A new Pew Research survey of nearly 12,000 journalists found most don’t think all sides deserve “equal coverage” and a significant minority of 43 percent recognize the bias of journalists impacts their coverage. More believe their news organization does than does not have enough diversity of political ideology (34 to 29 percent), but “by a considerable margin, more journalists say their organization does not have enough racial and ethnic diversity (52%) than say it does (32%).”
Details on the “diversity” numbers in part 6 of the report, “Journalists give industry mixed reviews on newsroom diversity, lowest marks in racial and ethnic diversity.”
The extensive poll, conducted in February and March and released on Tuesday, determined “a small majority of journalists (55%) say that every side does not always deserve equal coverage” and while “a large majority...(82%) say journalists should separate their views from what they report on,” a “considerably smaller majority (55%) think journalists are largely able to do this, while 43% say journalists are often unable to do so.”
Conservatives, the survey confirmed, are more interested in equal coverage than those to the left: “Journalists who say their news organizations have audiences that lean to the right politically are much more likely to endorse equal coverage of all voices than those who say their organizations’ audiences lean left. Nearly six-in-ten journalists with right-leaning audiences (57%) say journalists should always strive to give equal coverage, almost twice the share who say this among those with left-leaning audiences (30%), and somewhat higher than the share among journalists who say their outlet has a politically mixed audience (49%).”
An excerpt from part 5 of the Pew report, “Journalists see political sorting of news audiences as a much bigger problem than the public does,” posted on June 14:
Another area of journalism that is often seen through a political lens is the question of news stories representing “all sides” of an issue and/or giving equal voice. This concept is often referred to as “bothsidesism” in journalism – which revolves around whether those making false statements or unsupported conjecture warrant as much attention as people making factual statements with solid supporting evidence.
This debate gained a new level of intensity during Donald Trump’s presidency and the widespread disinformation and competing views around both the 2020 election and the COVID-19 pandemic.
A small majority of journalists (55%) say that every side does not always deserve equal coverage, while 44% say journalists should always strive to give every side equal coverage.
The American public, on the other hand, expresses much stronger support for the concept of equal coverage. In another representative survey of 9,388 U.S. adults conducted Feb. 7-13, about three-quarters of U.S. adults (76%) express the view that journalists should always strive to give every side equal coverage. Majorities in both parties feel this way, although Republicans and those who lean toward the GOP (87%) are more inclined than Democrats and Democratic leaners (68%) to hold this view.
This is also an area where journalists themselves disagree based on the political leaning of their news organization’s audience. Journalists who say their news organizations have audiences that lean to the right politically are much more likely to endorse equal coverage of all voices than those who say their organizations’ audiences lean left. Nearly six-in-ten journalists with right-leaning audiences (57%) say journalists should always strive to give equal coverage, almost twice the share who say this among those with left-leaning audiences (30%), and somewhat higher than the share among journalists who say their outlet has a politically mixed audience (49%).
Journalists have mixed views on whether they can keep their personal views out of their reporting
One of the central questions about bias in news coverage is whether journalists can detach their personal views from their work. While journalists strongly agree that they should keep their personal views out of their reporting, there is less agreement over whether they are able to do so.
A large majority of journalists surveyed (82%) say journalists should separate their views from what they report on. A considerably smaller majority (55%) think journalists are largely able to do this, while 43% say journalists are often unable to do so.
These figures are similar regardless of journalists’ audience makeup: 55% of those who say their organization’s audience leans to the right politically feel journalists are largely able to separate their views from their reporting, as do 52% of those who say their audience leans left and 58% who say their organization’s audience is politically mixed.
