refuse to buy a paper whose editorials they disagree with. Unquestionably, these are downsides, but journalists generally think it is important that the newspaper offer informed opinion on issues in the news and stand up for what its editorial board thinks is sound public policy, especially when the issues have a moral dimension.
How to Respond to the Criticism
The incessant criticism in the surveys might tempt journalists to conclude that, since there is no way to please the public, why even try?
That would be a mistake. Journalists must take their credibility very seriously. Whether they think readers, viewers, and listeners are right or wrong, they ignore the audience’s opinions at their peril.
People who make complaints about the news ultimately may not get satisfaction. The owners of some department stores used to tell their employees that “the customer is always right” – a policy that may be smart in retailing but not in news. The final resolution of a complaint is determined by the facts, not by what would make the customer happy.
Of course, the customer isn’t always wrong, either. A reasonable customer – not one who calls for the sole purpose of mindless screaming – is entitled to serious consideration of a complaint of inaccuracy. The news organization’s proper response is, “We’ll check it out.”
If the complaint proves valid, the news organization should speedily correct the record. In addition, the journalists ought to analyze how the error occurred. That could lead them to improve their procedures of gathering and presenting the news.
If, however, the investigation shows the original report was correct, the news organization should explain its decision‐making. Citizen critics often are astonished, and pleased, that the news organization would take the time to address their complaints in a thoughtful way. If the critic’s point of view is widely shared, a way could be found – a letter to the editor or a comment posted online – to accommodate customers who want to explain their perspective.
In the digital era, members of the audience can and often do take matters into their own hands when they feel slighted by a news organization. Using social media and blogs, they express their displeasure in messages that may go viral. That is what happened in the case study accompanying this chapter, “A Journalist’s Trial by Social Media.”
No matter how their motives are misunderstood, journalists must not consciously do anything that would validate the criticism and justify the lack of trust.
Nor should journalists pander to the public – shaping the news to fit the perceived desires of the audience. In the first place, the public is far from monolithic, and no one can precisely determine what it wants to be told about a news event. Far more important, journalists would be betraying their audience’s trust by making popularity their goal instead of an honest search for truth.
In short, journalists:
have to accept that they are not going to be loved by their audience, but …
can’t stop trying to improve their credibility in the eyes of the public.
Nobody said this job was going to be easy!
Learn From the Complaints
The rational way to deal with citizen complaints to the news media is to look beyond the vitriol to find the constructive criticism. This requires keeping an open mind. “We’re too thin‐skinned,” said Kathleen Carroll, former executive editor of The Associated Press, speaking of the industry as a whole. “We should not take questioning by the public as an assault.”17
So it is useful to compile a list of what irritates the public the most. Like market research in the business world, the complaints can identify patterns that need attention.
In some cases, this exercise might suggest that, instead of changing their newsgathering techniques, journalists should do a better job of explaining themselves. In other words, they should be transparent. “We have not been good at explaining our methodology – the reasons why we do the things we do,” said James M. Naughton, former president of the Poynter Institute. “There is less fear of conspiracy if the newsgathering process is open.”18
The list below – based on anecdotal evidence as well as surveys – summarizes recurring themes in complaints from the news audience. The topics are discussed in more detail elsewhere in this textbook.
Bias: This is the most common complaint, and the complaints focus on stories about politics, a subject on which the audience is polarized. The survey by Gallup and the Knight Foundation showed in 2020 that an overwhelming majority of Americans detected political bias in the news: 49% saw “a great deal of bias” and 37% “a fair amount.”19 Bias exists in part because journalism is a subjective art. Its practitioners continually make decisions about the news – what stories to cover, what facts to use, what facts to highlight in the stories, and what stories to present most prominently. Each decision is an opportunity for opinions to seep in. Conscientious journalists adopt an attitude of professional detachment, blocking out their opinions and following where the facts lead.
Unnamed sources: News accounts are more authoritative when sources are identified. When journalists use anonymous sources, they are asking their audience – proved in the surveys to be skeptical – to trust their judgment that the sources know what they are talking about. Without the source’s name and position, the public has no way to assess the validity of the information or its possible bias. Thus the use of an anonymous source places a special burden on the reporter, because the news organization effectively is vouching for the accuracy of what is attributed to the source. Anonymity is legitimately granted to protect a whistleblower – someone with inside knowledge of wrongdoing who is willing to come forward but would be in jeopardy if identified. Protecting such a source enables journalists to give the public information that it otherwise would not receive.
Too many mistakes: The Gallup-Knight survey also showed that Americans were troubled by inaccuracies in reporting. In a horrifying verdict for the journalism profession, many news consumers suspected that those inaccuracies are intentional and an effort to promote an agenda. Though criticism like that is off the mark, journalists need to recognize the danger of making up their minds about a story before they finish their reporting. In her Point of View essay accompanying this chapter, Jane Shoemaker warns about approaching an assignment with preconceived notions or coaxing an interview subject to provide exactly the quotes the reporter is looking for. Also, it’s worth noting that news organizations get criticism not just for factual errors but for sloppiness in grammar and punctuation as well. The public is saying that if journalists can’t get the little things right, how can they be trusted on the larger issues?
Insensitivity: Although news consumers may be interested in how victims of tragedy are coping with their ordeals, they are disgusted when reporters, especially those on television, appear to trample on the victims’ feelings. Unlike public officials and business executives who are accustomed to media questioning, these ordinary citizens are thrust involuntarily into the news. They are vulnerable to exploitation and have a right to be left alone. In Best Practices for Newspaper Journalists, Robert J. Haiman quoted an editor as telling his staff: “The mayor, the police chief, the people who run the big companies in town … they deal with us all of the time and they are all big boys and girls who can take care of themselves. But let’s not treat somebody’s old Uncle Harry or Aunt Millie the same way we treat the pols and the pros.”20
Sensationalism: The public thinks journalists chase stories about sex, scandal, and celebrities not because they are important but because they think they will attract a bigger audience. A classic example of the genre was the coverage of Anna Nicole Smith’s death in a Florida hotel‐casino on February 8, 2007. For two days, the cable networks devoted 50 percent of their news coverage to the saga of the Playboy centerfold model who had become a rich widow and then a star on reality TV.21 The Smith story was a media creation that