News Curation in Digital Media: Analysis of Four Newspapers’ Front Pages

Abstract

This study examines content curation on the front pages of four Spanish digital newspapers: two legacy media outlets, El País and La Vanguardia, and two purely digital, elDiario.es and El Español. This exploratory and unprecedented research aims to understand the characteristics of front-page news curation in digital press in terms of themes, authorship and genre, origin and temporal range of curated content, types of sources used, the function of curated links, and techniques employed to add value to the presented information. The CAS (Curation Analysis System) methodology is used for content analysis of a selection of news items from different time slots and days of the week, following the constructed week method. The results provide a better understanding of the characteristics of curation on newspaper front pages, comparing them with other curation studies in journalistic products, such as media newsletters and live news.

1. Introduction

We understand content curation as the systematic process of selecting and contextualizing digital content, with the primary goal of offering valuable information to readers (Lopezosa et al., 2023). It is not only a well-established discipline that many journalists apply in their daily routines within the media sector, but it has also become an essential tool for the development of various journalistic products.

Academia has not remained indifferent to the current relevance of content curation. In fact, from the past decade to the present, studies on this discipline have become increasingly common, approached from different perspectives, such as information sciences (Parra-Valero, 2016; Martínez-Cañadas, 2021) and communication and journalism (Cui & Liu, 2017; Bruns, 2018).

While it is true that these studies have mainly focused on how to use content curation (Guallar et al., 2021b) to improve news quality (Sixto-García et al., 2020) or to analyze specific journalistic products, such as newsletters (Seely & Spillman, 2021), it is essential to explore new research approaches. These should aim to understand how curation affects specific processes within journalistic production or how it is reflected in the news offered by media outlets to their readers.

Based on this premise, the present study aims to analyze content curation in the front-page news of digital press, using a sample of Spanish newspapers. This is an original study that explores a previously unexamined area, focusing on the presence of content curation on the homepages of digital newspapers.

From this main objective, the following research questions arise:

RQ1: What are the characteristics of the main front-page news items in digital press in terms of thematic sections and authorship gender?

RQ2: What are the characteristics of content curation in the analyzed front-page news, considering aspects such as the amount of curated content, sources and origins of curated content, curation techniques, and the function of hyperlinks?

RQ3: What ranking of newspapers can be established within the sample based on the quality of content curation in front-page news?

RQ4: What similarities and differences exist in the content curation of front-page news between legacy and purely digital newspapers, and between different days and time slots?

2. Literature Review

Content curation is a discipline that has been studied from a journalistic perspective for over a decade (Guerrini, 2013; Díaz-Arias, 2015), with its main research axes focusing on its functions, tasks, tools, and informational products. In addition, research has examined its relationship with other fields, such as journalistic documentation (Guallar & Codina, 2018), and explored the practice of content curation in online media (Dale, 2014; Cui & Liu, 2017). This includes not only operational aspects but also advanced issues, such as analysis methodologies (Guallar et al., 2021b), the application of content curation to visual journalism (Schwalbe et al., 2015), the curation of reader comments (Diakopoulos, 2015), automated or algorithmic curation (Lokot & Diakopoulos, 2016), content personalization (Monzer et al., 2020), and even its use as a tool for developing co-creation in native digital media (Sixto-García et al., 2020) and metamedia (Noguera-Vivo, 2016).

In general, these studies confirm the direct connection between journalism and content curation. In fact, the findings show that every journalist should be able to act as a content curator (Díaz-Arias, 2015) because it helps establish stronger links between the media space and the internet (Dale, 2014), and better curation leads to higher journalistic quality (Guallar & Codina, 2018).

Beyond its direct impact on information professionals, content curation has also affected the sector itself, particularly in aspects such as information sources (Cui & Liu, 2017), production routines (Schwalbe et al., 2015), new journalistic formats (Lokot & Diakopoulos, 2016), and audiences (Monzer et al., 2020; Sixto-García et al., 2020).

In this regard, some studies have highlighted an evolution in the use of sources within content curation processes. Along with the frequent presence of internal links to the media outlet itself, there is growing inclusion of sources, such as nonprofit organizations and citizens (Cui & Liu, 2017). As for production routines, these have been directly influenced, particularly in the development of new journalistic products, such as visual journalism (Schwalbe et al., 2015) and live news reporting (Cascón-Katchadourian et al., 2025). Similarly, recent research on innovation in the journalism sector recognizes the importance of automated journalistic curation (Lokot & Diakopoulos, 2016), for example, in the development of metamedia (Noguera-Vivo, 2016).

Content curation also has a direct effect on readers, especially from two perspectives: first, through personalized content, which helps media connect more effectively with their audience (Monzer et al., 2020); and second, through co-creation, as reader contributions, especially in the form of comments and interactions, can also be curated to generate newsworthy content (Sixto-García et al., 2020).

