Newspaper rankings of university league tables: *Il Sole 24 Ore* leads the way in terms of coverage and analysis

A comparison of newspapers that report on university rankings, including the one publishing this article. This comparison is made possible by a study by Francesca Carli and Andrea Mangani of the University of Pisa, published in the European Journal of Higher Education, which analysed 356 articles published between 2004 and 2023 in Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica and Il Sole 24 Ore. It should be noted that the study does not rank the newspapers, but provides data on certain topics.

For example, in terms of depth, *Il Sole 24 Ore*, according to the authors, ‘stands out’ for its longer, more analytical pieces. An article in *Il Sole* averages 612 words, compared with 474 in *La Repubblica* and 428 in *Il Corriere*. Fifty-three per cent of the articles are opinion pieces, compared with 20 per cent in *La Repubblica* and 7.5 per cent in *Il Corriere*, and only 17 per cent focus on a single university, whilst in the other two newspapers this figure exceeds 54 per cent.

In *Il Sole*, rankings are also more often placed within a broader context: articles devoted solely to rankings account for 62 per cent, compared with 87 per cent in *La Repubblica* and 96 per cent in *Il Corriere*. *La Repubblica*, however, leads in terms of volume, with 223 articles, accounting for 63 per cent of the total. *Il Sole* has 53 such articles, sourced from the LexisNexis database rather than the newspaper’s own archive: the authors cite this difference in source as one of the study’s limitations.

Il Sole also has the highest density of critical comments: 15 instances in 53 articles, compared with 24 in *La Repubblica* out of 223 and 13 in *Il Corriere* out of 80. This ratio is based on our own calculations, and the criticisms do not correspond exactly to the number of articles, as a single article may contain more than one criticism. Three of the four criticisms regarding the effects of the rankings appear in the business daily, all of which focus on the difficulty of interpreting the results.

The authors point out, however, that, for publications of the same format, none is statistically more critical than the others: it is the commentary that makes the difference, as it is more likely to express doubts.