More than two-thirds of adults do say, however, that their perception of bias in newspapers does not represent a major obstacle to being able to trust newspapers as a source of news — perhaps because they believe they’ve built sufficient filtering mechanisms to identify and neutralize it when they think they see it.

There’s a consistent yet complex pattern here, although with near unanimity in the public’s view that there’s a problem. In fact, there are at least three interpretations of what bias actually is:

• 30 percent of adults see bias as “not being open-minded and neutral about the facts.”
• 29 percent say that it’s “having an agenda, and shaping the news report to fit it.”
• 29 percent believe that it’s “favoritism to a particular social or political group.”

Given the ubiquity of the perception, it’s not startling to see that the demographics of adults who believe the news media are biased mirror the nation’s.

The interesting group, then, is the 17 percent of adults who disagree with this widely held belief. This group tends to be older, less well-educated, less likely to be working, living in households with lower incomes, and more likely to be Democrats.

With the exception of political affiliation, then, the demography of the 17 percent who don’t see bias in the news media is distinctly downscale.

It’s also important to note that the behavior and perceptions of the 58 percent of adults who believe that the charges of media bias are “justified” are directionally different from the 29 percent who think the media are simply an “easy target for deeper problems in our society.” Those who won’t excuse media bias are much more likely to  find misleading headlines, mistakes in spelling and grammar, and factual errors in their paper more than once a week; believe that there are powerful external and internal influences that shape the news report; see purposeful sensationalization in the news report; and, most significantly, discuss media credibility with others.

Power plays

Seventy-eight percent of U.S. adults believe that powerful people or organizations can influence a newspaper to “spike or spin” a story.

Asked what groups they thought could influence news decisions and set news agendas, 63 percent of the public could volunteer an open-ended, “top-of-mind” answer. The majority cited politicians or government officials, big business and wealthy individuals — not an unreasonable layman’s construction given the incidence of newsmakers and oft-quoted sources within those groups. One focus group participant phrased it succinctly:

“There was no explanation of why the story was important, and so I just assumed somebody wanted it there.”

Public perceptions of bias in newspapers must, of course, also be understood in the context of how they evaluate the news media overall. The majority of U.S. adults see tremendous strengths in a newspaper’s ability to really understand the issues that are important to a local community (61 percent), and they lean more toward the “positive” on these choices:

• 50 percent believe that papers run lots of articles that are written in a way that respect readers’ intelligence (vs. 38 percent that feel articles are “dumbed down”).
• 47 percent believe they provide fair and balanced reporting even of groups that they might disagree with (vs. 41 percent who believe that reporting is unfair and unbalanced).

Overall, however, some of the responses are not very complimentary:

• 56 percent feel that newspapers make biased (rather than objective) decisions about what news to publish.
• 50 percent believe they allow advertisers’ interests to influence news decisions.
• 59 percent say papers are concerned mainly with making profits (rather than serving the public interest).

Alone, these kinds of contrasting views would be a blunt instrument with which to measure perceptions of newspapers. Their more potent use, however, is in being able to isolate meaningful differences between the views of various subgroups. In this case, it’s clear that age makes the biggest difference in these perceptions, especially on three dimensions:

• “Being more concerned with the public interest” rather than profits (51 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds believe that about newspapers vs. 27 percent of those over 55).
• “Respecting readers’ intelligence” (believed of newspapers by 70 percent of younger adults and only 49 percent of those 55 or over).
• “Being more liberal politically” (46 percent of younger vs. 66 percent of older adults perceive that about newspapers).

Hidden agendas

Outside pressures notwithstanding, the research also suggests that much of the public believes there are internal axes that get ground (favorite causes, tenacious beliefs, unstaunchable convictions of what’s right) and mindsets (self-righteousness, socioeconomic bigotry, disdain for working-class values, skepticism gone bad to cynicism) in newsrooms that could inject bias into news reports. Whether a newspaper’s agenda is consciously expressed, subliminally active or nonexistent, then, a large proportion of the U.S. public believe that there is one, and they believe that it can influence the news they see or don’t see.

Fifty percent of adults believe that there are individuals or groups that get a special break and enjoy overly favorable coverage in the media — predominantly the powerful (who they believe can force their way if it’s not given freely). More telling, however, is the 45 percent that believe that some people don’t get a fair shake and get overly unfavorable coverage in the media. Here the presumption of a negative bias is primarily ethnic or racial, with significant proportions of the public volunteering (on an unaided “top-of-mind” basis) that African-Americans, Hispanics/Latinos, conservatives, the poor/people on welfare, and religious organizations (especially born-again Christians) don’t get a fair shake in the media. Particularly important is that perceived bias in news coverage of specific ethnic or racial segments is seen more strongly by members of that segment, a sentiment echoed in the focus groups:

“White, middle-class, story gets big play. Poor and black, one line. I think that’s bias.”

Reporting fact vs. opinion

Throughout the survey, the public expresses consistent appeals for fairness and even-handedness in news coverage. These sentiments were echoed in the focus group sessions, where newspapers were told “Push reporters to be aware of how easy it is to twist things up,” and “Reputations for credibility are hard to win and easy to lose.”

Most dangerous, of course, is the short distance between the public believing that there is an agenda within the newsroom, to them seeing that agenda expressed as opinion within news reports.

When the public senses this, it’s a severe threat to credibility — whether or not the intention of the agenda they see is noble, or whether the expression of its voice is skillful. It is the perceived lack of neutrality that does the damage to public perceptions of media credibility, not the quality of the ideas expressed.

This is precisely what focus group participants were addressing in their responses to a question about whether they felt newspapers should just report the facts or write stories to help improve society. One participant said:

“Whose better society? I don’t want the government interfering in my personal life. And I don’t want the media interfering.”

At the core, the public most commonly defines the foundation of bias as a lack of neutrality. They see the editorial page as the only home for opinion or suggestion. The public believes that the reporter’s job is to report the facts — completely, insightfully and without spin (even if the spin makes for “a better read”), and clean of any intent to sway or convince.

The public appears to diagnose the root causes of media bias in two forms.

First (and at best), bias is a lack of dispassion and impartiality that colors the decision of whether or not to publish a story, or the particular facts that are included in a news report, and finally, the tone of how those facts are expressed.

Second (and at worst), they see bias as an intent to persuade. No matter how worthy the intended outcome appears to the reporter (with his or her own inescapable matrix of experiences and preconceptions), the movement in journalist goals from “just the facts” to “here’s what’s good for everyone else” is seen to be a risky one by the American public.