From a methodological point of view, the research maturity of the field shows a variety of approaches in journalism and communication studies. These include, among others, theoretical and conceptual frameworks (Thorson & Wells, 2016), systematic reviews (Lopezosa et al., 2023), interviews (Silva-Rodríguez, 2021), analyses of news on social media (Mayerhöffer et al., 2024), descriptive content analyses (Seely & Spillman, 2021), and evaluative studies (Guallar et al., 2025).

Although, as shown, content curation has been examined from different angles, its use and impact on the front pages of digital media have not yet been studied.

In this regard, despite the importance of digital media homepages, research on curation in this specific area remains limited. Among previous studies on front pages, notable examples include the analysis of photojournalism on front pages (López-Del-Ramo, 2010) and examinations of the main topics addressed by Spanish media (Odriozola-Chéné, 2012), which later evolved into studies of front pages in the context of agenda setting, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic (Zunino & Yacante, 2020). Other studies have analyzed the front pages of native digital media by focusing on web visibility and user experience (Lopezosa et al., 2020) and clickbait techniques (Bravo-Araujo et al., 2021).

Additionally, some studies have proposed specific methodologies for analyzing online media front pages. In this context, digital front pages have been interpreted in terms of their different functions, such as content extension and update rhythms (Ventura-Salom et al., 2024). Studies have also explored elements, like sources, as a distinguishing feature of a digital media outlet’s front page (Vayas-Ruiz et al., 2024), and the representation of women on digital media homepages (Sánchez & Fernández, 2017).

However, as previously mentioned, no study to date has directly investigated content curation on digital front pages, thus opening a new line of research that is well worth exploring.

While previous research has examined content curation in newsletters, social media, and other journalistic products, the main contribution of this study lies in offering the first systematic analysis specifically focused on content curation on the front pages of digital newspapers.

3. Methodology

To analyze curation in front-page news, four of the most widely read Spanish newspapers were selected, aiming for a balance between legacy media and purely digital media. The analyzed media were the legacy outlets El País and La Vanguardia, and the purely digital outlets Eldiario.es and El Español.

Following the “constructed week” method (Riffe et al., 1993), the first five news items from the front pages of these four media were selected on seven different days of a week and from four editions corresponding to different time slots (morning, midday, afternoon, and evening) throughout the month of May 2023, with a total of 140 news items analyzed. Thanks to this sampling technique, a wide range of news was covered, thus constructing an artificial week that included all days of the week across four time slots. The specific days and editions were as follows: Monday 1 and Tuesday 2 May: front pages between 9 and 11 a.m.; Wednesday 10 and Thursday 11: 1–3 p.m.; Friday 19 and Saturday 20: 5–7 p.m.; Sunday 28: 9–11 p.m. The data were collected live by the authors on these days and during these time slots.

The research methodology for the content analysis of the news follows the evaluative approach of expert web quality analysis (Morales-Vargas et al., 2020), using the CAS (Curation Analysis System) method. This method, detailed in Guallar et al. (2021b), incorporates various previous contributions to content curation analysis, such as those by Deshpande (2013) on techniques and those by Cui and Liu (2017) on hyperlink functions.

The CAS method is a tool for evaluating the quality of curation, composed of a series of dimensions, parameters, and indicators, as shown in

Table 1. Dimensions, parameters, and indicators for analysis using the CAS method.

Dimension	Parameter	Indicator
A. Content	A1. Amount of content	Amount
	A2. Time range	Timeless information
		Retrospective information
		Recent information
		Current information
		Real-time information
	A3. Origin	Own content
		External content
	A4. Source by type of organization	Official sources
		Corporate sources
		Media
		Citizens
	A5. Source according to morphology	Websites
		Blogs
		Social networks
		Secondary sources
B. Curation	B1. Authorship	Authorship
	B2. Sense-making technique	Resume
		Comment
		Cite
		Storyboarding
	B3. Link function	Unmodified
		Describe
		Contextualize
		Interpret
		Cite source
		Quote the author
		Call to action

Source: Guallar et al. (2021b).

. It uses a binary scoring system for indicators (0–1) based on their absence (0) or presence (1), except for the indicator on the amount of curated content, which uses a multiple scoring system (0–3) based on the following scale: poor (0); fair (1); good (2); very good (3).

The CAS method has been used in various studies, and in terms of curation in the media, it has been applied to analyze newsletters from Spanish newspapers (Guallar et al., 2021a); COVID-specialized newsletters from media outlets in five countries (Guallar et al., 2022); press news on gender-related topics (Ventura-Cisquella et al., 2024); all newsletters from The New York Times (Guallar et al., 2025); and live news coverage from two election days (Cascón-Katchadourian et al., 2025), which will be discussed later.

4. Results

In this study, 140 front-page news items were analyzed (5 news items per day over 7 days of a “constructed week” from 4 newspapers), with a total of 1292 curated content elements examined. The results obtained are presented below. The full dataset is available at (https://doi.org/10.34810/data2176).

