Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Study: Journos, Public Hold Divergent Views on Media

A major survey released Tuesday by the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center shows that the public and working journalists have sharply different views about press freedom, bias in news, and journalists' rights.
While many often charge the media with bias, nearly half of non-journalists polled said they believed partisan journalism was a good thing. Journalists disagreed with them on this point.
The non-journalists charge news organizations with often getting their facts wrong and more than half say the government should limit press freedoms at times, according to the national survey conducted for the Annenberg Center.
But journalists surveyed in the same study -- including reporters, editors, TV producers, and owners -- sharply disagreed with the public on those issues and many others, defending the quality of their work and strenuously opposing government controls.
As in most previous surveys of journalists, a high number called themselves politically "moderate" (49%), with 31% describing themselves as "liberal" and just 9% as "conservative."

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