Get your facts straight mate
In 1985, when asked whether news organizations "get the facts straight" or are "often inaccurate," 55 percent chose the former option and 34 percent the latter. This past July, when Pew asked this question, the responses were almost exactly reversed: 39 percent said news media get facts straight and 53 percent said they often don't.
Writes Beth Blanks Hindman Referring to a Pew Research Center findings over several years
1). In 1985, when asked whether news organizations were "moral" or "immoral" in their practices, 54 percent indicated the former, 13 percent the latter, and 33 percent said neither or that they weren't sure. This past July, 46 percent said news media were moral while nearly a third, 32 percent, said immoral.
2). In 1985, when asked whether news organizations "are pretty independent" or are "often influenced by powerful people and organizations," 37 percent chose the former option and 53 percent the latter. That wasn't good for the press then. It's even worse now: In July, 69 percent said news media are often influenced by powerful actors and institutions.
3). Finally, in 1985, when asked whether news organizations "protect democracy" or "hurt democracy," 54 percent chose the former option and 23 percent the latter. In July, only 44 percent said news media protect democracy, while more than a third, 36 percent, said news media hurt democracy.
These trends (and there are more data, none of which shows improving perceptions of the press) are unsustainable for any industry that depends on public support, both philosophically and economically. In decades past, journalism as practiced by newspapers, network and local TV news, and newsmagazines might have been able to turn around these views. But today, with Internet blogs and the loud voices of cable television gaining audiences, what we know as mainstream journalism might simply fade away, seen as increasingly unnecessary.
These trends (and there are more data, none of which shows improving perceptions of the press) are unsustainable for any industry that depends on public support, both philosophically and economically - read Robert McChesney
Trust a word we use so often and then forget its value. Trust is the most precious commodity any brand or business has. Its just in todays world of information empowerment trust must rethought as information travels at the speed of bytes, across time and continents And Reputation: the growing importance of trust in our digital world In the same way mass media obliterates ideas around context and meaning - these are unique and specific - consumers, thats us, all of us have moved beyond the whole notion of assumed positions of authority - information pushed outwards and gratefully accepted. Who in todays worlds as Walter Kronkyte used to say at the end of his broadcast "And thats the way it is". Today, people would be going online to fact check, discuss, argue debate, concur and reflect.
Glen Urban wrote
Evidence is building that the paradigm of marketing is changing from the push strategies so well suited to the past 50 years of mass media to trust-based strategies that are essential in a time of information empowerment
There will be those happy to shore up the defences and others willing to leap beyond the edge to find a new ledge and new logic and a new way of doing things.
We talk about the Age of Engagement: the ability to find a new way of connecting and communicating, of building trust and advocacy.
The biggest obstacle is legacy organisations, logic and business models that struggle with a new language, metrics etc., as this new ecology cannibalises their existing eco-systems... that is the consequence of structural change.
Imagine you are listed on the stock exchange, you have quarterly reporting, dividends and share price expectations and the CEO realises that his business model is flawed – what does he do? He doesn't sleep nights. Revolutions are always bloody.
But the evidence is there, the work is done, its the execution we are now fighting over.
But returning to the idea of the media and trust, we will seek those out who we believe are credible, believable. We know advertising and commercial marketing objectives drives news organisations in the US, but also elsewhere, its hard to believe the voice of authority if we know other agendas form the words.
Just take this as but one example Fake TV News: Widespread and Undisclosed
Beth continues
First, the press must be a true marketplace of ideas. Study after academic study shows that mainstream news organizations privilege the voices of powerful leaders in government, business and other cultural arenas. The Pew Center data indicate that the public recognizes this. Indeed, the concentration of power in the print columns and broadcast segments of news coverage is so great that democracy feels like a fiction to many. That's not an outcome that creates an empowered public; instead, it fosters and feeds an apathetic one.News coverage today commonly includes far too few voices. For example, the issue of immigration contains national security, economic, cultural, moral and legal dimensions. In 1965, Congress overhauled U.S. immigration laws, and in so doing ensured a nation of profound religious and ethnic diversity. What will today's politicians, in this Washington and the D.C. one, set into motion? Who should enter U.S. borders, how will people be treated, and what kinds of opportunities are to be available?
These questions resonate in every corner of this state. From high-tech immigration in the software industry to seasonal workers in Central Washington, to growing African refugee and former Soviet immigrant communities, the identity of the state and nation is in our hands. News media must help us — all of us — to work this through.
Second, the press must drop the posture of detached neutrality. In mainstream journalism, a norm of objectivity fosters a reporting process that feels clinical and uncaring for many citizens. What society needs from the press, instead, is a posture of invested engagement. This does not mean journalists should do away with balanced reporting; rather, it means that the treatment of news would change slightly. An invested press would place less emphasis on getting and neutrally reporting "both" sides of a story, and more on telling the story from many perspectives.
An engaged press would have a real, deep and long-lasting involvement in its community. This would mean fewer "sound-bite" stories and more in-depth public-affairs reporting. It would require more diversity — ethnic, religious, economic — among newsroom staff. People, including reporters, see the world through their own lens. The more lenses in a newsroom, the more points of view or perspectives will come through in stories. This, of course, means that journalism schools, like our own, must recruit and train journalists from many backgrounds. We can and will do better.
Third, the press must fully adapt to the new world of online media. We believe that many in the news media are beginning to understand the value of the Internet, but more could be done. At the University of Washington and Washington State University, we are beginning to see students who have known and used the Internet all their lives, and they treat news very differently even than people 10 years older. They expect interactive news — they want information, but also demand the ability to comment on it themselves, and to experience other, nonofficial perspectives. They want both the expertise of the newsroom and the "outsider" view, at the same time.
Online news provides opportunities for that mix of insider and outsider, for journalist-created and citizen-created perspectives on democracy. The top-down, voice-on-high model of knowledge is dead, in journalism as well as in higher education; that's a good thing.
With this in mind, journalists must capitalize on the fast-paced Internet culture of information to quickly correct mistakes. Journalists can follow the lead of prominent bloggers here; many acknowledge errors or alternate views proposed by readers, making for a more democratic and humble news-reporting process. The new online world still needs gatekeepers who sift through information and help people to make sense of it. News media can either adapt to the online world, or be left behind.
Fourth, the press must bring alive common and everyday experiences. Right now, such realities are largely ignored by a news media consumed by the bizarre and the unusual. Consider religious faith. Even in the nation's least church-going region, millions of Northwesterners attend some kind of worship services on a regular basis. Yet, the diverse ways in which faith is experienced are often ignored by news media, relegated to a buried weekend news story or taken up only when something controversial is in the offing. This guarantees a narrow perspective, and it has allowed religion to become big political and economic enterprises in America without adequate scrutiny.
In 2005, New York Times leadership recognized this failing, telling its reporters, "Our news coverage needs to embrace unorthodox [religious] views and contrarian opinions and to portray lives both more radical and more conservative than most of us experience."
Media is moral. There must be democracy in the media means there is no influence of politics. Media has very important job to maintain the public's trust & they have to do their job honestly to fulfill their responsibilities.
Posted by: News Media | March 04, 2009 at 07:14 AM