Ever wonder what you're missing if you read Digg every morning but skip the New York Times? Or vice versa? The Project for Excellence in Journalism has released a study comparing stories on user-driven news sites like Digg, Reddit, and Del.icio.us with mainstream news. Here's what they found:

• Most of the top stories on Digg, Reddit, and Del.icio.us were not top stories in the mainstream media.
  
• There's little follow-up on user-driven sites. A story pops up once, and then disappears.
• User news sites draw from different sources than mainstream media, with many stories linking to blogs and popular websites.
• Different user news sites are strong in different areas. Reddit is the most likely to include political stories, Digg is good for tech news, while Del.icio.us is kind of all over the place.
• Mainstream news sites were more likely to cover international news than the user-driven sites.

The study covered one week in June, but the results seem pretty realistic to us. The one thing we'd point out though is that user-driven "news" sites are often devoid of actual independent reporting. You can learn a lot by reading the comments on Digg or Slashdot. But most of the articles are actually links to original reporting done by mainstream media or articles written and published on other blogs or news sites.

Social news sites aren't replacing traditional media. They're replacing the editor's judgment of what news should go on the paper's front page. While a wider range of topics might make the front page of Reddit than The New York Times, if you want consistent quality and editorially sound articles written by people who make a living reporting the facts, you might not want to rely on Digg readers to deliver all your news.

[via Search Engine Land]