Journalists’ Self-Reflection

By Deacon Mike Manno

(The Wanderer) – If you have been a reader of this column for any amount of time, you know that I am extremely interested in the state of journalism today. My undergraduate degree was in journalism and I practiced that profession for many years after graduation before turning to more lucrative pursuits.

Of course, as you can see, I’ve never totally given up the profession; I’ve had my hand in it, and followed it for the better part of my life. I suppose that in a way I’m still a journalist (at least at heart) although my position now is not as a reporter or an editor — which I did formally — but more as a commentator as I do here and on my radio program.

So, I was interested when I found a report from the Pew Research Center on how journalists see their jobs. In fact, the report found that of the nearly 12,000 journalists surveyed 70 percent were either “very” or “somewhat” satisfied with their jobs, and 77 percent said they would go into the news business all over again. Also, 70 percent were excited by their jobs, and 75 percent were proud of their jobs.

But that rosy picture was clouded somewhat by how they described the news industry today: 72 percent, when asked to describe it in one word, described it negatively. “Struggling” or “chaos” was used by 42 percent; “biased” or “partisan,” 7 percent; “difficult” or “stressful,” 6 percent; and 4 percent of the journalists described their industry as “inaccurate” or “untrustworthy.” Only 3 percent used the descriptive “important.”

“Despite mostly positive assessments of their jobs, journalists recognize the instability and turmoil in the news industry more broadly,” the authors of the report wrote.

The report continued: “Journalists were asked in a pair of open-ended questions to write down what the news industry does the best job of these days, and what it does worst. Overall, the responses indicate that journalists think the profession is good at getting the news out and adapting to changes in the industry. But getting the story right and issues related to bias and partisanship rise to the top as areas journalists think the industry handles worst.”

Getting the news out as the best job and getting the story right as the worst job each tied at 23 percent of the journalists surveyed.

Obviously there are a lot of facts and figures in the report, which you can read for yourselves, so we need not go into them here. But there was one section of the report that, to me, was particularly interesting. It dealt with how differently the public and the journalists themselves viewed their work.

As the report put it: “Journalists and the American public stand far apart on how well they think news outlets do in many of their core functions.” For example, when asked to rate journalists in five different categories, here is what the report showed:

Covering the most important stories of the day: Very/somewhat good: journalists 67 percent, public 41 percent; very/somewhat bad: journalists 19 percent, public 36 percent.

Reporting the news accurately: Good: journalists 65 percent, public 35 percent; bad: journalists 22 percent, public 43 percent.

Serving as a watchdog over elected officials: Good: journalists 52 percent, public 29 percent; bad 34-44 percent.

Giving voice to the underrepresented: Good: 46-24 percent, bad: 35-45 percent.

Managing or correcting misinformation: Good: 43-25 percent, bad: 40-51 percent.

These findings correspond to how the surveyed journalist felt about how they were perceived by the public, as reported by Pew:

“Relatively few Americans have a high level of trust in news outlets — and journalists sense that. About four-in-ten journalists (42 percent) say they think the public as a whole has little or no trust in the information they get from news organizations, and a similar share (44 percent) say they think the public has some trust. Only 14 percent of the journalists surveyed say they think the public generally has a great deal or even a fair amount of trust in the news. Given those views, it makes sense that about half of journalists (52 percent) say it is not possible to report news that nearly everyone finds accurate.”

Interestingly, the journalists surveyed were more concerned with news consumers following media outlets with similar political views than was the public. Roughly 94 percent of the journalists saw this as either a major problem, or a minor problem. Only 5 percent did not see it as a problem. This concern cuts across journalists who work for media outlets who favor the political right as well as those outlets who favor the left.

“Among those who say their organization’s audience leans to the right politically, nearly three-quarters (73 percent) say the political sorting of news audiences is a major problem, as do 71 percent of those whose audience leans to the left and 79 percent of those who say their audience is more politically mixed,” says the report.

In a separate survey of 10,441 adults, “roughly four-in-ten U.S. adults (39 percent) say it is a major problem when people with similar political views get news from the same organizations. About the same percentage (36 percent) say it is a minor problem, while 23 percent say it is not a problem at all — nearly five times the share of journalists,” it added.

There was a troubling section to the report that had to do with harassment of journalists. Of the television journalists, 58 percent reported being harassed, 10 percent reported being harassed once, 36 percent a few times, and 12 percent many times. For radio journalists, 41 percent said they had been harassed, their figures were 11 percent, 24 percent, and 5 percent; print, 39 percent harassed, 8 percent once, 26 percent a few times, and 5 percent many times.

Please don’t harass your journalist friends. I am harassed enough by calls about my car’s extended warranty, debt relief, and energy savings. I’m okay but my cat is on pins and needles and hides under the bed when the phone rings.

The report of nearly 12,000 journalists included reporters, columnists, editors, hosts, and anchors as well as bloggers, photo journalists, producers, analysts, and program directors. The bulk of the journalists came from the first category made up of reporters, columnists, writers, and correspondents which totaled 63 percent of the total surveyed. Of the surveyed journalists, 85 percent were full-time.

The report was produced by Pew staffers Jeffrey Gottfried, Amy Mitchell, Mark Jurkowitz, and Jacob Liedke and for anyone interested in the subject, it makes a good read.

(You can reach Mike at: DeaconMike@q.com and listen to him every weekend on Faith On Trial or podcast at https://iowacatholicradio.com/faith-on-trial/)