Trust in traditional media is eroding

http://www.zogby.com/methodology/readmeth.dbm?ID=1277

A survey, recently completed by Zogby poll measured the perception of media bias and a profession of journalism. Zogby is reporting that confidence is continuing to slip and the perception of media bias and partisan divide is on the rise. Those factors combined with more than 20 years of growing skepticism about journalists, and news companies. Zogby reports that public has come to view the news media as less professional, less accurate, less caring than before.

Public views news industry as not the industry involved in the “public good,” but regular businesses. News outlets, in order to deal with fragmentation, are prone to design and produce content to attract crowds, like Lost, Survivor. Bloggers, as was seen with Dan Rather, highlight the failures of journalists and further undermine the credibility of news industry.

Public skepticism is growing.

The number of Americans with a favorable view of the press, for instance, dropped markedly in 2006, from 59% in February, to 48% in July.

The number of Americans that believe what news organizations tell them continues to drop. Zogby measured over 20 outlets the only ones that did not decline were Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, people’s local paper, the NewsHour on PBS, People magazine and the National Enquirer.⁵

A quarter of Americans believe most television outlets. Less than one in five believe what they read in print. CNN is not really more trusted than Fox, or ABC than NBC. The local paper is not viewed much differently than the New York Times.

Perception of bias is also the issue, Americans who feel that their daily newspaper has become worse, for instance, the number who blame bias, and particularly liberal bias, has grown from 19% in 1996 to 28% in 2006.⁶

One big change is that more people now feel they can get what traditional journalism offers from the Internet, and that, too, is a challenge for the press, one that may be accelerating faster than declining trust.

Other findings from the survey include:

• Although the vast majority of Americans are dissatisfied with the quality of journalism (64%), overall satisfaction with journalism has increased to 35% in this survey from 27% who said the same in 2007.
• Both traditional and new media are viewed as important for the future of journalism - 87% believe professional journalism has a vital role to play in journalism's future, although citizen journalism (77%) and blogging (59%) are also seen as significant by most Americans.
• Very few Americans (1%) consider blogs their most trusted source of news, or their primary source of news (1%).
• Three in four (75%) believe the Internet has had a positive impact on the overall quality of journalism.