Study: Trust in media down, but still very high

The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press just released the results of a new study into how Americans feel about the media. It’s good news and bad news.

The bad news is that, overall, trust in the media has declined. The good news is that, unless you work at the New York Times or Washington Post, it’s not by much.

By wide margins, more Americans give favorable than unfavorable ratings to their daily newspaper (80%-20%), local TV news (79%-21%), and cable TV news networks (79%-21%), among those able to rate these organizations. The margin is only slightly smaller for network TV news (75%-25%).

In addition to the favorable/unfavorable results, the favorables dropped like this: Daily newspapers dropped 2 percent, local TV news by 4 percent, cable network news by 9 percent, national network news by 1 percent and national newspapers like the Times and the Post dropped a whopping 13 percent, which now are languishing with a 61 percent favorable rating. At this point, local newspapers are the most trusted media source, but only with a 1 percent margin over local and cable TV news.

Much-publicized attacks on the press by politicos tend to focus on the big name papers, which is probably why their brands have lost some of their luster, while papers that people tend to be more familiar with, like their hometown papers, are known quantities that are seen as not having the same sorts of problems those other papers have.

This isn’t me taking a political stand with this analysis: The study found a divide in how Democrats and Republicans view the media, which definitely suggests the hammering the press have gotten from right wing critics in recent years has had a real impact with the intended audience. (Obviously, the NYT’s well-publicized problems have had their own bipartisan impact on the paper’s reputation.)

The partisan gap on this issue has grown dramatically, as Republicans increasingly express the view that the press is excessively critical of the U.S. (67% now vs. 42% in 2002). Over the same period, Democratic opinions on this have remained fairly stable (24% now vs. 26% in 2002).

Republicans are now closely divided as to whether the press protects or hurts democracy; 40% say it protects democracy, while 43% believe it hurts democracy. Two years ago, by a fairly sizable margin (44%-31%) more Republicans felt that the press helped democracy. Democratic opinion on this measure has been more stable. In the current survey, 56% say the press protects democracy while just 27% say it hurts democracy.

Views on whether the press is politically biased have been more consistent over the years. More than seven-in-ten Republicans (73%) say the press is biased, compared with 53% of Democrats. Perceptions of political bias have increased modestly among members of both parties over the past two years.

Interestingly, while fewer Democrats tend to view the press as biased, a growing number of them think the media hasn’t been tough enough of President Bush: 54 percent say the media aren’t “criticial enough” of him, compared to 39 percent a year ago. I suspect that has more to do with evolving opinions about the presidency on that side of the aisle than it does the press — the war in Iraq and other issues are likely much more important in shaping that sort of opinion than anything the news media have done in particular. Presidential election results may have also created a sour grapes effect as well, right or wrong. It’s something I’ve seen in local politics and with local readers for many years.

The newspaper industry has been terrified to varying degrees by the rise of the Internet — which is probably something worth exploring in more detail at another time — but the news here wasn’t bad, if one assumes that many newspapers will eventually fully adapt to the challenges ahead, albeit with some soul-searching and probably some pain along the way:

The current study includes two measures that provide some insight into this growing news source. First, by a 90%-6% margin, respondents who say they rely on newspapers as a main source almost universally mean the printed version of the paper, not the online version. Second, when respondents cite the internet as a main source, most are including their use of online newspapers. Fully 62% of internet news consumers say they read the websites of local or national newspapers.

Combined, these questions indicate that while 40% of Americans count the printed newspaper as a main source of news, another 16% are reading newspapers as part of their internet news consumption. The relevance of online newspaper readership is most important among younger Americans. While only about a third of those under age 40 count the printed newspaper as a main source of news (compared with half of those age 50 and older), another 20% say the online version is at least a part of their internet use. While younger people tend to consume far less news overall than their seniors, newspapers ­ in one form or another ­ remain a key part of the media mix for majorities in all age groups.

Of all the traditional media, I’ve always felt the newspaper industry was the best-poised to prosper under the Internet paradigm — just look at how omnipresent the Associated Press and Reuters wire services are online now; they’re part of pretty much every major Internet news site, like Yahoo! News and Google News.

There’s a detailed breakdown of who reads newspapers online. Interestingly, it’s most popular among self-described “moderates” politically.

Where the views of online newspaper readers differ more dramatically is in their evaluations of mainstream media organizations. People who read the newspaper online have a far less favorable opinion of network and local TV news programming than do people who read the print version, and also have a somewhat less favorable view of the daily newspaper they are most familiar with. But consumers of online newspapers feel far more favorably toward large nationally influential newspapers, such as the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Again, I’m guessing that’s the familiarity factor coming into play again. And, of course, if you’re an online consumer of news, the major sites have the finances to have a lot of stuff there for you, between larger news staffs and all the bells and whistles generally.

Interestingly, the public seems to be split on the media’s role as a watchdog, something again that I’ve seen in my professional life:

Beyond the rising criticism of press performance and patriotism, there also has been significant erosion in support for the news media’s watchdog role over the military. Nearly half (47%) say that by criticizing the military, news organizations are weakening the nation’s defenses; 44% say such criticism keeps the nation militarily prepared. The percentage saying press criticism weakens American defenses has been increasing in recent years and now stands at its highest point in surveys dating to 1985.

By contrast, public support for the news media’s role as a political watchdog has endured and even increased a bit. Six-in-ten Americans say that by criticizing political leaders, news organizations keep political leaders from doing things that should not be done; just 28% feel such criticism keeps political leaders from doing their jobs. Two years ago, 54% endorsed the press’s role as a political watchdog.

In my experience, even the politicians tend to be generally OK with the press being a watchdog, so long as they can see you sniffing around other politicians the same way, and aren’t singling them out. I’ve only had one serious run-in with an elected official about this in recent memory, whereas I’ve put quite a few under the microscope in public. Most of the politicians, including those under the microscope, know it’s a “Godfather” thing: It’s business, not personal.

Here’s an interesting bit that defies conventional wisdom, or at least what I would have guessed to be true:

By nearly three-to-one (68%-24%), Americans believe it is better if coverage of the war on terror is neutral rather than pro-American.

Of course, it’s likely that people’s perception of what constitutes neutral coverage may be colored at times by their political beliefs. Ask someone how Clinton and Bush were treated by the media, and the answers almost invariably tell you how they vote, I find.

And the use of anonymous sources come under scrutiny as well, with the results mirroring, I think, how most journalists tend to feel: It’s acceptable in certain circumstances, but it still makes everyone a bit nervous.

About half (52%) say the use of such sources is too risky because it can lead to inaccurate reports, while 44% say it is okay because it can yield important news that they otherwise wouldn’t get. People who say they paid very close attention to the Deep Throat story are much more positive about the use of confidential sources than those who paid less attention to this story (60% vs. 41%).

But most Americans think the use of confidential sources is at least sometimes justified. Over three-quarters (76%) think reporters should sometimes be allowed to keep their sources confidential if that is the only way to get information, while 19% say reporters should always reveal their sources. Despite the recent visibility of the Deep Throat story, opinions on this question are no different today than they were twenty years ago.

That definitely mirrors what I’ve been hearing in newsrooms since 1992, when I started my professional career.

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