4.1. Analysis of Topics and Gender

This section analyzes the topics and gender of the front-page news items reviewed.

First, the sections to which the first five front-page news items of the analyzed newspapers belonged were identified. To do this, a process of standardization and grouping of certain section names was carried out. This included the following cases: the category “Politics” also included the “Spain” section of El País and the “Elections” section of El Español; the sections referring to autonomous communities, such as Andalusia, Catalonia, Madrid, etc., were grouped under the label “Autonomy.”

The analysis of the main front-page news by thematic sections (

Table 2. Thematic sections and genders of front-page news authorship.

Section	News Authored by F	News Authored by M	News Authorship N/A	Total News
Policy	23.11 (35%)	35.85 (54.3%)	7 (10.6%)	66 (47.1%)
Autonomy	8.66 (37.7%)	12.33 (53.6%)	2 (8.7%)	23 (16.4%)
Economy	4.66 (24.5%)	13.33 (70.2%)	1 (5.3%)	19 (13.5%)
International	2 (15.4%)	7 (53.8%)	4 (30.8%)	13 (9.2%)
Society	3.5 (43.8%)	3.5 (43.8%)	1 (12.5%)	8 (5.7%)
Climate and Environment	1.66 (55.3%)	1.33 (44.3%)	0 (0%)	3 (2.14%)
Sports	0 (0%)	3 (100%)	0 (0%)	3 (2.14%)
Culture	1 (50%)	1 (50%)	0 (0%)	2 (1.4%)
Events	1 (50%)	1 (50%)	0 (0%)	2 (1.4%)
Fashion	1 (100%)	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	1 (0.7%)
Total	46.59 (33.28%)	78.34 (55.96%)	15 (10.71%)	140 (100%)

) shows that Economy, Society, and Politics (the latter appearing under various names, as previously noted) were the only three sections that appeared in all the media analyzed. In terms of the number of news items per section, Politics stood out significantly, accounting for nearly half of the analyzed news (66 out of 140). This was followed at a considerable distance by Autonomy (23). In third, fourth, and fifth place were Economy (19), International (13), and Society (8).

At the international level, it is important to highlight that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine remained a major global news event, especially following the counteroffensive announced by Ukraine and the ongoing exchange of statements between both leaders. However, coverage of this conflict did not displace the main focus of Spanish media during the month in which the sample was collected, which primarily centered on national politics due to the proximity of the elections.

Within the Autonomy section, the most represented regions on the front pages were Andalusia and Catalonia (6 each) and Madrid (5), while Valencia and Aragón (2 each) and Euskadi and Galicia (1 each) were less represented. It is also worth noting that Society, a traditional section in the media, had a low number of stories (8) despite being present in all outlets. Even lower in presence, with only one to three stories, were other sections considered relevant in terms of news value, such as Sports and Culture (which appeared on the front pages of only two and one media outlets, respectively), as well as others on more specific topics, like Environment, Crime, and Fashion.

The number of front-page news items was also analyzed according to the genders of their authors. In the case of shared authorship, the following method was used: for a story with one male and one female author, 0.5 was assigned to each; if there were three authors, for example, two women and one man, they were assigned 0.66 and 0.33 respectively, and so on.

As shown in Table 2, the front pages of the analyzed newspapers contained more stories signed by men (78.34 articles, or 55.96%) than by women (46.59 articles, or 33.28%), with 10.71% (15 stories) attributed to corporate or unidentified authorship.

The front-page sections with the highest percentage of male authorship were Economy (70%), followed by Politics, Autonomy, and International, all with similar percentages between 53 and 54% (the latter had a strong presence of corporate authorship). It is also notable that there were no Sports stories authored by women. Conversely, the only sections with more female authorship were Fashion and Climate and Environment, with Culture and Crime showing an equal gender split.

Finally, male authorship remained relatively consistent across the four newspapers analyzed (

Table 3. Genders of news authorship by newspaper.

Digital Media	Male Authorship, n (%)	Female Authorship, n (%)	Corporate Authorship, n (%)
elDiario.es	18.52 (52.91%)	15.44 (44.11%)	1 (2.8%)
El Español	20.5 (58.57%)	10.5 (30%)	4 (11.4%)
El País	19.32 (55.2%)	11.65 (33.2%)	4 (11.4%)
La Vanguardia	20 (57.14%)	9 (25.71%)	6 (17.1%)

), always ranging between 52% and 58% of front-page news stories. However, female authorship varied more significantly among the outlets: eldiario.es had the highest presence of female bylines, followed by a mid-level presence in El País and El Español, and the lowest in La Vanguardia. Therefore, the newspaper closest to achieving gender parity in front-page news authorship was eldiario.es, with 52.91% of stories authored by men and 44.11% by women, while La Vanguardia showed the greatest gender gap, with 57.14% of stories by men and less than half of that (25.7%) by women.

