Public Confidence in Press Dips Sharply, Surveys Find

WASHINGTON —  Public confidence in the American press as an objective reporter of political and social events has eroded significantly over the last four years, according to an extensive series of public opinion surveys released Wednesday by the Times Mirror Center for People & the Press.

But this does not constitute a credibility crisis--a notion popular a few years ago. People still consider the press far more believable than President Bush and other public figures--its favorability ratings remain in the 80% range and its role as a watchdog over unethical or illegal behavior is increasingly appreciated.

The survey found also that support for press freedom has risen markedly, even when contrasted with concern for national security, in part perhaps because events in China and Eastern Europe have demonstrated the democratic influence of a freer press.

“This does not raise a red flag. It raises more of a yellow flag,” said Michael J. Robinson, a professor of government at Georgetown University, who worked on the study.

But, Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute said that “ultimately, if the believability of news organizations falls (further), it will result in a crisis for the press that does not quite exist yet.”

In particular, people have problems with the way the press has investigated the private ethical lives of public figures, although the public defends the need of the press to do so. Even some members of the media are worried about the propriety of their own news practices and performance.

These are the findings of the second major study of public attitudes toward the press, entitled “The People & the Press,” conducted for Times Mirror by the Gallup Organization. The study, five separate surveys, involved interviewing 275 influential American leaders, 508 members of the press and 1,507 members of the general public.

The first survey, conducted in 1985, sharply contradicted the notion gaining currency then that the news media faced a credibility crisis. But it found that Americans harbored “serious reservations” about the media’s fairness, objectivity and independence. Times Mirror has conducted smaller incremental surveys on attitudes toward press performance since then.

But this survey, the first to fully reevaluate the 1985 benchmark study, found that four years later those reservations have deepened. The public supports the press’ overall purpose even more strongly than before, but it is more suspicious and critical of certain practices.

“On average, the public sees the average news organization as less believable than four years ago,” Robinson said.

In ratings of 16 separate major news organizations, the survey found that 15 of them had suffered a decline in believability in the last four years, on average by about 5 or 6 percentage points, Robinson said. More than 20% of those surveyed now no longer believe news organizations much at all.

The one exception is Cable News Network, which not only suffered no increase in the number of doubters but is now second among all news organizations rated as the most “highly believable,” behind the Wall Street Journal.

But, the public still views the press in general as favorably as it did four years ago: 82% for network news, 80% for local news and 77% for newspapers. And believability still is near 75%.

“Why, in the face of declining believability, do people still like the press?” Andrew Kohut, the former president of the Gallup Organization, who supervised the survey, asked. “Because people like the watchdog role of the press and they like the product.”

As Robinson put it, people like the press because they “like the news.”

What they are concerned about, at least in part, are excesses in coverage of the private ethical lives of public figures.

For example, 63% of the public and an even higher percentage of leaders in business, government and education blame the press for making news through overzealous coverage rather than just reporting stories about the personal ethics and scandals.

Significantly, nearly half in the media agree.

“There is a clear sense we have gone too far” in the way the press covers ethics and scandals, Ornstein said. And even some in the media, particularly reporters, feel a sense of unease, almost as if saying, “Stop me before I kill again,” he added.

But, regardless of how these stories were covered, nearly 8 in 10 Americans believe that it is important for the public to know about these matters, and a majority believes that the press has been at least “fairly responsible” overall in its coverage of them. In part, Robinson said, the public still likes the press because it blames press failures on external factors, such as pressure from powerful institutions or business pressures.

This attitude toward the press, critical but appreciative, shows up elsewhere. Seventy-six percent of the public, 88% of business leaders and 75% of political leaders see “a great deal” or “fair amount” of political bias in news coverage.

Americans are also more inclined than before to view press coverage as inaccurate: 44% today compared with 34% four years ago. They are more inclined to see the press as unfair to the White House: 21% compared with 12% before. And they see the press as more invasive of privacy: 81% compared with 73% four years ago.

And the public increasingly sees the press as influenced by powerful people and organizations: 62% today, compared with 53% in 1985.

At the same time, there has been a sharp increase in support for press freedom. Fifty-two percent of Americans consider freedom of the press more important than government censorship to protect national security, compared with 38% four years ago.

And, although it was evenly divided four years ago, today the public generally sees the First Amendment guarantees as protecting the general interest rather than the parochial interests of news organizations alone, by a 56%-32% margin.

