Key Documents: Section IV. Data on the Status and Practice of Journalism - Public Opinion

By Robert Ruby and the Project for Excellence in Journalism Ask the public for its opinion of the press, and the responses are chastening. Most Americans believe the news media are politically biased, that their stories are often inaccurate and that journalists do not care about the people they report on. And in 2007, the public's overall view of the press remained by many measures as negative as in the recent past and notably worse than in the mid-1980s. There are nuances to the public's skepticism. People continue to like what they actually watch, read and know best. They dislike and distrust the hypothetical monolith—the behemoth called the news media. What is growing is the extent to which partisanship is creating distinct audiences. It has reached the point where ideology is now as strong an indicator of an individual's likes and dislikes about the press as any other basic demographic ...

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