Via
the Weekly Spin from the good folks at
PR Watch.
The Committee of Concerned Journalists, a consortium of reporters, editors, producers, publishers, owners and academics, has surveyed its own membership about the quality of election campaign coverage this year, and the results aren't pretty.
Nearly three quarters of respondents gave the press a C, D or F grade, and only 3% gave an A. By large majorities they felt the news media has become sidetracked by trivial issues, has been too reactive and has focused too much on campaign strategy rather than substance.
They gave particularly low grades to television and much higher grades to newspapers and online coverage. The online news sites in fact got more A grades than any other medium - a notable improvement in the internet's reputation relative to other information sources.
More after the jump...
The poll is not a representative sample of all journalists in the country in that it was not drawn from a randomly selected sample of that population, but is taken from a self-selected group who has chosen over the years to join the Committee of Concerned Journalists. <snip> Still, the number of respondents represents a sizable group of people from the press. <snip> CCJ members reflect a wide spectrum of American journalists, from print, online, radio and television and varying in age and market size.
So these are not the pure hacks we're dealing with, but rather the ones with some spine left. And their observations are interesting....
By large majorities they feel the news media has become sidetracked by trivial issues, has been too reactive and has focused too much on the inside baseball that doesn't really matter to voters
Gee, really?
When asked to volunteer ideas for the future, by more than two to one the largest group of suggestions involved focusing more on things that really matter to voters or reflect where the two candidates would likely take the country.
"Cover the issues as if (journalists) actually cared about the fate of a free society rather than the fate of their stories," wrote one impassioned respondent.
"Focus on what's important-the records, ideas and integrity of the candidates-rather than on tactics and sideshows," wrote one respondent.
Another large group of responses complained that the press has become biased or too opinionated, an idea also detected to be on the rise this year in surveys of citizens. "Remember impartiality?" wrote one respondent. "Try it. You might like it."
What a good idea!
In general, the survey respondents reflected concerns that the coverage is too reactive and superficial, too biased, too timid or lazy, and that journalists need to better verify the facts.
That about sums it up.
Let's call this one the Jon Stewart effect:
"Every newsroom should take a year and have a thoughtful, well informed series of discussions to answer the question: Is the way we do journalism helping or hurting our Democracy?"
How could the press improve? Let' see:
focus more on things that really mattered or would affect citizens-such as the records and policy proposals of the candidates and the concerns of voters themselves.
journalists needed to be more aggressive about verifying their facts and digging deeper below the surface. "Get your damn facts straight," admonished one respondent. "Better research and investigation," said another. "Refuse the spin," said yet another.
Some 6% of respondents offered the closely related idea that they wanted the press to do a better job of telling the truth or getting at the truth, not just reporting two sides of spinners and calling it balanced. "Find the truth with your own independent reporting and research and state it. Do not report two conflicting claims and let readers sort them out. This kind of journalism is terribly vulnerable to manipulation. It also confuses and alienates citizens."
Only 6%?!?!?!?
And finally, will all this have any effect?
What is less clear is fundamentally what might be done to lead the press to follow this advice. Although in some cases the complaints may be new or at least growing-the issue of bias for instance may seem larger this year-many of these complaints are familiar to journalists. The question of too much horse race or insider baseball is nothing new. The question of being manipulated by candidates is hardly original to 2004. The sense that the coverage of what really matters to voters is lost is not a sudden development. Nor is the complaint that the coverage gets sidetracked by minor concerns.
The larger question in many ways is why, if these concerns are raised campaign after campaign, the press seems unable to address or correct them.
Indeed.