To Disclose or Not to Disclose: A Comprehensive Analysis Into the Article Transparency of News Websites
Abstract
Theoretical Background
From Norms to Routines
Transparency Routines
Author Transparency
Update Transparency
Source Transparency
Production Transparency

External and Internal Differences
Origin of Outlet
Funding of Outlet
Profile of Outlet
Hard Versus Soft News
Methodology
Data Collection
Features
Article Features
Author Features
Explicit Author(s)
Author(s) Contact Information
Author(s) Biographic Information
Update Features
Update Timestamp Disclosure
Update Textual Disclosure
Sourcing Features
Internal Hyperlinking
Family Hyperlinking
NPO & RPO (Nederlandse en Regionale Publieke Omroepen) | DPG Media | Mediahuis |
---|---|---|
NOS (Nederlandse Omroep Stichting) | Algemeen Dagblad | De Telegraaf |
1Limburg | De Volkskrant | NRC Handelsblad |
NH Nieuws | NU.nl | Metro |
Omroep Brabant | Trouw | De Gelderlander |
Omroep Flevoland | BN DeStem | IJmuider Courant |
Omrop Fryslân | Brabants Dagblad | Noordhollands Dagblad |
Omroep Gelderland | De Gelderlander | Haarlems Dagblad |
Omroep West | De Stentor | De Gooi- en Eemlander |
Omroep Zeeland | Eindhovens Dagblad | Leidsch Dagblad |
Radio en Televisie Rijnmond | Het Parool | Dagblad van het Noorden |
Radio en Televisie Drenthe | Provinciale Zeeuwse Courant | Friesch Dagblad |
Radio en Televisie Noord Radio en Televisie Oost Radio en Televisie Utrecht | Tubantia | Leeuwarder Courant |
External Hyperlinking
Document Hyperlinking
Textual Sourcing

Production Features

Indices & Scales
Category | Routine | Weight |
---|---|---|
Author | Explicit author(s) | 0.39 |
Author | Contact information | 0.68 |
Author | Biographic information | 0.55 |
Update | Timestamp disclosure | 0.54 |
Update | Textual disclosure | 0.69 |
Source | Document hyperlinking | 0.68 |
Source | External hyperlinking | 0.60 |
Source | Internal & family hyperlinking | 0.56 |
Source | Explicit sourcing | 0.27 |
Analytical Strategy
Results
Author Transparency Analysis


Update Transparency Analysis


Source Transparency Analysis


Production Transparency Analysis

Hypotheses | Author | Update | Source | Production |
---|---|---|---|---|
H1: Digital-native media contain more transparency than legacy media | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
H2: Public media contain more transparency than commercial media | No | Yes | Yes | No |
H3: Quality media contain more transparency than popular media | Yes | No | No | No |
H4: Hard news contains more transparency than soft news | No | No | Yes | No |
Pair | ∆M | p |
---|---|---|
AD, NOS | 0.11 | <.001 |
AD, NRC | –0.30 | <.001 |
AD, NU | 0.09 | <.001 |
AD, Telegraaf | 0.06 | <.001 |
AD, Volkskrant | –0.36 | <.001 |
NOS, NRC | –0.41 | <.001 |
NOS, NU | –0.02 | <.001 |
NOS, Telegraaf | –0.05 | <.001 |
NOS, Volkskrant | –0.47 | <.001 |
NRC, NU | 0.38 | <.001 |
NRC, Telegraaf | 0.35 | <.001 |
NRC, Volkskrant | –0.06 | <.001 |
NU, Telegraaf | –0.03 | <.001 |
NU, Volkskrant | –0.44 | <.001 |
Telegraaf, Volkskrant | –0.41 | <.001 |
Pair | ∆M | p |
---|---|---|
AD, NOS | 0.21 | <.001 |
AD, NRC | 0.39 | <.001 |
AD, NU | 0.07 | <.001 |
AD, Telegraaf | 0.37 | <.001 |
AD, Volkskrant | 0.40 | <.001 |
NOS, NRC | 0.18 | <.001 |
NOS, NU | –0.14 | <.001 |
NOS, Telegraaf | 0.16 | <.001 |
NOS, Volkskrant | 0.19 | <.001 |
NRC, NU | –0.32 | <.001 |
NRC, Telegraaf | –0.02 | <.001 |
NRC, Volkskrant | 0.01 | .002 |
NU, Telegraaf | 0.30 | <.001 |
NU, Volkskrant | 0.33 | <.001 |
Telegraaf, Volkskrant | 0.02 | <.001 |
Pair | ∆M | p |
---|---|---|
AD, NOS | –0.09 | <.001 |
AD, NRC | –0.11 | <.001 |
AD, NU | 0.00 | 1.000 |
AD, Telegraaf | 0.15 | <.001 |
AD, Volkskrant | 0.02 | <.001 |
NOS, NRC | –0.02 | <.001 |
NOS, NU | 0.09 | <.001 |
NOS, Telegraaf | 0.24 | <.001 |
NOS, Volkskrant | 0.11 | <.001 |
NRC, NU | 0.12 | <.001 |
NRC, Telegraaf | 0.26 | <.001 |
NRC, Volkskrant | 0.13 | <.001 |
NU, Telegraaf | 0.14 | <.001 |
NU, Volkskrant | 0.02 | .002 |
Telegraaf, Volkskrant | –0.13 | <.001 |
Pair | ∆M | p |
---|---|---|
AD, NOS | 0.002 | .008 |
AD, NRC | –0.011 | <.001 |
AD, NU | –0.006 | <.001 |
AD, Telegraaf | 0.000 | 1.000 |
AD, Volkskrant | 0.002 | .024 |
NOS, NRC | –0.013 | <.001 |
NOS, NU | –0.008 | <.001 |
NOS, Telegraaf | –0.001 | .302 |
NOS, Volkskrant | 0.000 | 1.000 |
NRC, NU | 0.005 | <.001 |
NRC, Telegraaf | 0.011 | <.001 |
NRC, Volkskrant | 0.013 | <.001 |
NU, Telegraaf | 0.006 | <.001 |
NU, Volkskrant | 0.008 | <.001 |
Telegraaf, Volkskrant | 0.001 | .528 |
Discussion
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
Funding
ORCID iD
Footnotes
Appendix