4.2. Analysis of the Content Dimension

Below are the results obtained according to the CAS method in the Content dimension, grouping the analysis by each parameter.

4.2.1. Amount of Curated Content

The front-page publications each displayed in their upper sections just over 10 curated items, with the exception of some live news items, which may have had many more. Therefore, the following scoring system was used: 1–5 curated content elements per news item: 1 point; 6–10: 2 points; more than 10: 3 points.

The overall average score for front-page news from the digital press analyzed under this parameter was 1.60 points. The 140 news stories studied contained a total of 1292 curated content elements, with an average of 9.2 per story. By newspaper, elDiario.es ranked first, with 1.9 points and 547 curated elements, followed by El País with 1.86 and 325, El Español with 1.33 and 255, and La Vanguardia with 1.30 and 165. No newspaper achieved the maximum score of 3 points. While elDiario.es and El País were close to an average score, the other two fell within a mid-low range.

In the day-by-day and edition (time slot) analysis, El País achieved the highest score of 2.40 points in its front-page news on Wednesday, 10 May, at midday (1 to 3 p.m.); elDiario.es also scored equal to or above 2 points on four days, and El País on three days. Across all four newspapers, the time slot with the most curated content was the midday edition. Conversely, the morning time slot (9 a.m. to 12 p.m.) on Tuesday, 2 May, was the edition with the lowest average curated content in the news stories analyzed.

The behavior of live news stories is particularly noteworthy. There were 12 such items over the days analyzed: 4 from El Español, 3 from La Vanguardia and El País, and 2 from elDiario.es. These live news items contained a total of 476 curated elements, with an average of nearly 40 per document (39.7). During the analyzed period, they covered only two main topics: the campaign for the 28 May municipal and regional elections, and the Russia–Ukraine conflict. These two topics showed very different patterns: while the Russia–Ukraine conflict featured little curation, with an average of 3 curated elements, the live news items about the elections were much more extensive, with an average of 76.5 curated elements per story. One from elDiario.es reached the highest number, with 188.

4.2.2. Time Range

This parameter considers five time ranges of the curated content, always in relation to the publication date of the news story analyzed, with a maximum of 5 points possible for a story. The categories considered were timeless information (when the curated content included various dates, as is the case with tags for journalists or news figures), retrospective (over a month old), recent (between more than one day and less than a month old), current (from the last 24 h), and real-time (within one hour between one news item and the next).

El País was the outlet with the best performance in the variety of time ranges among its curated elements, scoring 2.8 points and featuring a predominant presence of timeless, recent, and retrospective content, and to a lesser extent, current items. This shows a remarkable capacity for contextual curation, beyond just the most immediate information. This was followed closely by El Español (2.63) and elDiario.es (2.57), with La Vanguardia somewhat further behind (1.89).

The data from each time range show that, on a global average, the most represented category was timeless content (0.78 points out of 1), due to the frequent presence of tags referring to article authors. This was followed closely by current content (0.63), while the rest were as follows: recent (0.49), retrospective (0.43), and real-time (0.14). In quantitative terms, out of the total 1292 curated elements across the four media outlets, nearly half were current (598, or 46.2%), with elDiario.es standing out with its Sunday, May 28 edition covering the election day, curating 268 current-range items. Among the remaining time ranges, three categories showed similar quantitative presence: recent (17%), timeless (15.7%), and retrospective (13.6%).

4.2.3. Origin

This section analyzes whether the curated content elements were published by the media outlet itself or came from external sources. The best performances, with very close scores, were seen in El Español (1.4) and El País (1.37), with elDiario.es (1.26) and La Vanguardia (1.14) somewhat behind. A maximum score of 2 indicates that the curated content consistently came from both internal and external sources. The reported values especially highlight the presence of external content in each newspaper, since internal content was always or almost always present (the global averages were 0.94 for internal content and 0.35 for external content).

In the day-by-day and edition analysis, four morning editions appeared among the top five positions (El Español, 1 and 2 May; El País, 1 May; elDiario.es, 2 May), which indicates a slight trend toward better performance of morning editions in this parameter. Likewise, the quantitative analysis further highlights the importance of internally curated content, which accounted for 88.7% of the total (1145 out of 1292 elements), compared to just 11.3% (147) of external content.

4.2.4. Sources by Type of Organization

This section considers four source categories: official (from public administration bodies), corporate (companies, associations, and other organizations), media outlets, and private citizens, with a maximum score of 4 points.

The main source in front-page news stories was other media outlets (0.94 points out of 1), followed by official sources (0.26), with minimal presence from the other two categories (0.04). By newspaper, El País and El Español performed better (1.43 points), while elDiario.es and La Vanguardia scored slightly lower (1.14 and 1.11, respectively).

The overall average of 1.28 points out of 4 indicates low performance among the four analyzed media outlets in this parameter, and the quantitative analysis reinforces this, with curated content from media outlets accounting for 87.7% (1134 out of 1192). These figures reflect a limited variety of source types in the journalistic curation of the analyzed newspapers.

