What makes people believe what they read in a newspaper? What gives us credibility with our readers?
My counterpart at the Kansas City Star, Miriam Pepper, pinpointed the things that damage our credibility: “It’s the small stuff (errors in facts, grammar and spelling) and the big stuff (bias, sensationalism).”
And, I’d add, a lot of in-between stuff, decisions we make every day based on assumptions that readers — at least the ones who contact me — don’t agree with.
That’s why the items in a recent and massive report on newspaper credibility sounded so painfully familiar.
Telephone interviews with 3,000 Americans. Detailed follow-up sessions with 16 focus groups of readers. Six major findings, scores of sobering recommendations coming from the report of the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
Edward Seaton, current ASNE president and editor-in-chief of the Manhattan (Kan.) Mercury, summarized the findings: “In general, the public views us as disconnected from our readers and our communities. It perceives us as overly sensational, often inaccurate, disrespectful, biased and unable to explain ourselves.”
Pretty strong stuff. And, practically all of it echoed by Arizona Republic readers in any given week.
Granted, some of the criticisms can be addressed simply by being more open, explaining more of what we do and why. But other complaints challenge us to rethink old habits and traditional assumptions.
Here are the six most disturbing perceptions identified in the national survey:
- Too many factual, spelling and grammatical mistakes in newspapers.
- The public thinks newspapers don’t know or show respect for their readers and their communities.
- Journalistic bias influences coverage.
- We overcover and sensationalize some stories, not because they’re important, but because they are exciting or will sell papers.
- Citizens who have had actual contact with reporters and editors are more critical of the media than those who simply read newspapers. In other words, those who know us best, like us least.
- Newsroom values and practices sometimes conflict with the public’s own priorities.
Readers firmly believe we will sacrifice accuracy for speed, and that we’ll write stories that will cause potential harm without a second thought.
Just last week, dozens of readers questioned why we published the news of a polygraph test involving Michael Darien Biggs, father of a missing Mesa girl. “Why did you have to run that?” they asked. “Just because you knew about it? Isn’t the family hurting enough?”
In September 1997, I asked readers to check our own newspaper for about a week, taking note of the articles they found believable and the ones they found unsatisfactory, for whatever reason. What they told me then mirrors the responses in the ASNE survey:
Get the facts right. Spell the names correctly. Make sure you get both sides of the story. If there are more than two sides, report them all. Be objective and fair. Give the reader a sense of balance.
Here’s what readers said then:
“Calm, two-sided reporting on any subject separates the pros from the amateurs every time.”
“Your rag is rife with errors. Every day I find your writers using “it’s’ where “its’ is correct, confusing “loose’ for “lose’ and “you’re’ for “your’ and using “their,’ “there’ and “they’re’ interchangeably.”
Those little errors in grammar, spelling and usage really irritate. They make us look foolish. They still do. A half-dozen readers, football fans obviously, called earlier this month, reminding us ever so smugly that the former Minnesota Vikings quarterback was Fran Tarkenton, not Tarkington.
A most interesting finding: When readers find an error that has been corrected in their newspaper, 63 percent of them said that it makes them feel better about the quality of the news coverage they are getting.
When we make a mistake, we ought to admit it, willingly, not grudgingly. We publish the equivalent of a book a day, from scratch. We are human. We make mistakes. We shouldn’t hide our corrections in small print. Admitting our errors heightens our credibility rather than diminishing it.
