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This study investigates how European journalists evaluate the changes that have occurred in their profession since the Internet has been integrated in newsrooms. How do journalists perceive the features and innovations associated with the Internet? What are the principal changes in the profession? Do practitioners believe that the quality of journalism has been raised or lowered? To answer to these research questions, we carried out a survey across 11 European countries–Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, United Kingdom, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden–of 239 journalists, working for 40 of the most‐read print/online news outlets in these countries. The survey shows that the opportunity to use the Internet to reinforce the social functions of journalism has not been fully recognised.

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Thyroid transcription factor-2 (TTF-2/FOXE1) is a polyalanine domain protein that regulates thyroid embryogenesis, but very few patients with permanent primary congenital hypothyroidism (pCH) harbor germline mutations of this or other transcription factors that are involved in thyroid development that might explain the etiology of pCH. Variations within the polyalanine tract are found in a variety of genes and are often reported in association with malformation syndromes; pCH is frequently associated with thyroid malformations and extra-thyroidal malformations. Therefore, in this study we investigated whether alanine (Ala) length polymorphisms and non-polymorphic mutations of the TTF-2 gene in pCH patients might be involved in the pathogenesis of pCH. The entire coding region of the TTF-2 gene was analyzed in 57 Sicilian patients and 142 healthy controls. We found that the homozygous Ala14 polymorphism (Ala14/14) was less frequent in the pCH group than in the controls. In contrast, significantly more pCH patients than controls harbored the Ala16 polymorphism (Ala16/16 and Ala14/16). However, neither the Ala14/14 nor the Ala16 polymorphism was related to extra-thyroidal malformations. Two of the 57 patients carried Ala11/14 and Ala12/14, and one Ala14/14 patient also had the silent polymorphism 387 C/T (Leu129Leu). Other than known polymorphic variants we found no mutation in the TTF-2 gene. Therefore, this study demonstrates that mutations in the TTF-2 gene are rare in pCH patients and suggests that variations in the length of the Ala-tract could at least partially explain the etiology of pCH but not that of extra-thyroidal malformations.

This paper presents cross-national research on news readership diversification. We compare written news (print and free newspapers, online and mobile news services) audiences in the 5 most populous and industrialized European countries (Italy, France, Spain, the UK and Germany). Outlining a sociodemographic portrait of these different news users is important in order to understand the changes undergone inside the world of written news. We draw on a telephone survey carried out in 2009, using a representative population sample (N=7,255