4.2.5. Sources by Morphology

Among the four types of sources considered (websites, social networks, blogs, and secondary sources), the latter two barely appeared in front-page news across the media outlets. Web content was by far the most prominent, present in every outlet (0.94 points) and, on 11 of the 28 days analyzed, it was the only type of curated source. Social network content was also present, though to a much lesser extent (0.16 points). By outlet, El Español performed best, with 1.29 points out of 4, followed by La Vanguardia and El País (both with 1.14), and finally, elDiario.es (1.06).

The quantitative data reinforce and add nuance to these observations. On the one hand, web content accounted for 92% of the total (1195 out of 1288); on the other hand, the 34 curated elements from secondary sources were not far behind the 58 from social networks, meaning that the latter were more evenly distributed.

4.3. Analysis of the Curation Dimension

Below are the results of the Curation dimension, following the same structure.

4.3.1. Authorship

The newspapers analyzed performed very well in this parameter related to the identification of news authorship, with an average of 0.86 points out of 1. This is a high score, led by elDiario.es with 0.97 points (in this outlet, there was only one news item without recognized authorship among all those analyzed), followed by El País, El Español, and La Vanguardia, each with 0.83 points. In the analysis by days and editions, it was observed that two newspapers, El Español and El País, showed their poorest performance (0.40 and 0.20 points) specifically in the evening edition of the election day, Sunday, 28 May, where several front-page news items were authored by the editorial team.

4.3.2. Techniques

This section analyzes the following techniques used to add value to curation: summarizing (a mainly descriptive and informative technique), commenting (opinion or interpretation), quoting (use of direct quotes from the original content), and storyboarding (combination of at least three elements in different formats). Each news item was assigned one point per technique, with a maximum score of 4.

The overall average for the analyzed media outlets was only 1.49 points out of 4, indicating a clearly mid-to-low performance. El País (1.89) and El Español (1.71) performed above average and, therefore, showed better results, while elDiario.es (1.23) and La Vanguardia (1.11) were below average by a certain distance.

The analysis of each technique shows that the most commonly used were summarizing (average of 0.91), which was particularly prominent in elDiario.es, and quoting (0.46), which was especially used by El País and El Español, while commenting and storyboarding were less common, with scores of just 0.07 and 0.05, respectively. It is worth noting that storyboarding tended to appear in live news stories about the elections, which included graphics, photographs, links, tweets from candidates, and quotes.

By edition, only on 3 days (2 for El País and 1 for El Español) was the average score above 2 points. The ten best-scoring editions belonged to El Español and El País, particularly on 1, 2, 10, and 19 May. In contrast, on 20 May, El Español recorded the only day with a score below 1, indicating a low presence of curation in that edition.

4.3.3. Function of the Link

This section examines the informative function of each link to curated content, distinguishing the following categories: unmodified, describe, contextualize, interpret, cite source, cite author, and call to action. Each function was assigned 1 point, with a maximum score of 7.

Front-page news stories had a low average score of just 2.58 points. The most common functions were describe (0.81), followed by cite author and unmodified, both with 0.59. Quantitatively, describe accounted for 38% of the curated content, followed by unmodified (22%) and cite author (17%). El País and elDiario.es made use of all the functions, unlike El Español and La Vanguardia, which did not use interpret.

By media outlet, elDiario.es stood out from the rest with a score of 3.4, showing a strong use of unmodified and cite author, and moderate use of call to action and cite source. El País (2.63) and El Español (2.60) scored similarly, while La Vanguardia (1.69) lagged significantly behind.

Regarding the editions, it is noteworthy that the four highest-scoring editions belonged to elDiario.es, with a maximum of 3.8. Similarly, the studied outlets tended to maintain a certain consistency in their scores across different editions (elDiario.es had six editions scoring between 3.20 and 3.80 points, El País had seven between 2 and 3.4 points, and La Vanguardia had six between 1 and 2), suggesting a relatively homogeneous level of content curation within each newspaper.

4.4. Analysis of Newspapers, Days, and Editions

After applying the CAS analysis, the ranking of the newspapers based on curation in their front-page news (

Table 4. Ranking of newspapers according to front-page news curation.

Digital Media	Score
El País	13.94
elDiario.es	13.53
El Español	13.21
La Vanguardia	10.22

) shows three of them (El País, elDiario.es, and El Español) had very similar scores and a curation quality level close to the average, considering that the maximum possible score was 30, while La Vanguardia was somewhat behind at a lower level.

