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A majority of the public believes the media can’t be trusted.

Which global news sites are most transparent about their operations? Not necessarily the ones you would think….

Openness & Accountability: A Study of Transparency in Global Media Outlets

Main Results

Study Conclusions

Understanding Results

Why Transparency?

Study Methodology

Authors

The study used five categories to evaluate the news outlets:

Corrections: Willingness to openly correct mistakes.

Ownership: Openness about corporate ownership.

Staff Policies: Openness about conflicts of interest.

Reporting Policies: Openness about editorial guidelines.

Interactivity: Openness to reader comments and criticism.

	Excellent
	Very Good
	Average
	Poor
	Not Acceptable

	Overall Score	Corrections	Ownership	Staff Policies	Reporting Policies	Interactivity
7. PRI	2.2

Ranking: Good.
Details of Findings:
	There is no corrections page, and even doing a search on the website does not bring up corrections.
	The owner information can be found easily. It is listed somewhere on the home page (top or bottom), within 1-2 clicks. Information about the owner is also linked to easily, within 1-2 clicks.
	There was a clearly defined code of ethics, but the policy for conflicts of interest was extremely vague.
	News Values are outlined in Mission Statement or “About Us” or “Human Resources.”
	The outlet did not have an ombudsman. A link is provided to send letters to the editor. The outlet listed specific phone numbers of news bureaus, but not individual reporters. Blogs by reporters were unavailable. There were no live chats. There is no ability to comment on a story.
(Sarah Merkey and Kristi Ellingsworth)

About PRI

Circulation/Audience

16 million

Online Access

No log-in required.

Parent Company

Co-production of BBC, PRI, and WGBH: http://www.pri.org/, http://www.bbcworld.com/Pages/default.aspx, http://www.wgbh.org/

Other Relevant Ownership and Interests

Partnerships with NPR and BBC

Parent Company Revenue

Non-profit

A center of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism and the School of Public Policy. Copyright © 2006 International Center for Media and the Public Agenda. 1117 Journalism Building, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742