A BENCHMARK STUDY OF THE PR NEWS WIRE

This benchmark study on the PR News Wire analyzes 129 national release s from one-day's transmission and traces their publication through nin e major newspapers. It utilizes chi-squares to examine differences in relationships between publication and the following variables: sources , type, subject matter, and news elements. Only subject matter was sig nificantly related to use (X2(16,N=129)=27.08, pq=.041). Some subject matter were more related to publication than other subject matter. Fin ancial disclosure was the most used subject matter. There was also a s ignificant difference among the newspapers by use (F(3, 122,N=129)=122 .86,pq<.01). The Wall Street Journal used information from 17 releases . The newspaper with the second highest usage, The New York Times, use d information from four releases. Linda PQ. Morton and Shirley Ramsey are associate professors in the School of Journalism at the University of Oklahoma.