El País was the best-performing newspaper among those analyzed in terms of front-page news curation, as it ranked first or second in all parameters except one (sources by morphology). Specifically, it held the top position in the following parameters: time ranges, standing out in retrospective, recent, and current content; sources by type of organization (tied with El Español) due to its high use of official sources alongside media sources; and sense-making techniques, thanks to its strong performance in summarizing and quoting.

elDiario.es, in a position close to El País, achieved the highest scores in the amount of curated content, curation authorship—citing the author in all its stories except one—and in link function due to its high use of unmodified, cite author, and describe links, as well as, to a lesser extent, cite source and call to action. In the other parameters, it ranked third or fourth, unlike El País, which showed a more consistent performance across all aspects.

In third place, El Español obtained the highest score in origin due to its strong inclusion of external content, as well as in sources by organization and by morphology, thanks to its greater use of social media compared to the others.

Finally, La Vanguardia scored low in almost all content curation parameters, consistently ranking last except in sources by morphology, where it held second place. Overall, it maintained a lower level of curation, notably behind the other newspapers analyzed.

Between the legacy media and purely digital outlets, no clear global differences were observed, as the top and bottom positions in the ranking belong to the legacy media, while the second and third belong to the purely digital outlets. However, this statement can be partially qualified in some parameters: for example, in the link function, the two pure digital newspapers made greater use of unmodified links than the legacy outlets, and in sources by morphology, the native digital El Español stood out in its use of social media, whereas elDiario.es did not.

Regarding the analysis by days and editions, based on the average scores of the four newspapers analyzed, it can clearly be observed (

Table 5. Average score of front-page news according to day and edition.

Day	Edition (Time Slot)	Score
Wednesday	Noon	14.45
Monday	Tomorrow	13.45
Thursday	Noon	12.75
Tuesday	Tomorrow	12.32
Saturday	Late	12.30
Friday	Late	12.25
Sunday	Evening	11.55

) that the top four were the morning and midday editions, from Monday to Thursday, while the bottom three were the afternoon and evening editions, from Friday to Sunday. There was a significant gap of nearly 3 points between the highest-scoring edition (Wednesday midday) and the lowest (Sunday evening). Furthermore, in line with the overall media ranking data, El País was also the newspaper with the two highest-scoring editions: Monday morning (16.80 points) and Wednesday midday (16.60).

Therefore, even with the necessary caution, due to the data being drawn from a constructed week within a single month, which ended with the specific circumstance of an election day, it is possible to highlight the following: there was a higher quality of curation in front-page news during the early time slots of the day up to midday, which then decreased throughout the afternoon and evening. A similar trend was observed with the days of the week: news items from the beginning of the week tended to show slightly better curation, which declined over the weekend.

5. Discussion

The analysis of front-page news curation in four Spanish newspapers offers an interesting perspective compared to previous studies on media curation also carried out using the CAS method, all of which have focused on specific journalistic products: media newsletters (Guallar et al., 2021b, 2022, 2025), gender-related news (Ventura-Cisquella et al., 2024), and live news stories (Cascón-Katchadourian et al., 2025).

In response to potential overlaps with general journalistic practice, first and foremost, it is important to emphasize that content curation, as defined in this study (and generally in the main academic works on this field), goes beyond mere news production. While traditional journalism involves gathering, verifying, and narrating information, content curation emphasizes the systematic selection, contextualization, and enhancement of pre-existing digital content, generally incorporating multiple sources and layers of meaning (Lopezosa et al., 2023). This curatorial logic involves deliberate decisions regarding linking, framing, and integrating external content, which differs from traditional journalistic routines and aligns with other trends, such as aggregation, personalization, and editorial surveillance (Bruns, 2018).

A first general observation is that the quality of curation in front-page news items tended to score lower than in the analyses of newspaper newsletters, author gender, and live news.

Looking more closely, when comparing this study to the comprehensive analysis of newsletters from 16 Spanish newspapers with data collected in 2019 (Guallar et al., 2021b), the most striking element is the current growth of what can be called professional curation (or intellectual, as it was termed in that study), as opposed to automated curation, which, at the time, consisted mainly of automated bulletins listing daily headlines from the same outlet. However, the group of top-performing newspaper newsletters in 2019 had higher levels of elaboration than the average found in front-page news analyzed in the present study.

This latter observation becomes even more apparent when compared with the study on newsletters focused on COVID-19 from newspapers in five countries (Guallar et al., 2022). Current front-page news ranked below the best examples of COVID-19 newsletters, such as that of elDiario.es—a difference that could be attributed to the more specific nature and likely higher editorial dedication to thematic newsletters during a period of high informational demand.

In turn, the analysis of gender-related news curation in six Spanish newspapers (Ventura-Cisquella et al., 2024) provides a complementary perspective. Like the previous study, it focused on a specific topic rather than a single format, and it highlighted the curation found in gender-related articles from El País and El Periódico for their diversity of links used to summarize and contextualize. This partially aligns with the high score obtained by El País in the current study, suggesting a possible trend in this outlet toward more elaborate curation across different types of content.

