Last Updated: March 02, 1999
Printer-friendly version
Why newspaper credibility has been dropping
The public believes that newspapers chase and over-cover
sensational stories because they’re exciting and they sell papers. They
don’t believe these stories deserve the attention and play they get.
Americans say they’re tired of having sensational stories crammed down
their throats. The public believes that underlying perceived newspaper
excesses is a motive to “sell more papers.”
Consider that more than 80 percent of U.S. adults believe that sensational
stories get lots of news coverage because they’re exciting and that journalists
chase a sensational story because they think it’ll sell papers, not because
it’s important.
Clearly, a powerful driver of public perceptions of sensationalism is
the unfortunate confluence of a number of “hot” stories in the recent past
— including O.J. Simpson, Paula Jones, Princess Diana, Jon Benet Ramsey,
Richard Jewell, and, of course, Monica Lewinsky. Editors’ judgments about
if, how and where to play those stories must be made carefully and knowing
that they will probably have had heavy TV coverage.
Another, perhaps more insidious, contributor to these beliefs is the
perception that newspapers overplay “normal” news stories — 48 percent
of adults say they find misleading headlines in their paper more than once
a week — and the related fear expressed by 78 percent that journalists
enjoy reporting on the personal failings of officials.
The gap between the amount of coverage of the Clinton sex scandal and
the public’s interest in it underscores the problem. In April and May 1998
— long before the Starr report — 96 percent of adults said they were aware
of the Clinton/Lewinsky story. Of that group:
-
85 percent said TV had too much coverage (66 percent said the same for
newspapers).
-
67 percent said they were not at all interested in the story.
But consider:
-
74 percent of U.S. adults tell us that they want local news every day.
-
54 percent report that newspapers are their primary source of this news.
-
Television is seen as the dominant source of national and world news.
-
Television is accepted as the news medium that gets it first.
Newspaper editors need to seriously examine the amount of energy and space
spent on the sensational stories that the public doesn’t want, resources
that could, perhaps, be better redirected toward giving them what they
do want. In a time when daily newspapers are still hanging on to their
local news franchise — but only barely — the risks inherent in chasing
and over-covering sensational wire stories just don’t seem worth it.
