WASHINGTON -- Ask journalists about their profession and they will tell you bad news: Reporting has gotten sloppier, facts too often are blurred by opinion and efforts to inform and entertain has led to a kind of "infotainment."
The Pew Center for the People and the Press turned the tables on the media, surveying 552 national and local journalists and news executives in print, television, radio and the Internet about the state of American journalism.In results released this week, a rising number of journalists agree with public opinion polls that say the media lack credibility. They also say reporters drive controversies with their coverage of personal and ethical behaviors of public figures.
"The major reason for public disaffection with journalism is the decline in the quality of journalism and the public's lack of confidence in the work that journalists do, now that it's become so loaded with infotainment and celebrity information," said Bill Kovach, a 30-year newspaperman who is curator of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University and chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists, which co-sponsored the Pew survey.
The telephone survey was conducted between Nov. 20, 1998, and Feb. 11.
When asked to cite top problems facing journalism, half the national news professionals mentioned such things as sensationalism, a lack of objectivity and inaccurate reporting. About 40 percent cited too much emphasis on the bottom line, competition and declining audience and readership.
The news media's loss of credibility with the public was cited by about one-third of the respondents. But while it ranked third -- behind quality and standards and business pressures -- concern about credibility has nearly doubled during the past decade.
"Roughly one in three members of the national and local media now say that a decline in public trust, confidence and credibility is the most important problem facing journalism," the survey said.
This is up from 17 percent of respondents who cited credibility as the most important problem facing journalism in a similar Pew survey of journalists in 1989.
"The good news is that journalists acknowledge a problem and are motivated to do something about it. It's definitely time to move past defensiveness and rationalization," says Diane McFarlin, executive editor of the Sarasota (Fla.) Herald-Tribune and chairman of the American Society of Newspaper Editors' ethics and values committee.
The committee's credibility project has identified key problems, including accuracy, bias, sensationalism and a disconnect with readers, and is testing ways to regain the public's trust at eight newspapers across the nation.
The eight test-site newspapers are: The Philadelphia Inquirer; The Oregonian, Portland; the Austin American-Statesman, in Texas; the San Jose Mercury News, in California; the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, in Florida; The Gazette, Colorado Springs, Colo.; the Daily Press, Newport News, Va.; and Florida Today, Melbourne.
A Pew survey conducted in June 1998 showed that Americans' views about press credibility have declined since the mid-1980s. According to the survey, network news believability fell an average of 11 percentage points; local television news dropped 12 points; and daily newspapers tumbled 17 points since 1985.
Some other survey findings:
69 percent of national news professionals said the distinction between reporting and commentary had seriously eroded -- up from 53 percent in a similar Pew survey of journalists in 1995.
40 percent said news reports are increasingly full of factual errors and sloppy reporting -- up from 30 percent in 1995.
49 percent of the national news media professionals say the press drives controversies with its coverage of the personal and ethical behaviors of public figures -- up from 41 percent in 1995.