In what looks to be one of the greatest upsets in journalistic awards history, The Oxford Student was placed ahead of Sky News and The Guardian in a recent publication awards list. The Oxford Student shared the rankings on its Instagram story earlier this week.
BeeHive News, the platform behind the awards, boasts of being the “world’s only news rating platform” assessing papers at the article level. They claim to have developed algorithms to measure for three rating categories: “bias & fact-base, completeness and quality of writing”.
The sample for BeeHive’s rankings were ten chosen global papers, plus BeeHive’s three ‘academic partners’: The Oxford Student, the University of Bath’s ‘Bath Time’ paper, and ‘Perspectives’, the University of Warwick’s Politics Society Magazine. The underdog academic partners fared very well against the great global conglomerates of the news industry.
BeeHive News’ 2024 Publication Rankings
| Position | Score | Publication | Performance |
| 1 | 6.87 | Sixth Tone | Good |
| 2 | 6.31 | Reuters | Good |
| 3 | 6.24 | BBC | Good |
| 4 | 6.21 | The OxStu | Good |
| 5 | 6.16 | Bath Time | Average |
| 6 | 6.15 | Sky News | Average |
| 7 | 6.14 | The Guardian | Average |
| 8 | 6.12 | Haaretz | Average |
| 9 | 6.11 | Al Jazeera | Average |
| 10 | 6.01 | The Independent | Average |
| 11 | 5.92 | The Hindu | Subpar |
| 12 | 5.76 | Perspectives | Subpar |
| 13 | 5.21 | Daily Mail | Subpar |
The Oxford Student published 25 news articles in Michaelmas 2024, including coverage of the Oxford Union elections, the Oxford Chancellor elections, and poor attendance at an Oxford Student Union meeting. In the same period, Sky News’ 600 staff members published 120 ‘average’ stories a day, from their offices spanning five continents. After BeeHive’s rankings, Sky News will spend some time nursing their egos, having finished behind The Oxford Student, as well as Bath Time. The next Editors-in-Chief at The Oxford Student will surely have their sights on the BBC and Reuters in Hilary 2025.
BeeHive claims to have averaged data from half a million articles with a “comprehensive and rigorous system” to compile its rankings. The Guardian, last year’s winner of the British Journalism Awards News Provider of the Year, was marked ‘average’ in the rankings. The table-trailing “subpar” category is split between The Hindu, The Daily Mail, and Perspectives Magazine by the University of Warwick’s Politics Society.
Bizarrely, Sixth Tone, a state-owned Chinese media outlet, came top of the list for journalistic quality. Their year has mostly been dominated by an alleged increase in CCP censorship over their output. In February, a former employee from the outlet remarked that “Sixth Tone had become the most restricted [Chinese outlet] in the last few months, even beyond the likes of Global Times or Shanghai Daily”.
Perhaps BeeHive News’ complex algorithms have their fingers on the pulse, and The Oxford Blue is just jealous of our peers’ global success. Regardless, we look forward to more Pulitzer-standard journalism from The Oxford Student in Hilary Term.
The Oxford Blue spoke to both BeeHive News and The Oxford Student regarding the rankings. Here’s what they had to say.
The Oxford Student: “If you can’t beat them, join them. We’re going for no.1 next year”
BeeHive News: “Regarding growing Chinese influence on traditionally more independent outlets, such as Sixth Tone, the trend is disheartening. Sixth Tone’s articles are indeed negatively impacted by the inherent limitations of being based in China, and the publication did not produce the highest-rated articles on the Beehive News platform. However, it has indeed achieved the highest average rating on the platform this year. This might seem counterintuitive at first, but upon closer examination, it can be explained by three very concrete factors. First, government influence has so far focused more on restrictions dictating what not to publish, rather than on directives on what to publish or how to write it – this can be inferred directly through the examples cited in The Wire China’s article and was also confirmed to us by individuals cited in the article, who held high positions in the Chinese publication until recently. Second, the vast majority of its coverage focuses on topics perceived as less sensitive to the Chinese government, allowing journalists more freedom to adhere to the journalistic best practices that earned them high ratings (nearly 60% of articles cover sciences, health, entertainment and business, with another 28% focussing on less sensitive domestic affairs). Third, although Politics articles typically achieve lower ratings, especially regarding criteria under ‘bias & fact base’, a smaller share of those more sensitive pieces still manages, for now and perhaps not for long, to boldly criticise the government and surface political and structural issues of China, presenting somewhat balanced views. This reflects Sixth Tone’s non-conformist history, marked by frequent government clashes, its principle of “ask for forgiveness, not permission”, and the work of its globally qualified professionals. Of course, as news readers – and especially without tools like Beehive News – we might want to heighten our critical filter when reading articles from dictatorships or unstable democracies. But because our intuitive reaction might already lean towards strong scepticism, one might argue that there is perhaps greater risk in not turning on that filter at all when reading news we’re less sceptical of, such as UK reporting. Being the world’s only news rating platform in the world that assesses news at the article level allows us, rather than to dismiss an entire publication given the concrete risk of interference, to call out key gaps and flaws in each news article as they occur and to the extent that they occur, whilst also rewarding bold and professional journalism when it endures.
Regarding the number of people employed by Sky News and the amount of articles produced, this does not in any way undermine the work of Beehive News. Our ratings are not influenced by the volume of articles published, and we are in fact very transparent about prioritising quality over quantity – an approach we believe lies at the core of a better news industry. More than half of what major outlets publish falls within Sports and Entertainment (the latter often PR-driven), and doesn’t typically score very highly for relevance on Beehive News. Moreover, the pressure to produce large volumes of content often comes at the cost of journalistic excellence. That’s why we have partnered with relevant academic newspapers – by focussing on quality, they often produce better-rated articles than major publications.