Cultural selection discussion

The burgeoning problems with the media have been documented in great detail by researchers, academicians and journalists themselves:
High levels of inaccuracies

* Public confidence in the media, already low, continues to slip. A poll by USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup found only 36 percent of Americans believe news organizations get the facts straight, compared with 54 percent in mid-1989.

* According to an in-depth study by the American Society of Newspaper Editors in 1999, 23 percent of the public find factual errors in the news stories of their daily paper at least once a week while more than a third of the public - 35 percent - see spelling or grammar mistakes in their newspaper more than once a week. The study also found that 73 percent of adults in America have become more skeptical about the accuracy of their news.

* The level of inaccuracy noticed is even higher when the public has first-hand knowledge of a news story. Almost 50 percent of the public reports having had first-hand knowledge of a news event at some time even though they were not personally part of the story. Of that group, only 51 percent said the facts in the story were reported accurately, with the remainder finding errors ranging from misinterpretations to actual errors.

* When reporters and editors interviewed in the ASNE study were asked why they thought mistakes were being made, 34 percent said the "rush to deadline" was the major factor, one third said it was a combination of being "overworked" and "understaffed,” and the remaining third said it was "inattention, carelessness, inexperience, poor knowledge" and just-plain-bad editing and reporting.

* The Columbia Journalism Review and the nonprofit, nonpartisan research firm Public Agenda polled 125 senior journalists nationwide in 1999 on various questions. When asked: "Have you ever seriously suspected a colleague of manufacturing a quote or an incident?" a disturbingly high 38 percent answered yes.

Sensationalism

There is tendency for the press to play up and dwell on stories that are sensational - murders, car crashes, kidnappings, sex scandals and the like.

* In a study by the American Society of Newspaper Editors, eighty percent of the American public said they believe "journalists chase sensational stories because they think it will sell papers, not because they think it is important news. " Another 85 percent of the public believes that "newspapers frequently over-dramatize some news stories just to sell more papers." Over 80 percent believe sensational stories receive lots of news coverage simply because they are exciting, not because they are important.

* 78 percent of the public thinks journalists enjoy reporting on the personal failings of private officials.

* 48 percent of the public sees misleading headlines in their paper more than once a week.

Mistakes regularly left uncorrected

A 1999 poll by the Columbia Journalism Review and the nonprofit research firm Public Agenda of 125 senior journalists nationwide found:

* Fully 70 percent of the respondents felt that most news organizations do a "poor" (20 percent) or "fair" (50 percent) job of informing the public about errors in their reporting. Barely a quarter called it "good." A paltry 2 percent awarded a rating of "excellent."

* A remarkable 91 percent think newsrooms need more open and candid internal discussion of editorial mistakes and what to do about them.

* Almost four in ten of those people interviewed feel sure many factual errors are never corrected because reporters and editors are eager to hide their mistakes.

* More than half think most news organizations lack proper internal guidelines for making corrections.

* A majority (52 percent) thinks the media needs to give corrections more prominent display.

* Over 40 percent said their news organization does not even have a person designated to review and assess requests for corrections.

Poor coverage of important issues

While the media is busy covering sensationalist stories, issues that affect our lives and the whole world receive little attention.
The Environment

* A study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs found the number of stories about the environment on the network news went from 377 in 1990 and 220 in 1991 to only 106 in 1998 and 131 in 1999. At the same time, the number of stories about entertainment soared from 134 in 1990 and 95 in 1991, to 221 stories in 1998, and 172 in 1999.

Though polls repeatedly show Americans overwhelmingly (higher than 80 percent) want improvements in the environment, Dan Fagin, President of the independent Society of Environmental Journalists, said in 2003 “Whether the subject is global climate change or local sprawl, aging power plants or newborn salmon, debate over environmental issues has never been … so obfuscated by misleading claims. Meanwhile, getting environmental stories into print, or on the air, has never been more difficult.”

