Correcting Online Content: The Influence of News Outlet Reputation

ABSTRACT

A between-subjects experiment (N = 386) explores the effects of correction features and reader investment on perceptions of online news content. In all, the findings suggest a strong influence of news outlet reputation. Participants paid more attention to the news outlet and the correction when they read from the online-exclusive publication (i.e., Yahoo.com), rather than the online version of the legacy publication (i.e., The New York Times), though they perceived the online-exclusive publication to be less reputable. Correction placement affected credibility and importance perceptions, but this was largely based on news outlet. Findings also suggest that political attitudes and news engagement influence perceptions of correction importance. Recommendations for online corrections practices are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Online news
• reputation
• credibility
• errors
• corrections
• reader engagement

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Media outlets in order of most to least favorable impression: ABC (M = 4.74, SD = 1.52), NBC (M = 4.72, SD = 1.56), CBS (M = 4.70, SD = 1.52), The New York Times (M = 4.64, SD = 1.58), Google News (M = 4.60, SD = 1.43), USA Today (M = 4.54, SD = 1.43), The Washington Post (M = 4.54, SD = 1.46), NPR (M = 4.42, SD = 1.58), Yahoo.com (M = 4.42, SD = 1.45), Huffington Post (M = 4.41, SD = 1.54), MSNBC (M = 4.30, SD = 1.59), CNN (M = 4.04, SD = 1.32), AOL.com (M = 4.04, SD = 1.32), Fox News (M = 3.97, SD = 2.00). Note that all means were above the midpoint, which suggests relatively positive impressions for all outlets.

2 After data collection, a minor typographical error unrelated to the experiment was identified in the stimulus corrections. It has been corrected here.

Additional information

Funding

This project was supported by a Page Legacy Scholar Grant from the Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication at the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications at The Pennsylvania State University. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Penn State.