A new survey from Pew Research Center identifies several specific areas of concern for journalists, including the future of press freedom, widespread misinformation, and politically like-minded people getting news from the same sources.
The report released Tuesday polled nearly 12,000 U.S.-based journalists, including Barrett News Media. The research center identified those polled as people who create, edit, or report original news stories across a wide range of areas and beats.
The Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel also measured how views and attitudes of the American public compare with those of journalists. More than 20,000 adults were polled for those results.
About seven-in-ten journalists (71%) say made-up news and information is a very big problem for the country, higher than the 50% of U.S. adults who say the same. In a separate question asked only of reporting journalists, about a quarter of reporting journalists (26%) say they have unknowingly reported on a story that was later found to contain false information.
Just 14% of journalists surveyed say they think the U.S. public has a great deal or a fair amount of trust in the information it gets from news organizations these days; most believe that Americans have some trust (44%) or little to no trust (42%).
Roughly eight-in-ten journalists (82%) say journalists should keep their views out of what they report on, although there is less agreement among journalists over whether journalists meet this standard.
