Study suggests a gulf between how the news is portrayed and public experience

15 June 2009

A study suggests that the news does not represent the world in a way that the general public understands. ‘Public Trust in the News‘, published today by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University, says people in the focus groups surveyed said they did not think that news stories were properly explained or adequately researched.

Surprisingly perhaps, although the US primary elections was the biggest international news story in March 2008, not one member of the study’s Leeds-based focus groups realised that contenders Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were both from the Democratic Party. The study also included the comments of journalists, who said they were neither dismayed nor surprised by the public’s lack of understanding about the background to some of the headlines. Study lead author Professor Stephen Coleman, Visiting Fellow at RISJ from Leeds University, argues that this demonstrates that many journalists are ‘complacently trusting that it is enough for the general public to simply be exposed to a story’.

Another concern raised by the focus groups was that the participants view journalists as determining rather than reporting the news, with comments including:

‘You used to get reports of what had happened, but now the media
tend to create the news rather than report on it …’
‘I think a lot of the time they can be sat on the story a while and
then decide to release it.’
‘Who is deciding of a morning what is decided through the TV or
the newspaper? Is there a governing body who says ‘we won’t let
this out’ … ?’

Participants said they felt too many stories in the news were not grounded in fact, an example being the large number of conspiracy stories run in several newspapers relating to the circumstances of Princess Diana’s death. A common complaint was that the media did not have authority or clarity in the way stories were presented, with a media overload on some stories creating confusion for the public. Journalists too voiced concern about the lack of factual accuracy shown by sections of the media:

‘I think there are large parts of the media where it’s so … where the news desks are so intolerant of anything short of what they’ve asked for, that a reporter will give them what they want regardlessof whether or not they’ve got it and I think that’s terrible.’ (Tabloid journalist)

‘I think there are a lot of news organisations in Britain that don’t care about being accurate at all.’ (Broadsheet journalist)

 However, focus group participants spoke quite differently about local news than about national or global coverage, which they regarded as remote and not easily verifiable. Local newspapers and radio were closer to their personal experience and were seen to have fewer opportunities to abuse their journalistic authority.

Professor Coleman said: ‘The unifying fact in all this is what seems to be that distance between the viewers and readers, and the news providers. I think there are lessons to be learnt by journalists: that they should be less complacent about their understanding of their readership or their audience. The relationship is far more complicated than many journalists think.’

The study recommends that more journalists should engage in ‘a mission to connect’, to prevent news consumers ‘feeling like outsiders looking on at a drama’. One suggestion is for news providers to carry the back-stories behind the headlines akin to the coverage expected of sports programmes. For example, the coverage of big sports fixtures such as a football cup final will usually set up the game running background pieces like potted histories of the sides in contention, understanding that many people tuning in will not necessarily have followed both teams throughout the year.

The media is also recommended to play more of a role as conduit between the public and government. The public’s ability to act on issues that concern them could be facilitated by journalists and media channels. ‘Without this, contemporary democracies will face a crisis of political efficacy’, the report argues.

Finally, the study argues that journalists need to provide a greater variety of perspectives on news stories. The implications and interpretation of events will be coloured by the readers’ or viewers’ own background, particularly in stories relating to world events.
 
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