who “try to kill the media messenger”; radio talk shows with an agenda of wanting to destroy the credibility of the mainstream press; and the negative portrayal of journalists in films and television dramas. Clark concluded: “The public bias against the press is a more serious problem for American democracy than the bias (real or perceived) of the press itself.”14 And Clark made this point eight years before Donald Trump was elected president in a campaign that relied heavily on denunciation of the news media.
Over the longer term, suspicion of the news media has been fueled by the media’s dual nature – most news organizations have to make a profit at the same time that they fulfill their quasi‐civic function of informing the community. It is easy for cynics to ask: Are they reporting this story because it is news the public needs, or are they just trying to attract web traffic, raise broadcast ratings, or sell papers?
Another chronic problem, discussed by the authors of Doing Ethics in Journalism, is the way journalists explain their newsgathering decisions to the public. Rather than reflexively citing their legal right to publish the information, they should be emphasizing their moral obligation to report the news, the authors wrote, adding, “There is a tendency by journalists to wrongly assume the public understands the rationale behind First Amendment protections.”15
William F. Woo, a newspaper editor and later a Stanford University professor, wrote that journalists had to take some of the blame for the public’s lack of sympathy with the First Amendment. In Letters From the Editor, he wrote:
Many of us seem to think that the amendment was written for the press, rather than for the people, and that it confers upon us special privileges or rights that are not given to others. … There is almost no phrase used by journalists that I dislike more than “the public’s right to know,” for it so often justifies not courage and independence but excess, intrusion and abuse.16
Sometimes, the public misunderstands journalism’s mission, which quite likely was a factor in the reaction to the Grand Forks Herald’s outing of Joan Kroc as the Angel. In another common misunderstanding of journalism’s purpose, some people watching televised interviews and news conferences perceive that journalists are being discourteous when they ask tough but appropriate questions of public officials.
A cause of tension, for many newspapers at least, is that the editorial pages express opinions about the people and events covered on the news pages. Even though the news and editorials are written by separate staffs (or at least they should be), readers often conclude that a paper’s editorial position influences its news coverage. In addition, some people may refuse to buy a paper whose editorials they disagree with. Unquestionably, these are downsides, but journalists generally think it is important that the newspaper offer informed opinion on issues in the news and stand up for what its editorial board thinks is sound public policy, especially when the issues have a moral dimension.
How to Respond to the Criticism
The incessant criticism in the surveys might tempt journalists to conclude that, since there is no way to please the public, why even try?
That would be a mistake. Journalists must take their credibility very seriously. Whether they think readers, viewers, and listeners are right or wrong, they ignore the audience’s opinions at their peril.
People who make complaints about the news ultimately may not get satisfaction. The owners of some department stores used to tell their employees that “the customer is always right” – a policy that may be smart in retailing but not in news. The final resolution of a complaint is determined by the facts, not by what would make the customer happy.
Of course, the customer isn’t always wrong, either. A reasonable customer – not one who calls for the sole purpose of mindless screaming – is entitled to serious consideration of a complaint of inaccuracy. The news organization’s proper response is, “We’ll check it out.”
If the complaint proves valid, the news organization should speedily correct the record. In addition, the journalists ought to analyze how the error occurred. That could lead them to improve their procedures of gathering and presenting the news.
If, however, the investigation shows the original report was correct, the news organization should explain its decision‐making. Citizen critics often are astonished, and pleased, that the news organization would take the time to address their complaints in a thoughtful way. If the critic’s point of view is widely shared, a way could be found – a letter to the editor or a comment posted online – to accommodate customers who want to explain their perspective.
In the digital era, members of the audience can and often do take matters into their own hands when they feel slighted by a news organization. Using social media and blogs, they express their displeasure in messages that may go viral. That is what happened in the case study accompanying this chapter, “A Journalist’s Trial by Social Media.”
No matter how their motives are misunderstood, journalists must not consciously do anything that would validate the criticism and justify the lack of trust.
Nor should journalists pander to the public – shaping the news to fit the perceived desires of the audience. In the first place, the public is far from monolithic, and no one can precisely determine what it wants to be told about a news event. Far more important, journalists would be betraying their audience’s trust by making popularity their goal instead of an honest search for truth.
In short, journalists:
have to accept that they are not going to be loved by their audience, but …
can’t stop trying to improve their credibility in the eyes of the public.
Nobody said this job was going to be easy!
Learn From the Complaints
The rational way to deal with citizen complaints to the news media is to look beyond the vitriol to find the constructive criticism. This requires keeping an open mind. “We’re too thin‐skinned,” said Kathleen Carroll, former executive editor of The Associated Press, speaking of the industry as a whole. “We should not take questioning by the public as an assault.”17
So it is useful to compile a list of what irritates the public the most. Like market research in the business world, the complaints can identify patterns that need attention.
In some cases, this exercise might suggest that, instead of changing their newsgathering techniques, journalists should do a better job of explaining themselves. In other words, they should be transparent. “We have not been good at explaining our methodology – the reasons why we do the things we do,” said James M. Naughton, former president of the Poynter Institute. “There is less fear of conspiracy if the newsgathering process is open.”18
The list below – based on anecdotal evidence as well as surveys – summarizes recurring themes in complaints from the news audience. The topics are discussed in more detail elsewhere in this textbook.
Bias: This is the most common complaint, and the complaints focus on stories about politics, a subject on which the audience is polarized. The survey by Gallup and the Knight Foundation showed in 2020 that an overwhelming majority of Americans detected political bias in the news: 49% saw “a great deal of bias” and 37% “a fair amount.”19 Bias exists in part because journalism is a subjective art. Its practitioners continually make decisions about the news – what stories to cover, what facts to use, what facts to highlight in the
