F and the M

24 Feb 98

30 Apr 98

Ontario

Who?

What?

About Whom?

Notes

Who?

On average, about half of the writing that appeared about religion originated with a wire service. The remainder was either contributed by staff writers/reporters/photographers. A smaller, but not insignificant amount was submitted by a guest columnist, or in the form of a letter to the editor. There were, of course, variations between newspapers; here's a quick synopsis of the 'most' and 'least' of each type of content:

Type	Avg %	Most	%	Least	%
Wire	50%	Brandon Sun	85.7%	Ottawa Citizen	24.7%
Staff	42%	Toronto Sun	64.6%	Brandon Sun	7.1%
Guest	8%	Guelph Mercury	20.5%	Brandon Sun, Cape Breton Post, Chronicle Herald, Telegraph Journal	0%

502 different bylines were noted by volunteers, excluding those identified as 'guests'. Bylines that included a name as well as a wire service affiliation (eg. David Briggs, Associated Press) were not included in the corresponding wire service count (eg. Associated Press).

Here are the "Top Ten" contributors to reporting on religion as noted in the study:

Placing	Person/Organization	No. of Stories	% of all Stories	No. of Newspapers Carrying Stories
1	Associated Press	170	12.1	25
2	Canadian Press	91	6.5	25
3	Reuters	41	2.9	16
4	Agence France-Presse	37	2.6	4
5	Unnamed Wire Services	21	5	1.5
	Bob Harvey			2
6	The Daily Telegraph	10	.71	4
	Chris Cobb			5
	David Briggs			7
7	Harvey Shepherd	9	.64	5
8	Pauline Finch-Dürichen	8	.57	2
9	Douglas Todd	7	.50	2
	Gordon Legge			1
	Kim Bolan			1
10	Martin Regg Cohn	6	.43	1

*For more information on the computation of percentages please see notes on the research.

Continue on to see what was in the news on 24 February 1998, or 30 April 1998, or how coverage can vary across Ontario on the same day.