C&RL News April 2010  224

Gary Pattillo is reference librarian at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, e-mail: pattillo@email.
unc.edu

G a r y  P a t t i l l o

Fact-checking: online vs. print
A study published in the Columbia Journalism Review reveals print publica-
tions employ less rigorous standards for their Web publications than their print 
counterparts. The Web editions undergo either no, or less vigorous, copy-editing 
than print editions. Thirty-five percent of print publishers report less rigorous 
or no fact-checking for online editions of their publications.
Victor Navasky and Evan Lerner, “Magazines and Their Web Sites,” Columbia Journalism Review, www.cjr.org/resources
/magazines_and_their_websites/ (accessed March 11, 2010). 

Dearth of reporters
Ken Doctor, author of Newsonomics, states “there are about 12,000 fewer report-
ers and editors in daily papers than there were three years ago. I’ve calculated 
. . . that there [are] probably about a million fewer stories that we’re getting as 
readers out of daily newspapers this year than we got in 2007.”
Ken Doctor and Neal Conan, “’Newsonomics’ Predicts the Future of the Media,” National Public Radio, www.npr.org 
/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=123609984 (accessed March 11, 2010).

Facebook time sink
The average U.S. Internet user spends more time on Facebook than on Google, 
Microsoft, Yahoo, YouTube, and Wikipedia combined. The average time spent 
using Facebook tops seven hours per month. This represents a 9.7 percent in-
crease over the previous month. The number of active users of the Web grew 
by nearly four percent to more than 203 million people.
“Facebook Users Average 7 Hrs a Month in January as Digital Universe Expands,” The Nielsen Company, blog.nielsen.
com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/facebook-users-average-7-hrs-a-month-in-january-as-digital-universe-expands/ (accessed 
March 11, 2010).

Book prices and output
Forty-three percent of publishers included in YBP library programs increased 
their publishing output. Book prices continued to increase for the seventh con-
secutive year. The most recent average annual increase was four percent. The 
average list price for cloth-bound books in the 2008–09 fiscal year was $74.83. 
The average list price of an ebook was about $100.
Nat Bruning, “Annual Book Price Update,” Baker & Taylor YBP Library Services, www.ybp.com/book_price_update.html 
(accessed March 11, 2010).

Billions served
Twitter.com processes more than 1.2 billion tweets per month, that is an average 
of about 40 million tweets per day. The trend in number of tweets continues 
to rise. January 2010 saw 16 times as many tweets as January 2009. The rate of 
tweets is growing by about 17 percent per month.
“Twitter: Now More than 1 Billion Tweets per Month,” Pingdom AB, royal.pingdom.com/2010/02/10/twitter-now-more 
-than-1-billion-tweets-per-month (accessed March 11, 2010).

april10ff.indd   224 3/18/2010   9:33:30 AM