WASHINGTON 2002
Attitude Adjustment
The 9/11 Effect is Starting to Fade
The September 11 terrorist attacks revived Washington’s stock with the American public and also the importance of Washington journalism. But the public is only lukewarm about the way the Washington media do their job. And it has reservations about the revolving door between the political establishment and journalism inside the Beltway, as well as the trend toward opinionated cable news anchors.
To many Americans in the late 1990s the national government, if not the nation-state itself, appeared irrelevant or floundering. A seeming absence of an overseas threat, a surging stock market driven by the emergence of a global Internet, and a shift of power to the states lessened the importance of what was happening in Washington. The September 11 attacks diminished, if not overshadowed, these trends, and rejuvenated interest in what happens in the nation’s capital.
Not all Washington news has experienced such a dramatic lift. But there is somewhat more interest in Washington and national news this year than in previous years, especially among well-educated groups and dedicated news consumers.
In Pew’s biennial news survey this year, 53 percent of respondents say they follow national news regularly, not just “when something important or interesting is happening.” Though hardly a sea change, this is an improvement on the 48 percent who said this in the 2000 survey. During the same period, public interest in international news also showed a small increase, but most Americans continue to pay attention to international news only when something important is happening. Heavy news consumers, such as college graduates, expressed significantly more interest than they did two years ago in national and international news.
While interest is up, a sizable minority of the public is less than enthusiastic about the quality of Washington news, and express strong reservations about some of the ways in which news reporting is changing. Nearly eight in ten (77 percent) give the news media an excellent or good rating for its coverage of the attacks and the war on terrorism. The ratings for national and international news, however, are not as favorable — 65 percent and 63 percent, respectively. Fully one in three in Pew’s most recent survey gave news organizations negative ratings for their coverage of national and international stories.
The ratings go even lower when respondents are asked about the meat-and-potatoes coverage provided by Washington’s news bureaus. Just 56 percent give the press good marks for its coverage of national politics and the federal government, and 42 percent are critical of that coverage. The national media’s only consolation in these results is that Pew’s poll found the public giving even lower ratings to coverage of state politics and state government — 46 percent positive vs. 49 percent negative.
With people as critical as ever of the accuracy and professionalism of the press, the Pew survey found large segments of the public uneasy about the cross-pollination between the media and the political community. Just 44 percent approve of reporters and other news people having backgrounds as political advisers and consultants, while 42 percent disapprove. Notably, this trend comes in for more criticism among those who follow national news very closely than with those who do not. People who are generally critical of the media’s Washington coverage are more uneasy about the “revolving door” and, most tellingly, those who view the media as not so professional are much more condemning of this practice than those who give the press high marks for professionalism (53 percent to 36 percent).
Americans are also divided about the trend toward opinionated cable news anchors. Half believe it is a good thing that hosts of cable news programs express strong opinions about politics, while 38 percent view it negatively. There are no significant partisan differences on this, and Republicans and Democrats agree as well on the revolving-door issue.
All segments of the public have little trouble with a third news-delivery practice tested by Pew: news anchors who deliver the news in a “more friendly and informal way.” Three-quarters (76 percent) approve of this trend, while 16 percent see it as a bad thing.
The message from the public seems to be that you can say it with a smile, but please give us the straight news. In that regard, the percentage of Americans believing that the press gets the facts straight, acts professionally and compassionately, and is unbiased all slipped significantly this summer; an improvement in the media’s public image that emerged after the September 11 attack proved to be short lived. In part, this probably reflected a fading of the emotional response to the 9/11 attack.
The media’s public image, however, may have slipped to the
pre-9/11 level because coverage has shifted from the attacks and
the war on terrorism to more contentious issues. And in the absence
of a mega-story like the attacks, many in the media have returned
to their exploitive, sensational, and self-promoting ways. So
once again the public gives, at best, mediocre ratings to the
media for coverage of serious news, while it holds its nose about
many practices and deplores increasing “tabloidism”
for the sake of commercial interests.
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