Poll: Americans, news media share goals, disappointment

There’s subNEW YORK — stantial agreement on what Americans want from the news media and what journalists want to report, according to a pair of studies that also reveal a troubling caveat: a nagging feeling among both the ideal isn’t being met.

Public suspicion about jour- nalism is also fueled by some basic misunderstandings on how the process works, par- ticularly in an era of rapid change, according to the twin surveys of the American pub- lic and journalists released Monday by the Media Insight Project. The effort is a collab- oration between The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the American Press Institute.

The close look at attitudes comes in the midst of President Donald Trump’s relentless attacks on the news media and the continued downsizing of the economically beleaguered newspaper industry. It has left journalists beaten down: The surveys found about 3 in 4 journalists believe the public’s level of trust in the news media has decreased in the past year. Yet only 44 percent of American adults actu- ally say their level of trust has decreased.

The public actually wants what most journalists say they want to give them — news stories that are factual and offer context and analysis, said Tom Rosenstiel, executive director of the American Press Institute. But the public doesn’t feel like they’re seeing enough of that work, with 42 percent of Americans saying journalists stray too far into commentary, according to the new research.

Journalists can’t take for granted that the public knows what it’s getting, Rosenstiel said. Much of journalism’s shared language and structure is rooted in newspapers, yet many Americans get their news through social media streams, where it isn’t always clear from where stories come, Rosenstiel said. Newspapers have “op-ed” sections, yet half of the public doesn’t know what the term means.