us news and world report

us news and world report

The Importance of Staying Informed: US News and World Report

1. The Role of US News and World Report

This is a magazine called US News and World Report worth $9.99. The paper talks about the rankings of the top hospitals, good jobs, colleges, and grad schools. There are fifty million people who visit US News and World Report online. Many American families use the magazine and website to make decisions on the right institutions for their children to attend. The rankings set a high standard for education and put a healthy pressure on schools, colleges, and health institutions. The institutions are motivated to prove themselves where they stand and are compared to other institutions. They strive to be the best, and this is exactly what the readers are looking at—they want the best for themselves and their children. With compassion for America’s education and health, US News and World Report aims to identify which institutions are superior and which are not. Through their fresh rankings, they organize the best institutions in a sequential order to show which is the best. This keeps readers informed. US News and World Report gives the reader inside information with hard evidence and data. This is something readers cannot get anywhere else. They give clear analysis and methodologies on their rankings. Nowadays, more students are attending college. However, the third-party funding like Pell grants and scholarships are not rising to help increase the college students. With that said, many students are getting loans and putting themselves in economic bondage after they graduate. These students want to see the outcome of what they are getting into and if it is even worth it obtaining a degree. The US News and World Report college rankings give a very useful insight on this. It shows the tuition, graduates’ debt, and the average salary of graduates. This information can really help students ponder if they must attend the said school and if it’s worth obtaining mass debt. With a forecast of the changing America, the magazine put some thought on adding rankings regarding the social mobility of colleges. This is important for future generations. Today’s children are facing adversity when seeking admission to good colleges because there are not enough resources to support their education. The social mobility rankings measure how effective the colleges are enrolling students who are receiving federal Pell grants and also graduating them. These rankings identify which schools are providing these students a better chance of furthering their education and economic circumstances.

2. Providing Accurate and Timely News

The US News and World Report employs and adheres to a wide range of methods to ensure that its news is accurate and reliable. Primarily, these are reinforced through its policies by its staff through concrete examples, incentives, and deterrents. When submitting an article, a staff member must complete an internal form posing a series of queries aimed at ensuring the validity of their proposed news. Examples include whether they have identified and sought out all possible sources, and if the intention of the piece is only to present their findings within an unbiased framework. Staff members are also encouraged to find the most updated and relevant information by offering cash incentives to the best news submissions each month. Conversely, punishment is given to those who report outdated information, giving extra encouragement for all members to only submit the most recent findings. This whole system is overseen by news managers and coordinators, who will often seek out individual staff members to further discuss their news, or to ask for the reasoning behind its angle or presentation. This system ensures that every piece of news is refined to its most accurate and informative state. The news gathering process at US News and World Report is also fine-tuned to ensure that all news is timely. While many times news may come to a reporter directly, more often they will spend time seeking out information on a particular subject. In addition to formal studies and surveys, one-on-one interviewing is a very common way to seek out information for a news piece. All sources are identified even if the reporter is taking down notes on the phone, and rules against using information from internet sources as a substitute for true communication are strongly enforced. A news gathering team will often take a number of different angles on a particular topic and have many meetings to discuss the progress of their news, periodically meeting with editors to ensure that they are on the right track.

3. In-Depth Analysis and Expert Opinions

The importance of staying informed: US News and World Report has discussed how important it is for citizens of society to stay informed. The media is the primary source where people obtain their information from, and informed citizens are the key to the survival of a democracy. For democracy to flourish, it is essential and so is also the same for citizens in understanding valuable their role is within it. Being that democracy is of the people, by the people, and for the people, US News and World Report has indicated that the public are often poorly informed about issues crucial to their welfare, and do not realise it. This is due to their own admission, as mentioned by the magazine, that they are often hasty in wanting to get to the news that is most interesting to them, and ignore everything else. People are misinformed and unaware about the implications of many issues, and are seldom willing to admit to it. This “news for the journey” that people ignore is often of higher importance to the “news of the day”.

A characteristic of newsmagazines is their ability to give in-depth analysis. This is accomplished through news features that take a particular event, issue, or person in the news, and by covering it in great detail. For US News and World Report, analysis is presented in special reports and the cover story. A special report provides thorough analysis on various topics such as social security or the state of the earth. These reports are unbiased and well balanced. The cover story usually offers analysis on the biggest news. In addition, opinion articles from experts in the field give the reader insight from informed observers. The editorial stance of the magazine is clearly conservative, despite that the resource remains valuable. The use of expert opinions and offering of in-depth analysis is important as it helps readers gain a better understanding of news which they would be poorly informed on, from other news sources. This enhances the capability of readers to understand complex issues and their implications, and to be better informed citizens.

4. Top Rankings and Lists

These lists and rankings range from schools and colleges, through hospitals and health care, to cars and even the best places to retire. These topics are not covered sequentially but are grouped together and are for the most part done by outside evaluators, the theory being that it is possible to evaluate in greater depth and quality with characteristics of a static unchanging institution. Schools, colleges, and hospitals, of which there are too many to analyze at once, are rated on a subset of characteristics of each institution and then combined to give a total score. This can be subject to much debate, and sometimes it is difficult to discern how these scores are combined.

As we have noted earlier, the most important part of a news magazine is the objectivity and reliability of the news. This leads to a special desire on the part of the readers to know who is the best in various avenues of American life, and enclosing news is another way of answering this question. In the past few years, US News has encountered a fair amount of criticism in the way it has responded to this wish, mostly due to a fundamental change in thinking going on at the magazine. In order to imprison the essence of a complex society which is forever changing, US News feels that it is necessary to present it as a living thing by reporting ongoing and newsworthy events by the use of analysis and interpretation in their regular news section, instead of reporting these events purely as the facts themselves (Barlow et al., 1981, p. 180). This has led to the incorporation of a number of interpretative features, and also a greater emphasis on interpretation in the news. To escape this complexity of news and to answer the readers’ question as to who is the best, US News believes that it is necessary to differentiate between the news and the static quality of American institutions. A series of rankings and lists is an attempt to do this (Rating the Rankings: What Can You Learn From the U.S. News Lists and Rankings, 1992, p. 22). At this point, we should give recognition to Newsweek magazine, which with 6 times the circulation of US News, decided last year to emulate its ranking ways with the publication of its own college rankings.

5. Empowering Readers with Knowledge

By giving readers a comparative analysis of news events and issues, US News and World Report empowers them to take an active part in the democratic process. “Our role is not to tell readers what to think, but to educate them with credible information so they can reach informed opinions of their own,” said Editor and Chief Marvin Stone. One example is the cover story on the strategic arms talks between the United States and the Soviet Union. The piece is an in-depth analysis of the issue complete with background information and future implications. Following the article is a “backgrounder” providing even more detailed information. Finally, readers are presented with a comprehensive chart, outlining the pros and cons of the US’s recent proposals and a piece detailing the current status of USSR weaponry. To enhance reader understanding of the issue, U.S. News has taken a complex, confusing subject and broken it down into comprehensive, easy-to-understand pieces.