The comparison with content curation in live news (Cascón-Katchadourian et al., 2025) is particularly revealing. These types of news, as also observed in the present study, tend to reach levels of curation comparable to—or even higher than—the best newsletters, due to their nature of constant updating and comprehensive aggregation of information. This results in a higher quantity of curated content, a more intense use of varied time ranges, particularly current and real-time, and a notable diversity of sources.

Table 6. CAS results: Comparison between live news and front-page news (source: Cascón-Katchadourian et al., 2025 and current data).

Indicator	Front-Page News	Live News
A1. Amount of content	1.60	3 (2.25) *
A2. Time range	2.47	3.31
A3. Origin	1.29	1.81
A4 Source by type of organization	1.28	2.38
A5. Source according to morphology	1.16	1.88
B1. Authorship	0.86	0.69
B2. Sense-making technique	1.49	2.81
B3. Link function	2.58	4.75

* In a live news study (Cascón-Katchadourian et al., 2025), due to the high number of curated elements, the scoring ranges for parameter A1 were different from those used in the current study. If we apply the criteria used in this study (1–5 curated elements: 1 point; 6–10: 2 points; more than 10: 3 points), live news stories would always achieve the maximum score of 3. With the specific adjustment used in that article, the score is 2.25. In either case, the score for live news is clearly higher than that of front-page news in general.

clearly illustrates how live news outperformed front-page news in nearly all indicators, except for authorship. Even when comparing the four outlets analyzed in both studies, live news consistently scored higher, and the four newspapers were ranked in the same order, further suggesting that the level of curation varies not only by information product but also by the newspaper itself.

Finally, in a recent article on all The New York Times newsletters (Guallar et al., 2025), which analyzed 75 newsletters (some of them automated), a great variation in curation quality was observed: 25 newsletters scored higher than the best result in this study, while 19 scored lower than the lowest-scoring result here. The study concluded that, overall, the quality of curation was at a medium level compared to other works, and although front-page content was not analyzed, its findings support the following argument, which can be extended to front-page news.

The quality of The New York Times newsletters provides a benchmark for understanding that even in internationally renowned media, the intensity of curation can vary depending on the type of journalistic product. The same can be said for front-page news, in which significant differences can be observed depending on the story; live news stories stand out in this regard compared to other front-page items.

In summary, the main curation patterns observed in front-page news (such as a low amount of curated content, predominance of original content from the outlet and other media websites, a focus on current events, descriptive and unmodified links, and summarizing techniques) can be interpreted in relation to the function of the front page as a gateway to the outlet’s own content. This function highlights the diversity of the content, rather thorough or in-depth source curation, which is more evident in certain journalistic products, such as newsletters and live news.

Finally, it is also worth noting that our analysis of the genders of authors in front-page news stories showed a clear overall predominance of male authorship, along with a certain correlation with the thematic sections of the news. Male authorship was more prevalent in topics traditionally considered “hard news,” such as Economy, Politics, and International Affairs, and particularly so in a heavily male-dominated section like Sports (Schoch, 2022), where there was a complete absence of female bylines. Conversely, the topics with a predominance or greater presence of female authorship were the “expected” ones—those historically associated with “soft news,” such as Fashion, Weather, and Environment, and to a lesser extent, Culture and Crime News. This thematic gender division partly coincides with that observed in the study on curation in The New York Times newsletters (Guallar et al., 2025), although, there, the gender gap was somewhat narrower, reflecting a similar horizontal differentiation found in other studies on the gender gap in journalism (North, 2016; Peña-Fernández et al., 2022; Schoch, 2022).

6. Conclusions

Below, and in line with the research questions initially posed, the main conclusions of this study are summarized. We believe its primary achievement lies in being the first to analyze in detail the content curation of front-page news items in media outlets.

Regarding the first research question (RQ1), the analysis of the thematic sections of the main front-page news stories reveals that Economy, Society, and Politics were the only sections present in all the newspapers analyzed, with Politics clearly standing out, accounting for nearly half of all the news analyzed. This was followed at a distance by Regional News (with greater presence of the most populated regions: Andalusia, Catalonia, and Madrid) and Economy. There was also a notably low presence of classical journalism sections, such as Society, and even more so, Sports and Culture.

As for authorship gender, the study concludes that the main front-page stories in the analyzed newspapers were more frequently authored by men (55.96%) than by women (33.28%), with 10.71% of stories having corporate authorship. Among the main sections with the highest number of front-page news analyzed, Economy stood out as the one with the greatest predominance of male authorship (70%). Similarly, no front-page news in the Sports section (a minor section with only three news items) was authored by a woman. In contrast, Fashion and Climate and Environment were the only sections with higher female authorship. When comparing by newspaper, elDiario.es was the closest to achieving gender parity in the authorship of its front-page stories, while La Vanguardia showed the greatest disparity. It can also be added that the two progressive-leaning outlets studied (elDiario.es and El País) performed slightly better in terms of gender equality in authorship than the conservative newspapers.

