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How were the Top Ten Under-Reported Stories Chosen?

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In this section we outline our methods; we briefly describe the steps taken to gather nominations, research and rank the stories that make up the top ten list. We encourage critical analysis of these methods and have included (as we have in other chapters of this Yearbook) suggestions, criticisms and comments from student researchers, members of the national panel of judges and others interested in improving PCC's approach to identifying blindspots in the news. This chapter acts as a roadmap, describing the path we took to create the 1994 top ten list, including (in some instances) the roadblocks and sharp turns we encountered.

Before we could begin sorting and evaluating the amount of coverage stories received, we needed to collect nominations of nationally significant stories which were under-reported during 1994. This year we used several approaches to obtain nominations:

We produced a new version of our brochure and distributed it with all our correspondence, at public meetings and conferences.

Nominations were explicitly solicited by mail from all federal Members of Parliament.

We contacted about 50 alternative periodicals across Canada by mail, asking them to publicize the project and inviting them to send what they considered to be their best under-covered stories. (Appendix B includes an Alternative Press Information Guide which lists many of these publications.) In addition, the 1994 issues of a selection of these periodicals were scanned by Todd Manuel, an Honours Communication student at SFU, and by the student seminarians at SFU. These periodicals included Alternatives, BorderLines, Briarpatch, Canadian Dimension, Canadian Forum, City Magazine, Kinesis, New Catalyst, New Directions, New Maritimes, Our Times, Our Schools/Ourselves, Project Ploughshares Monitor, and This Magazine.

As a result of our own publicity efforts, as well as media coverage following the April 1994 release of the top 1993 under-reported stories, a number of individuals and associations across Canada forwarded 1994 nominations to us by fax and mail.

The above approaches yielded approximately 150 nominations of 1994 stories, up from 111 the previous year. Key information about each story (author, title, topic, nominator, etc.) was entered in a computerized database. The project co-directors and research assistants weeded out a handful of clearly ineligible entries (refer to criteria), and separated or combined several others.

In January 1995, files of the stories were distributed to the 16 Simon Fraser and 8 University of Windsor students enrolled in the two PCC seminars. James Compton, SFU research assistant, arranged a 'semi-blind' reliability test; he selected 11 stories to be researched independently by both seminars, so the results could be compared. (The test was a qualified success: 7 of the 11 stories were either accepted or rejected by both seminars.)

From that point on, the research can be described as a winnowing or filtering process. At the next stage, each member of the seminars researched several stories. For each story, a student undertook both a critical reading of the story, and a search of the Canadian Business & Current Affairs (CBCA) database to measure the coverage the story had received in 1994. These procedures formed the basis for the student's oral presentation of the story to the seminar. Following each presentation, and after discussion (often extensive, and sometimes quite lively), the entire seminar voted on whether they felt story should be dropped or forwarded to the next stage.

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