The Journalism.org web site is the information portal for the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ). The goal of PEJ, according to this web site, is to aid journalists and citizens toward a “better understanding of what the press is delivering, how the media are changing, and what forces are shaping those changes” (www.journalism.org/about_pej/about_us). As a part of the Pew Research Center, the PEJ operates as a nonpartisan and non‐ideological “fact tank” utilizing polling and empirical measures to analyze media content.
The Journalism.org homepage presents a well‐organized layout and headlines some of the PEJ's recent reports in several key content areas. These content areas are also listed in the main navigation menu: Numbers, Analysis, News Indexes, and Daily Briefings. A brief list of recent Special Features is also listed on the homepage, including reports on the 2008 Presidential Campaign and the 2009 edition of the State of the News Media.
The Numbers section of the web site provides hundreds of data sets dating back to 1998, which can be sorted or filtered by date, media sector, news topic or other criteria. What is exceptionally fascinating is the ability to customize the display of this chart data through the web site, without the use of Java or other browser plugins. Specific survey elements can be easily included or omitted and the data arranged into bar charts, line charts or pie graphs with a few clicks. An advanced customization link allows the user to change the chart scale and more display options. The PEJ also makes complete data sets freely available for download in a zip file on an annual basis.
An Analysis section includes a chronological archive of all research studies, commentaries, reports, articles and speeches published by the PEJ. Many of these are posted in HTML format, though a few also include a PDF option.
The Indexes section provides a useful week‐by‐week review of news coverage by the traditional media and by the new media, specifically the blogosphere. During the week of March 30, 2009, for example, the PEJ found that many stories from the traditional press focused on the G20 summit and the economic crisis, while the blogosphere was linking to items about an April Fools prank by The Guardian and to an article that questioned the effectiveness of torture as an interrogation technique. The Indexes section also includes two archives of weekly reports on campaign coverage by the media, and on talk shows, but these are not currently being updated. The Indexes section is also keyword searchable, but search results are not sorted chronologically or by any discernable pattern.
The Daily Briefings include links to current news articles, blog postings, and other items about media coverage. This section is updated each weekday and can be searched by keyword, where results did display in reverse chronological order. PEJ is careful to note that links to older articles may be inactive, and that users may need to search the source's archives or a database such as LexisNexis to locate these articles.
The centerpiece of the Journalism.org web site is perhaps the PEJ's State of the News Media reports. Published annually since 2004, these reports attempt to quantify the condition of American journalism. This report looks at the trends impacting the media, and analyses the content, audience, and economic factors affecting different sectors of the media including newspapers, magazines, online, network television, cable television, ethnic media groups and more. The reports also cite the methodology used and provide a source bibliography.
A Journalism Resources page provides a valuable collection of pages and links to other resources which would help students, instructors and professionals in the journalism field. This section includes links to more than two dozen codes of ethics produced by various journalistic organizations, as well as lists of journalism schools and job links. A page devoted to Journalism Tools includes links to the web site of the Committee for Concerned Journalists, a group with historical ties to PEJ before it joined the Pew Research Center in 2006.
The only content area where Journalism.org seems lacking is in its regular analysis of talk radio. This influential medium is evaluated in its annual State of the News Media report however. Other similar nonpartisan and research‐oriented web sites include the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press (http://people‐press.org/) and the Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University (www.cmpa.com/).
The Journalism.org web site maintains five RSS feeds for its key content areas, and offers users an option to subscribe to free email updates. Many pages on the site also included helpful links for printer‐friendly formatting and for emailing the URL of the currently viewed page. Although the site does not provide for online comments on its stories, it does incorporate a share button to bookmark or post pages from Journalism.org to other social networking sites. Journalism.org is highly recommended for public and academic libraries, and to educators in journalism, seeking an authoritative, online resource which offers objective analysis of the news media without an overt political agenda.
