They Shoot Journos, Don't They?

By: Greg Mitchell On Tuesday, when we reported the results of a new Gallup Poll asking Americans to rank professions in terms of honesty and ethics, I knew that celebratory letters would soon fill my email box and that they would not come from any of the winners in this survey: nurses and grade-school teachers.

No, they would be penned by the press-haters happy to learn that they are far from alone in ranking newspaper reporters way down the list, behind, among others, nursing-home operators and auto mechanics.

I wasn't disappointed.

The critics wrote: ?Duh,? and ?No surprise? and ?Good for you,? along with various unprintables. This is partly warranted. E&P frequently chronicles the shortcomings of too many in our industry. But to finish even behind TV reporters in the public estimation?

In the spirit of fairness, or defensiveness, I?d like to point out that while print journos almost trailed the field, 71% of the public rated their honesty and ethics at least ?average.? So it could be worse (think: lawyers, congressmen, used-car dealers).

Anyway, we did get some thoughtful or amusing comments along with all the ?duhs.? Here's a sample:

Leslie Boyd, community news reporter for The Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times, wrote: ?All I can say is: Egad. It's a sad, sad day for an aging hippie when her profession is lower on the trust scale than military officers, cops and local politicians.?

From Amy Kaye of Miami: "Judges rank higher than journalists? Oh, please. I was married to one of each. And while the journalist died alcoholic in his 40s, after I'd divorced him, he could never in a million years have been like the swine judge who dumped me and our grown daughter after 25 years to marry a Baltic Bovine court clerk."

Howard Bixler of Toms River, N.J.: ?I fully concur with the extremely low opinions of reporters and media newsmen! I would rate them even lower, if possible! Thank god for the new media, Fox News, talk radio.?

Tim Peters, an engineer in Anchorage, Alaska, stuck up for his own profession: ?It figures: Engineers aren't even on the list. Try lying your way out of a fallen bridge or electrical fire or blown-up space shuttle. Try bullshitting about working on technical matters to anyone who's knowledgeable. You get smoked out pretty fast. You have no choice but to be honest.?

A TV reporter in the Midwest claimed to have performed a Google search of the phrases ?nurse kills? and ?reporter kills? and got 283 hits on nurses and none on reporters. Okay! The letter writer concluded: ?Perhaps some day the people who daily reap the benefits of reporters' work will come to appreciate it, or at least despise it less.?

Tim Crews, editor and publisher of the Sacramento Valley Mirror in Artois, Calif., asked: ?So why does the public rate newspaper people so low? Certainly not on the basis of two or three reporters out of thousands. My theory is the echoes of Spiro Agnew and his crew -- which fueled a drumbeat of distrust of the press in general -- is to blame. For those of us who labor in penury and provide news that is news, the public's view is sad indeed."

Someone named Karen wrote: ?It doesn?t really matter to you guys what we think or what we think of you.?

From James Lyle: ?There are others above them, but news folks rank pretty high. Their mistakes are more publicly visible than those of people in other occupations, or they would rank at or near the top. Plus they need to work on eliminating non-objective personality mechanisms, and apologize occasionally. They are under enormous pressure to produce at all costs; this pressure accounts for most of their derelictions and shortcuts. Education in the Natural Law would help them.?

Mary Lyon, former AP reporter, wrote: ?I read with relish your story describing the grim results of the latest Gallup Poll -- regarding reporters' reputations for honesty. Well, I'm glad at least someone is talking about this. ... I just realized that my fatigue at this moment stems not only from a long day, but also from the psychological burdens from reading so much depressing news --that reporters might have short-circuited if they'd only held the Bush Administration's feet to the fire."