Recent Journalism Awards Won by Old, New, and Hybrid Media

Abstract

This compares the quality of the old media to that of the new media by determining how often each type of media source wins major journalism awards. It divides media sources into three categories: old, new and hybrid. New media is limited to publications that were started purely as online news publications. Old media is classified in the traditional sense to include such newspapers as the New York Times. Hybrid media combines elements of both new and old media. Our research compares the number of Pulitzer Prizes and other major journalism awards won by these three types of media sources since 2005 (or the dates these awards first opened to non-traditional types of media). The results demonstrate that traditional media still wins the vast majority of journalism awards (225 of 307 awards (73%), including 24 of 37 Pulitzer Prizes), while the new media won only 36 of 307 awards, and only 4 Pulitzer Prizes). The results are especially striking for awards for investigatory journalism (traditional media won 65 of 86 awards - 76%) and for local journalism (traditional media won 23 of 32 awards - 77%). This is evidence that the reporting by the traditional media is often of a significantly higher quality than that of the new or hybrid media. This quality difference has implications for Antitrust analysis and for many other policy issues. This document serves as the appendix to an article: Thomas J. Horton & Robert H. Lande, Should the Internet Exempt the Media Sector from the Antitrust Laws? 65 Florida Law Review 1521 (2013), available at: http://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/all_fac/1747