US Press is Losing Credibility, PEW Survey

EDITORIAL / People's Daily (Beijing) 2jun04

[Read commentary by PEW - includes link to complete document at PEW]]

The US press is facing an unprecedented credibility crisis because the two major newspapers, the New York Times and the USA Today were caught cooking up false news reports. People cannot but ask how credible on earth are today's reports? In fact, it is not only the general public who's questioning, journalists themselves are also lack of confidence in this regard. A latest poll showed that many reporters believe the US press is going towards a wrong direction, thus losing credibility among the people.

Journalists admit "mistakes" in reports

The poll is conducted by the Washington-based PEW Research Center. It is an independent research group, authoritative in the survey of the public attentiveness to major news stories, politics and public policies. Its director, Andrew Kohut, is himself an expert on polling who once worked as president of Gallup.

Starting from 1995, PEW began to conduct poll on the American press once every five years. The latest one started on March 10, 2004 and lasted a month, during which 547 journalists picked up at random received telephone interviews. They were news writers, broadcasting reporters, editors and executive managers from influential newspapers, magazines, radios and TV stations across the USA.

Many journalists surveyed believed today's news reports contain more and more "untrue" and "casual" contents, which have increasingly roused people's doubts on the news quality. According to the survey, 51 percent "national" reporters and 46 percent local reporters say the American press is tending towards a wrong direction. Besides, those who think present-day news have gone astray from being "accurate and objective" rose from 30 percent in 1995 to 45 percent this year. As high as 86 percent journalists say the American press pays inadequate attention to international events and 40 percent admit they often add their own opinions into news reports.

Staff shedding affects quality

Lacking high--standard news reports is a common problem facing American media, and the fake news scandal of the New York Times is by no means an isolated event, the survey pointed out. On top of journalists' disregarding professional rules and moral norms in order to seek for fame and profits, traditional media should also reflect on themselves, analysts said. For example, in fierce competition for market, some papers, desperately seek for exclusive reports and touching details in order to expand circulation and influence. This has pressed journalists to take dangerous moves. As a result a string of false reports appeared on the front pages since censorship is inadequate.

What is interesting is that many journalists attributed the lower-grade reports to economic reasons or "financial pressure". The percentage of "national" journalists holding such a view has risen from 41 percent in 1995 to the present-day 66 percent and from 33 percent to 60 percent for local reporters. This is because many news institutions axed staff for reducing cost and this means only a smaller number of people are now engaged in reporting. Nobody is going in for news in detail so the downgrading of the news quality.

Moreover, 50 percent people interviewed believed the "around-the-clock" working mode also affected news quality, for under this mode, journalists were left no time to probe deeper and had to produce articles fast, instead of accuracy and profundity. Still 6 percent say some journalists were too "chicken-hearted" to probe deeply into government news and political figures. When reporting government news, they never ask "why in this way" or "why not in this way", but writing down whatever the government told them. Many journalists hold that the press is too "polite" towards President Bush.

New York Times expresses its penitence openly

Not known whether it's due to PEW's survey report or not, the New York Times published its "letter of repentance" on May 26. In a readers' notice on the first page, they found "many reports failed to stick to facts" and some controversial reports are now viewed as questionable. The newspaper also admitted for the first time that reports saying Iraq's possession of chemical and biological weapons has never got confirmed.

The newspaper said they were reporting under encouragement from American officials who were sure that attacking Iraq was necessary. It is out of this reason that the paper "killed" all other articles of different views before the war began.

source: http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200406/02/eng20040602_145132.html 2jun04