WASHINGTON, 15 July 2003 — Americans want their reporters to show patriotism, increase accuracy and lessen bias, but also say media criticism of the military weakens the nation’s defenses.
“You’re right to focus on the seeming discrepancy in Americans wanting patriotic but unbiased reporters,” Carroll Doherty, editor for the Washington-based Pew Research Center told Arab News in a telephone interview yesterday.
“It’s a rather subtle distinction - they want a pro-American point of view, but not pro-American coverage. Even now, there’s less support for the media watchdog role in the military. We asked a very tough question about criticism of the US military as good or bad thing, and the public is divided,” said Doherty.
Although CNN still garners more viewers, the poll found Fox viewers are increasing.
“What we’re finding is that the emerging audience is more conservative than CNN’s audience, and the public generally,” said Doherty about the poll, released Sunday.
“More Fox viewers want a pro-American coverage of the war on terror, have different political views, and see the press as more liberal than do other people.”
The public is receptive to the idea that news organizations embrace a decidedly “pro-American” viewpoint, which coexists with continuing support for neutrality in news coverage.
When asked specifically if it is better for coverage of the war on terrorism to be neutral or pro-American, fully 64 percent favor neutral coverage. Even most of those who see a pro-American point of view as a good thing favor neutral war coverage (62 percent).
For the most part, people believe the media is giving President Bush fair coverage. More than six-in-ten (62 percent) say the news organizations they are familiar with have been fair to the president. Perceptions of media coverage of Bush have changed little since early in his presidency.
The poll also finds Americans are highly critical of the press on a number of issues, faulting it for inaccuracy, arrogance and political bias, but no more so than in recent years.
Despite widespread criticism of the press, Americans remain largely supportive of the media’s role as a political watchdog. Most (54 percent) say that by criticizing political leaders, news organizations most often prevent them from doing wrong.
The public’s views of press scrutiny of the military have changed substantially. Today, Americans are divided over whether press criticism of the military serves to keep the nation militarily prepared (45 percent) or to weaken the country’s defenses (43 percent).
The public is largely satisfied with the amount of attention the media has given to developments in Iraq (60 percent right amount). Attitudes toward coverage of the Iraqi weapons story are an exception to this pattern. Americans are almost evenly divided in their evaluation of the coverage (50 percent good or excellent/48 percent fair or poor).
