| Major finding #2
Published: February 18, 1999
Last Updated: March 02, 1999
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Why newspaper credibility has been dropping
The public perceives that newspapers don’t consistently
demonstrate respect for, and knowledge of, their readers and their communities.
By many measures — education, income, interests, circle of friends,
working hours — many journalists are in a different class from average
Americans.
For instance, half the U.S. population lives in households with incomes
of below $47,000 per year (54 percent of those have two or more full-time
workers). Only 34 percent are college graduates — 39 percent never went
beyond high school.
Demography, though, is probably at the shallow end of the gulf between
journalists and the public.
Attitudinally, it seems that most U.S. adults accept the journalistic
persona:
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Motivated — 78 percent say that they pay more attention to what their editors
want, than to what readers want.
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Smart — 75 percent believe they’re better informed than average Americans.
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Cynical — 67 percent feel that they’re more cynical than other professionals
(although most agree that they share the same kinds of ethical and personal
values as most Americans).
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Hard-bitten — only 28 percent believe that a journalist would “tone down”
a story that could hurt the lives of who they’re writing about.
Whether these are professional virtues or vices, then, this persona is
a prevailing profile in how the public views journalists, and 53 percent
believe the press is out of touch with mainstream Americans.
Focus group participants were never asked about journalists per se,
nor were they asked to provide any psychological profile of reporters.
Their conceptions of reporters, however, were spelled out in their attempts
to explain why there was a credibility problem in the media, or the reasons
that they perceived bias, inaccuracy or arrogance in the media:
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“They like to see adverse things happen to people.”
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“They think some people don’t deserve success.”
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“They don’t care if they’re hurting people.”
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“As soon as someone is a hero, they think it’s their duty to show an underside.”
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“If they’re wrong, how do they pay back the people whose lives are ruined?”
Many were concerned that journalists didn’t really know, or relate well,
to the communities they were covering:
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“How long does it take a reporter to get to know a place?”
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“Put them in a community for at least a week. You can’t come out of Harvard
and understand the ghetto. You can’t just learn from a book.”
Others were particularly alarmed by the question of whether the press should
use its power to protect the interests of the underdog.
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“I never want them to have that power.”
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“Maybe the big dog is correct and the underdog is wrong.”
The best capsule of a prevailing impression, however, was provided by the
woman who said: “You wouldn’t be a good reporter if you were a nice person.”
It’s specious to dismiss these criticisms by assuming the public is
sloppy in their judgment by lumping the media in with other institutions,
or to assume that they tar daily newspapers with the same brush as supermarket
tabloids. They know the difference.
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