In relation to RQ2 on the characteristics of content curation, the analysis of the Content dimension yields several noteworthy conclusions. Front-page news stories contained an average of 9.2 curated content elements, with live news, especially election-related ones, showing significantly higher numbers. In terms of time ranges, current content (almost half of the total in quantitative terms) and timeless content were the most present among the curated items. Regarding the origins of curated content, internal sources represented the vast majority (88.7%). The main source for front-page news was other media (87.7%), followed by official sources, with corporate and citizen sources being minimally represented. In terms of morphology, web content was the predominant source (92%) in all newspapers, with some curated content from social networks also being visible.

The conclusions of the Curation dimension analysis reveal uneven performance across the parameters examined. On the one hand, a very high level was observed in the identification of authorship. Regarding curation techniques, the overall level was medium, with summarizing and quoting being the most commonly used, while commenting and storyboarding were less frequent, although the latter was typically used in live election coverage. On the other hand, the analyzed news items scored low in the informative function of links, with the most common functions being describe, unmodified, and cite author.

In relation to this analysis, it is interesting to outline the typical profile of curation in front-page news stories. These were authored journalistic pieces, featuring slightly fewer than 10 curated elements (9.22 on average), in which the most prevalent time ranges were current (within the last 24 h), timeless (such as tags for politicians or article authors), and recent (within the last week), while retrospective content appeared much less frequently. The curated content was primarily original material from the same outlet, falling under the categories of media and websites, with some links to official sources and very few to social networks. The most frequently used technique was summarizing, followed by quoting to a lesser extent. Among the links, the most common functions are describe or unmodified text, and, to a lesser degree, links that cite the author.

In response to RQ3, the overall ranking of the newspapers analyzed according to curation in their front-page news places El País in first position (13.94 points), followed closely by elDiario.es (13.53) and El Español (13.21), all scoring around the medium quality level for curation. La Vanguardia (10.22) was somewhat behind, with a lower level. El País stood out for its consistent performance across most parameters, especially in time ranges, sources by organization, and sense-making techniques; elDiario.es excelled in the amount of curated content, authorship, and link function; and El Español achieved the highest scores in origin and sources by morphology and organization.

Regarding RQ4, it can first be concluded that, at a global level, there were no clear differences in curation between the legacy media studied (El País and La Vanguardia) and the purely digital outlets (elDiario.es and El Español), although some minor differences were observed in specific parameters. For example, the purely digital outlets tended to use more unmodified links in their curation, and El Español (a pure digital outlet) stood out for its use of social media compared to the legacy media. Furthermore, the analysis by day and edition reveals that there was a higher quality of curation in front-page news published in the early time slots (morning and midday) and during the first days of the week, with a declining trend in curation quality throughout the afternoon and the weekend. The two editions with the highest scores both belonged to El País.

Overall, this research, through its analysis of curation in the front pages of four Spanish digital newspapers, reveals a level of content elaboration that, while fulfilling an essential informative function, falls significantly short of the levels achieved in other formats, such as newsletters and live news. In this regard, the study concludes that even within the same outlet, the quality and intensity of curation can vary depending on the type of journalistic product. A front page, by its very nature, brings together journalistic items of varying origins, topics, and formats. This suggests that the front page, despite its importance as a newspaper’s informational showcase, may not be the space where media outlets focus their greatest efforts in content curation, perhaps due to a prioritization of immediacy and the presentation of the most relevant news of the moment.

Limitations and Future Research

As previously noted, this study is the first of its kind to focus on curation in front-page news stories, and as such, it is not without several limitations, among which the following can be highlighted.

First, the study was based on a limited sample of only four Spanish newspapers, which may restrict the generalizability of the findings to other media outlets and geographic contexts. Another limitation is that the data collection period was highly specific and coincided with a major news event—an election—which may have influenced the results, and which could differ during another time frame. Furthermore, regarding the analyzed period, it is important to note that the “constructed week” methodology, while useful for obtaining a varied sample, is still an artificial representation that may not accurately capture the news production of a real week. Additionally, analyzing only five news stories per front page is another limitation that could affect the representativeness of the analysis. Finally, it is worth noting the inherent limitations of the CAS (Curation Analysis System) method itself, which uses a set of specific parameters and a scoring system that may not fully capture the complexity of the content curation process.

Based on these limitations, as well as other aspects not addressed in this study, several possible directions for future research are proposed. First, similar studies could be conducted with a different sample of digital media outlets, including various types of press (regional, specialized, etc.) or newspapers from other countries, in order to compare curation practices across different contexts. Longitudinal studies could also be carried out over longer time periods to identify trends in content curation and how it evolves. This type of front-page news analysis could also be extended to different sections of the newspapers. Additionally, it would be valuable to further explore comparisons between the curation characteristics of different journalistic products. Finally, studies like the present one could be complemented with other research methods, such as interviews with journalists and curators, to gain deeper insight into the strategies and perspectives of media professionals.