Feature | Model | Class | Precision | Recall | F1-score | Accuracy |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Article type | Naive Bayes | No | 0.99 | 0.94 | 0.96 | 0.97 |
Article type | Naive Bayes | Yes | 0.95 | 0.99 | 0.97 | |
Sourcing presence | Naive Bayes | No | 0.84 | 0.76 | 0.80 | 0.79 |
Sourcing presence | Naive Bayes | Yes | 0.75 | 0.83 | 0.78 | |
Sourcing presence | LLM | No | 0.86 | 0.81 | 0.83 | 0.82 |
Sourcing presence | LLM | Yes | 0.79 | 0.84 | 0.81 | |
Sourcing presence | Roberta | No | 0.98 | 0.91 | 0.94 | 0.94 |
Sourcing presence | Roberta | Yes | 0.90 | 0.98 | 0.94 | |
Sourcing category | Logit Regression | Absent | 0.72 | 0.82 | 0.77 | 0.77 |
Sourcing category | Logit Regression | Anonymous | 1.00 | 0.99 | 0.99 | |
Sourcing category | Logit Regression | Opaque | 0.60 | 0.43 | 0.50 | |
Sourcing category | Logit Regression | Explicit | 0.67 | 0.68 | 0.68 | |
Sourcing category | Roberta | Absent | 0.92 | 0.87 | 0.89 | 0.89 |
Sourcing category | Roberta | Anonymous | 1.00 | 0.99 | 0.99 | |
Sourcing category | Roberta | Opaque | 0.79 | 0.73 | 0.76 | |
Sourcing category | Roberta | Explicit | 0.82 | 0.91 | 0.86 | |
Process information | Naive Bayes | No | 0.88 | 0.98 | 0.93 | 0.88 |
Process information | Naive Bayes | Yes | 0.88 | 0.52 | 0.66 | |
Process information | Roberta | No | 0.94 | 0.93 | 0.94 | 0.90 |
Process information | Roberta | Yes | 0.77 | 0.81 | 0.79 |
Routine | Expression |
---|---|
Contact information | @|https://twitter.com/\w+? |
Biographic information | /auteur/[A-ZÇÖa-z].*(-|)[A-ZÇÖa-z]|ombudsman|tag/[A-ZÇÖa-z].*% |
Document linking | document|.pdf|.epdf|.doc|.xls|.csv|.txt| .jpeg|.jpg|.png|.gif|.mp4|.avi|.ppt|.m4a|.mp3|.wav|.zip |
Anonymous sourcing | \b(anoniem(e)?|bronn(en)?(?! van\b)|ingewijde(n)?)\b |
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This article was published in Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly.
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