In addition, the public discriminates about whom it believes and whom it does not.

The biggest losers in believability were daily newspapers, which are believed by 68% of the public--a 16 percentage point decline. That decline was higher, 35 points, among regular newspaper readers.

Times Mirror executives could only speculate on why newspapers suffered most.

Kohut, who recently left Gallup to found the Princeton Survey Research Assn., thought one reason is that skepticism is highest among older Americans, who are the most devoted newspaper readers.

Ornstein of American Enterprise Institute suggested that the decline for newspapers reflected a general dissatisfaction with interpretive reporting, in which the journalists, not the news, predominate.

Ornstein reasoned that CNN’s rise in believability can be attributed in large part to the fact that it offers what people like most: straight news, unadorned, largely uninterpreted.

Newspapers, in contrast, are moving more toward interpretive reporting. “And the more interpretive journalism they see, the more they have doubts about believability,” Ornstein suggested.

All three network news organizations also suffered drops in believability, but CBS suffered the most, with a drop of 8 percentage points. Nonetheless, 79% still consider CBS believable.

ABC remains believable to 82% of Americans, a drop of 5 points. NBC remained believable to 84%, a drop of 2 points.

Virtually all subgroups of the population give news organizations lower scores than four years ago, a drop that correlates with the increasing view that news organizations don’t get the facts straight, are biased and are influenced by powerful institutions.

Specific news personalities have suffered even more. Now, just 79% believe Dan Rather, with the doubters nearly doubling from four years ago. The same percentage believes Ted Koppel, who suffered a 9-point drop.

Tom Brokaw is believed by 81%, a drop of 7 points. Although Peter Jennings in now the most believed anchorman, with 85%, he still lost the faith of 5% of the population surveyed.

George Will has suffered markedly, with 41% no longer believing what he says, an increase of 15 points. Sam Donaldson is now doubted by 29%, up 8 points. Diane Sawyer is now doubted by 25%, an increase of 5 points.

The biggest loser in believability, however, was Geraldo Rivera, the former network newsman who has insisted that talk programs such as his are still news programs. Fully 74% of Americans doubt him--a jump of 48 percentage points.

Former President Ronald Reagan, once believed by 68% of Americans, has suffered a drop of 21 points, and now 53% doubt what he says.

The surveys of leaders from the press, business, education and government were new and thus could not be compared against earlier findings. However, those polls of elites also disclosed a singular growing support for CNN.

More than 60% of those leaders think that CNN is getting better, and virtually no one said that it was getting worse. In contrast, only about 35% think network news is getting better, and 44% think newspapers are.

Similarly, more than 80% of all those leaders see CNN owner Ted Turner, once considered the bad boy of broadcasting, as having a positive influence on journalism.

That is far more than those who consider Dan Rather a positive influence in journalism today. His positive rating varied from 30% to 67%, depending on the group asked.

Those American leaders see National Public Radio as a similarly positive influence in journalism. Seen as somewhat less positive but still important was USA Today.

“CNN is now the media darling for America’s leadership,” Robinson said.

The survey found that the press also has deep concerns about its performance, with nearly 4 in 10 journalists citing a fair amount of bias in news coverage. But they link those problems not to economic pressures but to procedural problems, one-sidedness, incomplete or sloppy reporting.

Three quarters of the press think that corporate emphasis on profits is influencing news coverage more than in the past.

And 74% are critical of news reenactments in news broadcasts; 61% are critical of the impact of so-called tabloid television.

But the press is deeply divided over whether television news is going too far to entertain audiences rather than to inform, with more than 5 in 10 worried.

The split, Ornstein said, generally divides reporters and correspondents, who are worried about this trend, and editors and managers, who are not.

The survey found also that the press consistently overestimates how interested the public will be in news, especially scandal stories.

But the press’ biggest failure was seen as overestimating interest in celebrity scandals.

The margin of error due to sampling in the survey, Kohut said, is 3 percentage points in either direction for the public, 5 points for the press and 11 points for the business, government and academic leaders.

PUBLIC’S VIEW: Press Biased and Often Inaccurate Do news organizations: Deal fairly with all sides: 28% Tend to favor one side: 68% Don’t know: 4% Get facts straight: 54% Are often Inaccurate: 44% Don’t know: 2% SOURCE: Times Mirror Center for People & the Press