Government

* “The Project for Excellence in Journalism, reporting on the front pages of the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, on the ABC, CBS, and NBC Nightly news programs, and on Time and Newsweek, showed that from 1977 to 1997, the number of stories about government dropped from one in three to one in five, while the number of stories about celebrities rose from one in every 50 stories to one in every 14. What difference does it make? Well, it's government that can pick our pockets, slap us into jail, run a highway through our backyard or send us to war. Knowing what government does is “the news we need to keep our freedoms.”

- Bill Moyers

* The reporting on national affairs by the major newsmagazines has declined by 25 percent, while the number of entertainment and celebrity stories has doubled, according to "The State of the News Media in 2004” report by the non-partisan Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Foreign Aid and 24,000 Easily Preventable Deaths a Day

* At the Rio Earth Summit the world’s industrialized nations agreed to fix international aid at 0.7% of GDP. The only countries to reach that target have been the Scandinavian countries. The US ranks at the very bottom with a pathetic 0.14%. A sizeable amount of our aid is political in nature and does not go toward benefiting people in need. Even when private donations are included in the mix, our country still ranks at the bottom in total giving per capita.

According to the World Health Organization about 28,000 people who die every day around the world could be saved easily with basic care. In all, last year 8.8 million lives were lost needlessly (approximately the combined number of people living in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine) due to preventable diseases, infections and child birth complications.

When Americans are asked what percentage of the GDP for international aid would be reasonable, the answers range from 1% to 5%. Similarly, when asked what percentage of the federal budget should go to foreign aid, Americans on average said 14%, and that in fact, they thought 20% was currently being allocated. The actual amount of our budget allocated is 1%.

Yet the press rarely reports on any of the above – that we give so little, that we are avoiding what we agreed to, that Americans think giving at a higher level would be reasonable, that we think we are giving far more than we are, and that a huge number of deaths every day (eight times the number that died in the 9-11 attacks), are a direct result of not receiving basic care. When the press does report on foreign aid, the media often perpetuates the myth that we give substantially and in proportion to our means.

Education

* Large numbers of Americans give low ratings to the media for school coverage. For example, in a joint survey by the Education Writers Association and the Public Agenda, 44% gave “print media with a national readership” ratings of fair to poor, while only 4% gave a rating of excellent. About 84% gave “broadcast media with a national audience” ratings of fair to poor and only 1% gave a rating of excellent. Educators and journalists agreed. Over 44% of journalists rated “print media with a national readership” as fair to poor in their coverage and 84% rated “broadcast media with a national audience” the same.

Non-profit media organizations rate far higher on educating the public than for-profit entities

A seven-month series of polls by the Center for Policy Attitudes and Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland found that Americans receiving their news from non-profit organizations were far more likely to have accurate perceptions related to American foreign policy than those receiving their information from for-profit entities. The study also found the variations could not be explained as a result of differences in the demographic characteristics of each audience, because the variations were also found when comparing the demographic subgroups of each audience.

For example, in three areas of information related to Iraq (whether weapons of mass destruction had been found, if clear evidence had been found linking Iraq and al-Qaeda and if worldwide public opinion supported the war in Iraq), only 23% of those who received their information from PBS and NPR had an inaccurate perception, while 55% of those who received their information from CNN or NBC had an inaccurate perception, 61% for ABC, 71% for CBS and 80% for Fox.

Similarly, on the specific question of whether the majority of the people in the world favored the U.S. having gone to war, 63% of those who received their information from CBS misperceived, 58% who received their information from ABC misperceived and only 26% of those who received their information from PBS and NPR misperceived. Those receiving information from the other networks fell into a similar pattern as demonstrated in the example above: Fox at 69%, NBC at 56% and CNN at 54% - all with rates of misperception twice as high as the non-profit media organizations.

When the percentages of people misperceiving in each area were averaged, it was found that those receiving information from for-profit broadcast media outlets were nearly three times as likely to misperceive as those receiving from the non-profit media organizations. Those receiving their information from Fox News showed the highest average rate of misperceptions -- 45% -- while those receiving their information from PBS and NPR showed the lowest - 11%. CBS showed at 36%, CNN at 31%, ABC at 30%, and NBC at 30%.