Survey: Press, public not on the same page
A University of Connecticut survey released today reveals some significant disagreements between journalists and the general public over the quality of today's reporting and the boundaries of press freedom.
In one of the more jarring findings of the poll, only 14 percent of the public respondents could name freedom of the press as a right guaranteed in the First Amendment, although 58 percent were able to identify freedom of speech as one such right. The journalists did better, but only 57 percent of them correctly identified freedom of speech as part of the First Amendment. The national survey from the University of Connecticut's Department of Public Policy was conducted in late March and early April and included 1,000 adults and 300 television and newspaper journalists.
It probably comes as no surprise that only 3 percent of the journalists said the US press has too much freedom. But in stark contrast, 43 percent of the public felt the news media are given excessive leeway. Although 95 percent of the journalists strongly agreed that newspapers should be allowed ''to publish freely without governmental approval of a story," only 55 percent of the public strongly agreed.
When asked about a recent court ruling that required New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper to reveal confidential sources during a grand jury investigation, only 8 percent of journalists voiced approval for that decision. Yet 57 percent of the public said they agreed with the court.
Ken Dautrich, chairman of the University of Connecticut's department of public policy, says the public's views on the rights of the press are connected to doubts about the quality of the reporting.
''If you look at the way the American public rates journalism, there's a lot of skepticism," he says. Attitudes about press freedom, he adds, are ''based on the public's lack of confidence in journalism today. Journalists, by feeding into that, are having a negative impact on general feelings about freedom of the press. The biggest divergence is on accuracy."
While 72 percent of the journalists said their profession did a good or excellent job of reporting information accurately, only 39 percent of the public felt the same way. At the same time, 61 percent of the citizen respondents said they disagreed with the statement that ''the news media tries to report the news without bias."
Some survey findings may provide fodder for conservatives who complain about liberal tilt in the press. When asked to identify themselves politically, one-third of the journalists and one-third of the citizens said they were Democrats. The divergence came when 32 percent of the public identified themselves as Republicans, compared with only 10 percent of the newsroom employees. Among journalists who said they voted in the 2004 election, 68 percent reported favoring John Kerry and 25 percent chose George Bush. Yet among the public respondents who said they voted, Bush beat Kerry 54 percent to 44 percent.
