiness to mention people holding prominent positions.
Magnitude and relevance	Coverage of an event due to its social relevance or amount of people affected by them.
Conflict	The existence of controversies draws the attention of newspaper editorials.
Topicality	This value considers the preference for dealing with events present on the public agenda at a given moment.
Newspaper agenda	An issue can be addressed in editorials mainly because it is important to the newspaper itself, even if it is not a “hot” issue.
Jurisprudence	Previous editorial decisions work as a guideline for later manifestations on related topics.
Meaningfulness	The tendency to prioritize subjects in which a newspaper has a higher chance of having its opinion publicly considered or respected.
Follow-up	Editorials may cover the same topic when controversies or events of social repercussion persist in the public debate over a long time and meet the newspaper’s interest.
Reach	The primary geographic scope of a journalistic organization is also considered when deciding what editorials will address.
Zeitgeist	Depending on the transformations that each society undergoes over time, it may be no longer acceptable to defend specific arguments in public. The making of an editorial also considers the spirit of the time and the milieu where texts are published.
Parallelism	This editorial value has to do with the ideological adherence of news organizations to institutions or ideologies from other fields.
Quarrels between a newspaper and an agent or institution	The antagonism of a newspaper toward a specific authority or leader can be cultivated over the years, guiding the production of adversarial editorials.
The momentary mood of the newspaper toward people or institutions	The resistance of a newspaper expressed through editorials toward someone or something may also be temporary.

2007	2017
From 01/01/2007 to 07/01/2007	From 02/01/2017 to 08/01/2017
From 12/02/2007 to 18/02/2007	From 13/02/2017 to 19/02/2017
From 19/03/2007 to 25/03/2007	From 20/03/2017 to 26/03/2017
From 23/04/2007 to 29/04/2007	From 24/04/2017 to 30/04/2017
From 07/05/2007 to 13/05/2007	From 01/05/2017 to 07/05/2017
From 11/06/2007 to 17/06/2007	From 12/06/2017 to 18/06/2017
From 16/07/2007 to 22/07/2007	From 17/07/2017 to 23/07/2017
From 20/08/2007 to 26/08/2007	From 21/08/2017 to 27/08/2017
From 03/09/2007 to 09/09/2007	From 04/09/2017 to 10/09/2017
From 08/10/2007 to 14/10/2007	From 09/10/2017 to 15/10/2017
From 19/11/2007 to 25/11/2007	From 20/11/2017 to 26/11/2017
From 24/12/2007 to 31/12/2007	From 25/12/2017 to 31/12/2017

Variables	Reliability level (Krippendorff’s alpha)
Theme	0,84
Specific theme	0,75
Magnitude and relevance (Meaningfulness and Reach are merged with this one)	0,81
Follow-up	There were not enough occurrences to apply the reliability test
Topicality	0,28
The power elite	0,77
Conflict	0,55
Jurisprudence	There were not enough occurrences to apply the reliability test
Political parallelism (Historic of quarrels and Momentary mood are merged with this one)	0,49 (support to an actor or party) and 0,57 (opposition to an actor or party)

Issue	FSP		OESP
Issue	N	%	N	%
Politics	283	85	451	89
Economy	25	7,5	33	6,5
Social Issues	17	5,1	10	2
Other	8	2,4	13	2,6
Total	333	100	507	100

The specific themes in Politics	FSP			OESP
The specific themes in Politics	N	%	SR	N	%	SR
Total	283	85	--	451	89	--
Institutional norms	18	5,4	-2,3	60	11,8	1,9
Political game	20	6	-1,2	46	9,1	1
Elections	3	0,9	-0,1	5	1	0,1
Economic policies	62	18,6	-1,2	121	23,9	1
Other public policies	91	27,3	1,7	102	20,1	-1,3
Assessment of political agents and institutions	7	2,1	-0,5	14	2,8	0,4
Corruption and investigations	36	10,8	0,6	46	9,1	-0,5
International policies	39	11,7	1,1	43	8,5	-0,9
Political ideology	6	1,8	-0,1	10	2	0,1
Other	1	0,3	-0,7	4	0,8	0,6

Editorial value	FSP			OESP
Editorial value	N	%	SR	N	%	SR
Follow-up*	10	3	-1,9	36	7,1	1,6
Topicality	205	61,6	-0,1	314	61,9	0
The power elite	221	66,4	-0,2	345	68	0,2
Conflict**	171	51,4	-2,1	334	65,9	1,7
Jurisprudence	9	2,7	0,7	9	1,8	-0,6
Parallelism (positive)*	56	16,8	-1,5	116	22,9	1,2
Parallelism (negative)*	149	44,7	-1,5	277	54,6	1,2

	FSP			OESP
	N	%	SR	N	%	SR
Total	333	100	--	507	100	--
Local	31	9,3	-1,1	65	12,8	0,9
National	229	68,8	-0,7	375	74	0,5
International	73	21,9	2,3	67	13,2	-1,9

	2007			2017
	N	%	SR	N	%	SR
Political parallelism (positive)	66	15,6	-2,2	106	25,4	2,2

[1] CAMILA MONT’ALVERNE. Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford. Ph.D. in Political Science (UFPR). Her main research interests are in the area of political communication, focusing on political journalism, media trust, and media and elections. Collaboration in the article: theoretical and methodological design; data collection, analysis, and discussion of the results; writing and editing of the text. E-mail: camila.montalverne@politics.ox.ac.uk

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ABSTRACT