Concern Growing About the Media

The more Americans learn about federal changes that lift restrictions on companies owning different media outlets the less they like it, a new poll suggests.

The public has been increasingly concerned in recent years about the independence of the press, according to a poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. And new rules passed by the Federal Communications Commission allowing more concentrated ownership appear to have heightened those fears.

Half of those polled said they think allowing companies to own more broadcast and newspaper operations in the same city would have a negative effect. Only 10% said the new rules would have a positive effect.

About a third of those polled in February said the concentrated ownership of media outlets in a city would have a negative effect, though few at that time said they had been paying much attention to ongoing efforts to change the media ownership rules.

In the new poll, however, 70% said they think news organizations are often influenced by powerful people and organizations.

“Over the last 20 years, people have had growing doubts about whether the press is really independent or influenced by powerful forces,” said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. “They have growing concerns about that influence.”

The FCC decided in early June that individual companies can own television stations reaching nearly half the nation’s viewers and combinations of newspapers and broadcast stations in the same city.

Critics of the decision said the new rules would lead to ownership of the media by a few giant companies that can control what people see, hear and read.

Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center, said the worries about the new ownership rules are probably related to “the suspicion the public has about corporate power.”

The public has mixed feelings about how much objectivity it wants in news coverage. A majority said they want the media to offer neutral coverage. But when asked if they think it is good for coverage to have “a strong pro-American point of view,” seven in 10 said yes.

The poll found that 22% say they most often turn to Fox News for news coverage, up from 16% in January 2002, though still slightly behind CNN at 27%.

The Fox audience is significantly more conservative and Republican than the audience for network news and CNN, the poll found.

The recent problems experienced at the New York Times when reporter Jayson Blair fabricated material in stories apparently has had little effect on public attitudes about the media.

Most people already were cynical about the media’s accuracy and response when mistakes are made.

Improvement in the news media’s public image after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has largely disappeared, according to the poll. But the public perception about the patriotism of those in the media is still slightly higher than it was before the attacks.

The poll of 1,201 adults was taken from June 19 to July 2 and has an error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points.