Most people think the media do a good job and are generally accurate and impartial, but they also think "expensive libel suits against the media are good because they make the media more careful. . ." and they favor "permitting the courts to fine the news media for publishing or broadcasting stories that are biased or inaccurate."
These mixed results--and other, equally mixed results--have emerged from a Los Angeles Times Poll conducted over the last five months among about 3,000 members of the general public and 3,000 newspaper reporters and editors.
The survey, supervised by I. A. Lewis, director of the Times poll, consisted of telephone interviews of about 30 minutes and 106 questions each on a wide variety of social and political issues, as well as on public perceptions of media performance.
Higher Ratings
In general, the public seems to rate the news media more highly than has generally been perceived of late. When people were asked, "Overall, how would you rate the kind of job that television and the newspapers and magazines and radio are doing. . . ?" only 5% said bad--"fairly bad," 4%, or "very bad," 1%--and 94% said good--"very good," 30%, or "fairly good," 64%. (The remainder--as on all questions in this story--either had no opinion or declined to answer.)
When people were asked to rate--separately--the job they think is being done by the newspapers they read most frequently and by the network and local television news programs they watch most frequently, more than 90% again said "very good" or "fairly good" for all three. (For newspapers, 65% said "very good" and 31% "fairly good"; for local TV news programs, 51% said "very good" and 44% said "fairly good"; for network news programs, 43% said "very good" and 48% said "fairly good.")
The figures were roughly similar when respondents were asked to rate their newspapers and television news programs in terms of how accurately and how impartially they present the news--although, in both cases, local TV news fared somewhat better than did newspapers or network news programs.
Only a small percentage of readers and viewers rate their newspapers or television news program "very bad" or "fairly bad" in any of these categories. Only 7% say their newspapers did a bad job in terms of accuracy, for example, and only 5% say their local TV news program did a bad job in terms of "how fair and impartial they are to all sides."
The public also gives the media higher ratings than government, business or labor for standards of honesty and integrity, for fairness and impartiality and for promoting the public good. In addition, only 6% of the public say the press should have its power cut back, whereas 37% say government should have its power cut back, 26% say that of labor and 14% say it of business.
Slightly more than half the respondents in the Times poll say the media should continue to be as critical as they have been of government, business and the church. Of those who want a change in the media's treatment of business, most want the media to be more critical, not less; those who want a change in the media's treatment of government and of the church are about evenly divided on whether the media should be more critical or less critical.
Moreover, the public does not think a government official should be allowed to stop the news media from publishing or broadcasting a story he believes is inaccurate (50% say no and 33% say yes).
Public reaction was somewhat more divided--and often more critical--however, on several other questions of media performance and media-government relations. Clearly, the public view of the media is a blend of confidence and skepticism, faith and hostility.
When asked, "Do you think the news media abuse the power of the press, or do you think they are careful to use this privilege in a responsible way?" 49% said the media behave responsibly, and 40% said the media abuse their power.
'Basically Ethical?'
When asked, "Do you think journalism in America is basically ethical. . . ?" 23% said it is "essentially ethical," 45% said it needs some improvements, 8% said it needs many improvements and 9% said it needs a fundamental overhauling.
When asked, "What, if anything, should be done about abuses of freedom of the press. . . ?" far more respondents favored having the media regulate themselves (47%) than favored making it easier to sue the media for libel (21%) or having the government regulate the media (17%); 3% said nothing should be done.
But when asked specifically, "Do you think expensive libel suits against the media are good because they make the media more careful about the facts they report, or do you think they are bad because they discourage the press from reporting stories that may be in the public interest?" 48% said libel suits are good, and only 33% said they are bad.
