Media, news consumers each have job to do for a better press

By The Herald Editorial Board

Americans might want to pull out a copy of the Bill of Rights and read the First Amendment again. Or maybe for the first time.

Among the latest findings from an annual survey by the Newseum Institute regarding Americans’ attitudes and understanding of the First Amendment, the poll found a full third of those surveyed could not name one of the five rights secured by the First Amendment.

Fifty-seven percent were able to name freedom of speech, but most were hazier on the other four rights, including freedom of religion (19 percent), freedom of the press (10 percent), the right to assemble (10 percent) and the right to petition the government (2 percent).

The institute’s survey, now in its 18th year, polled 1,002 American adults by telephone last year, asking a mix of new questions and questions repeated from earlier surveys. The professionally administered poll has a sampling error of 3.2 percent, plus or minus.

The survey also polled Americans on a range of questions, including:

Whether the Constitution established the United States as a Christian nation (51 percent said it did — and no, it did not);

Whether businesses should be required to offer their services to same-sex weddings (38 percent said they should);

Whether corporate and union spending on political campaigns should have no limits (23 percent said spending should not be limited); and

Whether people should be allowed to record police activity as long as they don’t interfere with law enforcement actions (88 percent agreed).

Back to the First Amendment: The quiz on its provisions actually dropped in some measures from the year before when 68 percent could name freedom of speech, 29 percent listed freedom of religion and 14 percent recalled freedom of the press.

But the survey also shows the news media have their own work to do to improve their standing among the American public: Only 24 percent said the media try to report the news without bias, a drop of 17 points from the previous year. The survey’s staff explained the jump in negative attitude about the media likely was a result of stories last year that questioned the integrity of high-profile television journalists, specifically NBC’s Brian Williams and ABC’s George Stephanopoulos as well as negative reaction to the coverage of events in Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore.

The attitudes differed depending on age and political affiliation. Only 7 percent of young adults, 18 to 29, said the media act without bias, compared to 13 percent of those 30 to 49 and 26 percent of those 50 and older. Democrats gave the media higher marks on avoiding bias (36 percent) than Republicans (19 percent) and independents (21 percent).

That low opinion also affected the notion that the news media have a watchdog role to play in monitoring government, dropping to 69 percent support for that role from 2014’s 80 percent.

The news media should be held to a high standard; accuracy and fairness being the chief measures.

A survey earlier this year by the Media Insight Project, a partnership of The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the American Press Institute, found that 90 percent of Americans say it’s extremely or very important that the media get their facts correct. About 4 in 10 were able to recall a specific incident that negatively affected their confidence in the media, typically one that dealt with accuracy or a perception that it was biased, according to an Associated Press report in April.

But there’s some responsibility here, too, for news consumers. The errors or bias of one media representative or outlet shouldn’t be attributed to all media. At the same time, a broader and varied diet of media — print, radio, television and online sources — allows news consumers to judge the accuracy and trustworthiness of individual sources.

If 3 in 4 Americans say the news media are not trying to avoid bias, that may say as much about our choice of media as it does about the media outlets themselves.