Why Newspaper Credibility Has Been Dropping

Steve Geimann
SGeimann@aol.com
Chair, SPJ Ethics Committee
ASNE's Executive summary...

The American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) hired Chris Urban and Associates to conduct a survey of 3,000 Americans this past summer. The findings were extensively discussed by the ASNE Credibility Project think tank at a meeting in San Francisco in early October. The study is part of a 3-year effort to identify and understand public perceptions about the press, and take actions to improve press credibility.

Urban notes the public:

--Sees too many factual errors and spelling or grammar mistakes in newspapers.

--Perceives that newspapers don't consistently demonstrate respect for, and knowledge of, their readers and their communities.

--Suspects that the points of view and biases of journalists influence what stories are covered and how they are covered.

--Believes that newspapers chase and over-cover sensational stories because they're exciting and they sell papers and don't believe these stories deserve the attention and play they get.

--Feels that newsroom values and practices are sometimes in conflict with their own priorities for their newspapers.

The ASNE news release at their Web site (www.asne.org) mentions several initiatives to be launched by eight newspapers that have agreed to attack the various issues.

Each will introduce "strategies and content innovations to build reader trust," the release says. These four areas are "accuracy, sensationalism, bias and connecting with readers."

During the San Francisco meeting, the task force considered various approaches, including daily explanations about reasons for stories being put on page one, discussion about the use of photos or even an editor's explanation for NOT carrying a story.

Several of the newspapers also are participating in some professional development efforts to improve training of working reporters.

More from Geimann...

A central component of the three-year long Journalism Credibility Project of the American Society of Newspaper Editors was a comprehensive study of public attitudes about media credibility. The research was specifically designed not to replicate the numerous surveys that have measured the extent of declines in public confidence in the media over the past ten years, but to probe more deeply into the underlying causes of the "disconnect" between journalists and their audiences.

The research that supports these findings included three major components:

--A national survey of 3,000 telephone interviews (23 minutes on average, and completed in April and May, 1998) stratified to provide a random, representative sample of not only the 5 major census regions of the US, but of the 4 county-size designations within each, with the complete database weighted against Census statistics to be projectable to 197,344,000 US adults.

--A series of 16 "validation" focus groups (completed in August, 1998) in which initial findings drawn from the quantitative survey were discussed and commented upon by groups of loyal, occasional and Sunday-only readers of newspapers.

--A self-administered 12-page questionnaire (completed in May and June, 1998) by a random, stratified sample of 1,714 journalists working at US newspapers with daily circulation of 5,000 or more.

This report summarizes the major findings of the national data (qualitative and quantitative), with the results of the newsroom survey to be released in April 1999 at the ASNE's national convention. The issues raised in this report will help editors review their practices and standards, and the data will provide a baseline against which the effectiveness of new approaches to build journalism credibility can be evaluated.

Currently, these data are being used to shape the work of eight "test-site" newspapers across the US, including The Philadelphia Inquirer; The Oregonian, Portland; The Austin (Texas) American-Statesman; The San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News; The Sarasota (Fla.) Herald-Tribune; The Gazette, Colorado Springs, Colo.; Daily Press, Newport News, Va.; and Florida Today, Melbourne.

These newspapers will experiment with ways to correct credibility problems and build reader trust in four major areas: accuracy, eliminating sensationalism, reducing bias, and "connecting" with readers. Each test-site newspaper will develop concrete, actionable initiatives that can be applied in a wide variety of newspapers and markets.

The ASNE Journalism Credibility Project is funded by the Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation and the eight test-site newspapers.

The public demands more, and we should, too.

But the ASNE study also notes that many readers think the press covers sensational stories because they're sensational, not because they are important. They think we are too easily manipulated by special interests because we don't often explain why certain stories are being covered.

Readers want the story with all the facts, not a story with only some facts published in a rush to be first. And they want sources named, and when we can't name them, they want to know why.

In short, the public wants journalists and journalism to get back to the basics of telling stories about the people and events in their communities, to offer those stories in a fair and balanced presentation with sources identified, either by name or agenda.

And while such surveys are useful and helpful, journalists who are responsible and professional should be guided by a strong set of ethical principles, a dogged determination to be fair and accurate and a commitment to be open minded about every story they cover.

Steve Geimann,
Chair, Ethics Committee