Journalism study finds growing concerns lead to increased levels of denial
Monday, August 11th, 2008
The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism is at it again, releasing its latest study . Oh, and the corporate spinners are at it again, trying to make everything sound wonderful when it doesn’t seem believable.
A couple of key findings:
In the past three years, 85% of large daily newspapers and 52% of smaller ones have cut their staffs.
Loss of institutional memory was the number one concern among surveyed editors. Forty-one percent offered comments about losing veteran staff, followed by 37% about the general loss of staff, and 6% were concerned about loss of space.
Forty-eight percent of those surveyed say the tension between the speed, depth and interactivity of the Web compared to the reduction in journalistic standards and accuracy is a concern.
And then, at the end of the laundry list of worries and “wow, that’s why my local newspaper isn’t what it used to be” entries, comes this beauty: 56% believe their product is better than three years ago.
Um, huh?
The staffing levels are down. The news hole is smaller. The news they are covering doesn’t touch on in-depth investigating reporting the way it used to. There is a concern over decreases in journalistic standards and accuracy.
And, let’s face it, the general public doesn’t think too highly of the media either in terms of ability to get the story right or report on the right story in the first place.
But more than half of the editors think their product is better than three years ago?
Now that’s a story – or should I say a tall tale?
If you really want to protect excellence in journalism, stop surveying the editors. Get to the heart of the matter and talk to reporters and their readers. Because that’s a survey you could learn something from.
Photo by Ville Miettinen