Falling out of love with mainstream media?

September 15th, 2009

As we often argue, without trust you are nothing in this world. Now that has always been the case its just in the networked society the stakes are just that little more higher.

Nearly two-thirds — 63 percent — of Americans surveyed by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press believe that news stories are often inaccurate. That’s a flip from when Pew first asked that question in 1985, when 34 percent of respondents believed stories were frequently inaccurate.

Pew also found that 74 percent of respondents believe stories tend to favor one side of an issue over another, up from 66 percent two years ago.

The findings indicate U.S. newspapers and broadcasters could be alienating the audiences they are struggling to keep as they try to survive financial turmoil. Pew Research’s questionnaire didn’t attempt to gauge how shrinking newspapers and other cutbacks at news organizations are affecting people’s perceptions, though the reductions probably haven’t helped, said Michael Dimock, an associate director for the center.

I thought this was also interesting though hardly surprising,

Yet those who go online for national and international news also give the press relatively low ratings. Notably, 80% of the online news audience says that news stories are often inaccurate, which is only slightly less than the percentage of Fox News viewers (86%) and greater than the proportions of other news audiences expressing this view. In addition, 39% of those who say their main source of news is the internet say news organizations are declining in influence; that compares with roughly a third of Fox News and CNN viewers and smaller proportions of those who rely on network news and newspapers.

However,

Though the public is increasingly critical of news media organizations, most people think it would be an important loss if major news sources shut down.

More than eight-in-ten Americans (82%) say that if all local television news programs went off the air – and shut down their web sites– it would be an important loss.

I wonder how we feel about that issue in the UK? We wring our hands about giving up local democracy, as local newspapers shut down (replaced by local council broadsheets), we deny the freedom of the press – an attitude that has prevailed in northern Europe since the dawn of representative democracy. Yet at the same time media owners have struggled to readjust to market conditions. Yet how free is the media? And how representative is it of important news and information? In 2006 I posted this,

Over a ten-month period, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) documented television newsrooms’ use of 36 video news releases (VNRs)—a small sample of the thousands produced each year. CMD identified 77 television stations, from those in the largest to the smallest markets, that aired these VNRs or related satellite media tours (SMTs) in 98 separate instances, without disclosure to viewers. Collectively, these 77 stations reach more than half of the U.S. population.

The VNRs and SMTs whose broadcast CMD documented were produced by three broadcast PR firms for 49 different clients, including General Motors, Intel, Pfizer and Capital One. In each case, these 77 television stations actively disguised the sponsored content to make it appear to be their own reporting. In almost all cases, stations failed to balance the clients’ messages with independently-gathered footage or basic journalistic research. More than one-third of the time, stations aired the pre-packaged VNR in its entirety.

Although the number of media formats and outlets has exploded in recent years, television remains the dominant news source in the United States. More than three-quarters of U.S. adults rely on local TV news, and more than 70 percent turn to network TV or cable news on a daily or near-daily basis, according to a January 2006 Harris Poll. The quality and integrity of television reporting thus significantly impacts the public’s ability to evaluate everything from consumer products to medical services to government policies.

To reach this audience—and to add a veneer of credibility to clients’ messages—the public relations industry uses video news releases (VNRs). VNRs are pre-packaged “news” segments and additional footage created by broadcast PR firms, or by publicists within corporations or government agencies. VNRs are designed to be seamlessly integrated into newscasts, and are freely provided to TV stations. Although the accompanying information sent to TV stations identifies the clients behind the VNRs, nothing in the material for broadcast does. Without strong disclosure requirements and the attention and action of TV station personnel, viewers cannot know when the news segment they’re watching was bought and paid for by the very subjects of that “report.”

Further

1). VNRs are aired in TV markets of all sizes

2). TV stations don’t disclose VNRs to viewers

3). TV stations disguise VNRs as their own reporting

4). TV stations don’t supplement VNR footage or verify VNR claims

5). The vast majority of VNRs are produced for corporate clients

6). Satellite media tours may accompany VNRs

So where does that leave us? I am not so sure

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