The news about what Americans think about the news
One dog barking: an occasional column by John Dineen
If you don’t think following the news is important to being a good member of society, you’re like most Americans.
If you don’t think you have a responsibility to pay for news, you’re like the vast majority of Americans.
If you’re confident you know how to check the accuracy of a news story, you’re like most Americans. But you should know most Americans don’t think you can.
All of this comes from the Pew Research Center, which has just published its findings on “Americans’ complicated relationship with news.”
Complicated is right: While only a minority of Americans believes following the news is important to “being a good member of society,” 80 percent say Americans have a responsibility to be informed about the news when they vote. And the vast majority believe voting is important.
The Pew study details Americans’ changing relationship with news:
News fatigue is also widespread – and shaping Americans’ news choices. About half of U.S. adults say they are worn out by the amount of news these days, and people are more likely to say most of the news they come across is not relevant to their lives than to say it is relevant. Following the news often feels like an obligation, and only about one-in-ten Americans say they follow it “solely” because they enjoy it.
Many have adjusted their news habits: Two-thirds say they have stopped getting news from a specific source, and six-in-ten say they have reduced their overall news intake.
If you’re a journalist, all of this is pretty sobering.
Particularly sobering is Americans’ confidence in “journalists to act in the best interest of the public.” Among Democrats or those leaning Democratic, 61 percent have a great deal or a fair amount of confidence in journalists. In contrast, only 24 percent of Republicans share that confidence.
That partisan split has been a long time in the making, going back to Vice President Spiro Agnew’s 1969 speech in which he excoriated television news as “a tiny, enclosed fraternity of privileged men elected by no one.” Since then — when roughly 70 percent of Americans trusted what they watched and read — disparagement of the “liberal media” has been a relentless Republican theme, as well as the premise of Fox News and the remaking of CBS News under Bari Weiss.
One thing Americans seem to be in agreement on is that U.S. news organizations are doing at least somewhat well financially: 61 percent of survey respondents said that.
Of course, Americans are wrong about that. In the past 20 years, almost 40 percent of all local newspapers have folded, according to the Northwestern-Medill Local News Initiative. Newsroom jobs in that period dropped from 75,000 to just over 30,000. The number of “news deserts” — counties with no source of local news — increased from 150 to more than 210. Some 50 million Americans have limited or no access to reliable local news.
And while experiments with different business models are under way across the country, so far no magic solution has emerged. That’s something all Americans should find concerning, whether they know it or not.
Pew Research: Americans’ Complicated Relationship With News
Why Americans think news habits are changing, in their own words
Who should make sure people know how to verify news, according to Americans?
What does it mean to ‘do your own research,’ and how often do Americans do it?
Majority of Americans express low confidence in journalists to act in public’s best interests
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