Journalists are more concerned with procedural fairness, that they followed all the guidelines and all the rules. The public is more concerned with fair outcomes.
That was one key conclusion produced after a two-year study of readers’ attitudes about the news media, said Robert Haiman, former editor and the author of a credibility study for the Freedom Forum, a First Amendment advocacy group.
The public wants the press to be independent and tough-minded, holding the strong and powerful accountable to public opinion. It also wants the press to be sensitive, caring and compassionate to the less fortunate and the victims of tragedy, Haiman said.
Of course, readers need to know what’s going wrong, Haiman said, but newsrooms should be interested in reporting what works. As he said, if journalists had been around 2000 years ago, they would have covered the Crucifixion and missed Christianity.
Though there is a lot of talk in the journalism world about the impact of technology — the convergence of print, audio and video into one communications medium — readers are talking about the old values.
They want accuracy, they want smarter reporters who can explain a complicated world in understandable terms, they want their newspapers to reflect the entire community, they want newspapers that can be trusted to be fair, they want reporters who know how to tell human stories in compelling ways.
Top complaints to ombudsmen
Reader advocate types were asked to list the top five concerns of their readers, listeners and viewers in a survey of news ombudsman for the annual convention last month of the Organization of News Ombudsmen. Here they are:
- Accuracy: Wrong facts, spelling, grammar and missing context.
- Bias: Poor separation of facts and opinions; political bias; and sections of local communities ignored or not covered well.
- Page 1 story selection: Sensational stories, headlines that don’t fit the story, taste issues, immediacy vs. depth, too negative.
- Not enough good news, too little local news.
- Privacy and ethics concerns.
Religion in the news
Mark Silk, director of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life, said last week that local newspapers should focus on local developments, not national trends.
He also said that too much newspaper coverage of religion is too feature-oriented and shies away from conflict. According to that model, much of the Bible would have to be edited out, he said.
Silk was speaking at a media appreciation lunch hosted by Bishop John Snyder of the Catholic Diocese of St. Augustine. Silk said there has been a boom in news media interest of religion. For instance, membership in the national religion writers group has gone from 200 to 400. More newspapers are adding separate Religion sections, as the Times-Union once did.
My comments: Times-Union coverage of religion has moved to the front page more than ever, which certainly is appropriate for a city in which religion plays a huge part in many daily lives.
