Public Confidence in Newspapers and TV Network News Declines
August 13th, 2010Online News Outlets and Cable News Sources On the Rise
Americans continue to express near-record-low confidence in newspapers and television news, while surveys show online media outlets and cable news sources growing in popularity, according to the latest Gallup Confidence in Institutions survey.
No more than 25 of Americans saying they have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in either newspapers or TV news.
“These views have hardly budged since falling more than 10 percentage points from 2003-2007,” Gallup reports.
The findings are from Gallup’s annual Confidence in Institutions survey, which found the military faring best and Congress faring worst of 16 institutions tested.
Americans’ confidence in newspapers and television news is on par with Americans’ lackluster confidence in banks and slightly better than their dismal rating of Health Management Organizations and big business.
The decline in trust since 2003 is also evident in a 2009 Gallup poll that asked about confidence and trust in the “mass media” more broadly. While perceptions of media bias present a viable hypothesis, Americans have not over the same period grown any more likely to say the news media are too conservative or too liberal.
No matter the cause, it is clear the media as a whole are not gaining new fans as they struggle to serve and compete with growing demand for online news, social media, and mobile platforms.
The Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism’s annual report on the State of the News Media, released in March, found for a third straight year, only digital and cable news sources growing in popularity, while network news, local news, and newspaper audiences shrink. These findings align with a similar 2008 Gallup poll that found cable and Internet news sources growing in popularity while all others held steady or declined.
While it is unclear how much respondents factored in the online and cable offshoots of “newspapers” and “television news” when assessing their confidence in these institutions, their responses do not provide much encouragement for the media more broadly. Confidence is hard to find, even among Democrats and liberals, who have historically been the most trusting of the news media.
While 18- to 29-year-olds express more trust in newspapers than most older Americans, Gallup polling has found they read national newspapers the least. Younger Americans also expressed more confidence than older Americans in several other institutions tested, including Congress, the medical system, and the criminal justice system, suggesting younger Americans are more confident in institutions in general.
Implications
With nearly all news organizations struggling to keep up with the up-to-the-minute news cycle and to remain profitable in the process, Americans’ low trust in newspapers and television news presents a critical barrier to success. The Pew report asserts that 80 percent of new media links are to legacy newspapers and broadcast networks, making clear that traditional news sources remain the backbone of the media. But so long as roughly three in four Americans remain distrustful, it will be difficult to attract the large and loyal audiences necessary to boost revenues.
Survey Methods
Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted July 8-11, 2010, with a random sample of 1,020 adults, aged 18 and older, living in the continental U.S., selected using random-digit-dial sampling.
For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95 percent confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones (for respondents with a landline telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell phone-only). Each sample includes a minimum quota of 150 cell phone-only respondents and 850 landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas among landline respondents for gender within region. Landline respondents are chosen at random within each household on the basis of which member had the most recent birthday.
Samples are weighted by gender, age, race, education, region, and phone lines. Demographic weighting targets are based on the March 2009 Current Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older non-institutionalized population living in continental U.S. telephone households. All reported margins of sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting and sample design.
In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
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Tags: Online News Outlets and Cable News Sources On the Rise, Public Confidence in Newspapers and TV Network News Declines
August 13th, 2010 at 6:03 pm
“Mainstream” news media probably deserve the declining confidence, for any number of reasons, not the least of which is their fascination with “official news,” i.e., the “news” generated by large institutions such as government.
For instance, much coverage will be given to the day’s political wranglings in Washington by most media. This is intensely fascinating to Beltway insiders. But for most of us, it is mystifying to frustrating, and as I have opined before here, resembles sports play-by-play and color commentary more than it resembles real journalism.
Cable news likely ranks higher because, since they’re 24/7, they can devote hours every day to some kind of analysis, sometimes with the help of real experts, often with one-on-one interviews with the actual newsmakers, etc. The quality of course is uneven, and outright propaganda (one word: Fox) not uncommon. But overall cable offers a lot more substance than regular network news and heaven knows more than local television news. Radio news, except for NPR, simply doesn’t exist anymore.
Newspapers, even the venerable NY Times and Washington Post, are a far cry from what they were in their halycon days of the last century. There is still substance to be had there, on occasion, but generally it is a desert of reportage and analysis. The papers, too, likely deserve the declining confidence.
None of this represents the end of the world, however. Simply, we have moved into a new era in which, thanks to the internet and the web press, more and more people are choosing to rely on a variety of sources for news, information and opinion. These are readily available, 24/7, anywhere you can connect to the net.
That makes net neutrality all the more vital. If you haven’t signed Al Franken’s petition, do so. I believe it can be found on Google ads on this site. (Glynn? True?) if not Google it and you’ll find the site.
August 14th, 2010 at 7:05 pm
I’ve seen the ad a few times.
There is another petition at the Change.org ad on the top left this blog page.
We also did a post about it with video:
Corporate Media Control About to Get Even Tighter