A Feed Is Born

A study on problems with news media rss feeds

by Juned on June 25th, 2007

While bloghopping I came across a post at RSS4Lib pointing to his particular study. Now this is a must read for anyone into the study or lore of RSS. A study conducted by the The International Center for Media and the Public Agenda, which was established by the University of Maryland and the Philip Merrill College of Journalism, takes a critical look at the RSS feeds of several news media outlets. The study entitled International News and Problems with the News Media RSS Feeds ranked the rss services of each media outlet into four main criteria: (i) Reliability, (ii)Inclusivesness, (iii) Key Info and (iv)Timeliness.

I. News Media Groups Studied:

The study looks at the RSS feeds and websites of 19 major news outlets in the United States, the United Kingdom and the Arab World:

ABC News
The Financial Times
The New York Times
Al Jazeera (English)
Fox News
Newsweek
BBC World Service
The Guardian
Time magazine
CBS News
The International Herald Tribune
USA Today
The Christian Science Monitor
ITN
The Washington Post
CNN
The Los Angeles Times
The Daily Telegraph
NBC/MSNBC

II. Why this study is a good read:

This is a good and reliable read because when you go to the website of the study nearly all aspects of the study is provided and gives the reader the means to evaluate the study itself. The main sections of the report provided are (i) study conclusions, (ii) Understanding the results, (iii) What is RSS?, (iv)study methodology and (v) authors. In other word the study is presented like a proper research study. And it is written in a style that is easily understandable.

The website also includes bullet points to further highlight the study. For example the criteria used in the research is discussed extensively in the main text and at the same time a bullet point chart on the left-hand bar gives a concise description of the criteria.

Reliability: Do RSS search results match website’s search results?
Inclusiveness: Does RSS offer non-staff & archived stories (if also come through website search)?
Key info: Does RSS give headline/summary, date, time, reporter?
Timeliness: Are RSS stories as timely as those from website search?

And aside from the ranking provided on a table if you clicked on the name of the news media it will take you to a page that contains narrative evaluations that further provided information and observations made during the study.

Lets read it and tell me what you think.

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POSTED IN: In the media, RSS