GUEST VIEW: Media needs to improve credibility with public

The following editorial was published in the April 24 edition of the Midland Daily News:

(TNS) How much trust do you have in the media to report news fairly and accurately?

According to recent poll results, a small minority have a favorable response to that question, and more than 40 percent said they have zero confidence.

In that study, sponsored by the Media Insight Project, just 6 percent of people say they have a lot of confidence in the media, while 41 percent have no confidence at all. Fifty-two percent of respondents said they have some confidence in those running the news business.

The study also noted that 85 percent said it was extremely or very important that the press be accurate and get the facts right. Two percent said that accuracy isn't important.

The poll surveyed 2,014 adults and was conducted Feb. 18 to March 21 by the Media Insight Project, a partnership of The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the American Press Institute.

The media, as clearly indicated by these poll results, have a lot of work to do in order to earn public trust.

"It is discouraging to see so little trust in the media by the public, but at the same time it also is understandable," Midland Daily News editor Jack Telfer said of the poll results. "We certainly have to do a better job, especially at the national level where it seems like every story is reported from an analytical perspective, rather than just presenting the facts and letting the public decide the merits of the issue. I hope at the local level, here in Midland County and the surrounding areas, that the trust factor is higher, in part because all of us at the Daily News live and work in this region, and therefore know the communities we are covering and the importance of accuracy to our readers."

At the national level, the study's findings are getting noticed by newspaper editors.

"The most important thing that news organizations can do is be accurate, and while we know that is a high value, this study reinforces that," Margaret Sullivan, public editor of The New York Times, said in an Associated Press article.

Sullivan added that having reader trust is both good journalism and good business.

"For news organizations that want to be taken seriously, there is real opportunity here and real help," she said.

Why so little trust in the media? Here's what the study discovered in questions to those polled: Sixty-nine percent of the respondents said that they trust the news less because they found stories that were one-sided or biased, while 65 percent said they lost trust in the news because of incorrect facts.

In sum, news reporting outlets have their work cut out in order to improve public trust. The top two areas to work on have been noted: 1. Accuracy; 2. Fairness.