Bewildered By The Media p.11

By: DEBRA GERSH HERNANDEZ

AMERICANS ARE FRUSTRATED by the leadership in this country, and they include in that the news media.
"At the core of people's concerns was a belief that news media have lost a sense of their mission in society and have failed to live up to their responsibility to inform people about the news and challenges around them," according to a report from the Pew Center for Civic Journalism.
The report, "America's Struggle Within," was compiled for the Pew Center's Citizens Election Project by the Harwood Group, which gathered the thoughts of Americans in 15 focus groups in four key presidential primary states: Iowa, New Hampshire, Florida and California.
What researchers found was that unlike 1992 and 1994, when voters were angry, they now are more worried and believe that "things just fundamentally are out of whack in this country," explained Richard C. Harwood, president of the Harwood Group.
People are concerned about what they see as an unraveling of the economy, a feeling that they are in "economic quicksand"; and about disintegrating families and values, he said.
Further, while citizens are ambivalent about how to solve the nation's problems, they do not believe in a quick fix or some white knight riding in with a magic solution, nor do they want wholesale change, Harwood said during a Washington news conference announcing the report's findings.
Part of people's disenfranchisement comes from their belief that America's leadership ? political, media, corporate and citizen ? cannot accomplish this without a deeper sense of its public responsibility.
According to the report, "People felt betrayed and bewildered by the news media. They said that too much of what the news media convey is endless dirt and gossip, sensationalized coverage and confused and polarized public discourse.
"Group participants asserted that these practices undermine the very fabric of the union," the report added.
Among the things focus group participants wanted from the news media were: more than soap opera-style coverage; more attention on news that is important and meaningful; help in understanding issues and why they are important, but without mistaking clarity for volume; profiles of candidates beyond sound bites; a cessation of trying to kick candidates off their pedestals with negative coverage; keeping the candidates focused on issues of concern to the public; and a straight telling of the news, without reporters' conclusions.
Sadly, however, the report also found that participants "were not confident that they would get this kind of news coverage in the upcoming election. Rather," it noted, "they believed that the coverage would be driven by dirt, gossip and sensationalism. They were frustrated that the news media seem driven by trivia, instead of people's real concerns and lives."
Further, people commented that news media "too often had crossed the line of relevance and appropriateness in their coverage," and they pointed out that one problem was "the blurring of the distinction between news and entertainment."
Other comments in the report included a belief that the media "have lost their sense of what the truth is ? that coverage too often lacks accuracy"; that news organizations "twist and turn things and in the process lose the essence of their stories"; and that "for news coverage to improve, it would have to be more reflective of reality."
As a result of their dissatisfaction and frustration, people simply are turning away from the news media, according to the report. While there are pockets where people believe the media coverage is better, Harwood said the reflexes of many journalists ? to find the conflict, to polarize, to be negative ? does not move them toward their public mission.
Further, he noted that some news media simply create new gimmicks that are ghettoized, but people look at that and feel manipulated.
Harwood did not include the widely debated civic journalism as part of that ghetto, noting that those who are practicing it tend to extend the values to all their daily reporting.