The Press At The Polls

(CBS)  This commentary was written by CBSNews.com's Dick Meyer.

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Late at night on Nov. 4, 2008, there will be winner — or a loser — that wasn't on the ballot and that the press won't be talking about: the press itself.

All the problems of legitimacy, competence and trust that besiege American government also apply to the press. But there are two big differences.

First, if the new president is elected by a wide margin and his or her party also does well, there could easily be substantial increase in trust in government; the press has virtually no chance for swift, if temporary, redemption.

Second, the government is funded by mandatory payments by U.S. citizens, otherwise known as taxes. Even when the regime is unpopular and incompetent, the cash flow keeps flowing. The press is funded by earnings; if there aren't any, there won't be any press. As it is now, profits from journalism are scarce and growing scarcer.

If the 2008 election doesn't offer the news business a chance for salvation, it is still a time of opportunity, a chance to rise or fall in public esteem. It is unfortunate, but presidential elections are when public opinion about the press gets molded. And there will be more press, more punditry, more campaigning, more of everything in this longest-ever campaign than any in history. If we in the news business aren't careful, our customers at some point will be shouting, "Gag me." (I know, I know, a lot of you already are; if you're firmly committed to the "liberal bias" or "right-wing tool" camp, you're welcome to go straight down to the comments section and vent.)

In May 1972, when Richard Nixon was running for re-election, Gallup conducted a large "State of the Nation" poll. It showed that 63 percent of the public either had a "great deal" or "fair amount" of trust and confidence in the executive branch of government. The news "mass media" scored 68 percent.

In April, 1974, four months before Nixon's resignation, Gallup's new "State of the Nation" poll showed trust and confidence in the executive branch had crashed down to 40 percent. Trust in the media had actually gone up a point.

Trust in government in this country has never really recovered from Watergate.

In September 2005 Gallup repeated its questions from the 70s, just about verbatim. The executive branch scored 52 points, up somewhat from Watergate. But trust in the news media had plummeted to 50 percent. And there are much worse poll numbers out there — trust me, I'm a journalist.

The fall of the press in public opinion was gradual, and almost all major institutions in American public life have suffered, too. For journalism, the single biggest factor was almost certainly the advent of cable television and the attendant 24/7 news cycle, complete with argutainment-style programming. New financial pressures hurt the quality of local and network broadcast news, radio and newspapers. And we have hurt ourselves in many ways.

Right now, the audience reach of every kind of news media is shrinking. The only exceptions are the Internet and the ethnic press.

The 2008 campaign presents special problems, not the least of which is the brutal length of this campaign. How will voters not be sick of it — and us — by next fall?

This will be the first election where many, if not most voters have high-speed Internet access at home and work. The number of Web sites and blogs devoted to politics has increased beyond counting. Some are news, though what's news and what's not is now in the eyes of the beholder to some degree. Some sites are ideological, some are partisan, some are e-communities, some are funny and some are fakes. The sheer output of information can be overwhelming. It probably will be — it already is for me.

For the very active political consumer with extra time, there will be more raw information — video of speeches and press conferences, financial data, voting records, ads, background papers — available for scrutiny than ever before, thanks to the Internet. That is a good thing, an opportunity. My guess is that if we in the press can do a good job with that, we'll have had a good election.

This campaign may be an opportunity for journalism to earn back some lost respect. Even if it does, the "traditional" press is bound to shrink in the near future. Changing that slide means reversing a pattern where the public values and respects less and less. The press is not the government; it can shrink and shrink a lot.

So, like America's political parties, the American press has a lot at stake in 2008.

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If you prefer e-mail to public comments, complaints or arguments, send them along to Against the Grain. We may occasionally publish some of the interesting (and civil) ones, sometimes in edited form.


By Dick Meyer

[myth1958]

Thank you, Mr. Meyer, for again giving us a fresh view on a compelling topic. This time you've laid bare the industry you work in, and we hear about the stress and worries journalists, reporters and the whole press crew faces trying to make a living. It's not that I'm unsympathetic, but this is the same kind of worry all of us mere readers, viewers and news consumers are in on a daily basis. (Did the boss seem angry with my work, today? They've been talking about layoffs...)
Mr. Meyer, at least you and Katie Couric work in a field that can't be exported to China, or sold stock and barrel to the Europeans: we still need you (and to a much lesser extent, Ms. Couric) as representatives of us, your audience. We're not perfect. We lose confidence - and face rejection every day at our jobs. Welcome to the party. So you and your cohorts in news have to work a bit harder to get us to trust you, and exceed if you can the standards of your past work on this crucial election so we get involved, excited about the coming event. That's why they pay you the big green dollars, isn't it? You, Ms. Couric and the universe of news people out there must earn our respect every day - not in comparison to the '72 election coverage, or the 2004 coverage, but because the news waits to be discovered and then revealed by experts at telling the story: journalists. Keep up the good work, Mr. Meyer. I'll be reading you.

[tejasdemo]

23 cents out of every dollar

[xzavierbrown]

Posted by tejasdemo at 11:27 AM : Jun 08, 2007
+ report abuse

question for you..how much tax do you pay?

[tejasdemo]

You honestly think that you pay a higher percentage of your income than the rich? Then you are drinking the class envy koolaid. High wage earners CARRY this country on their backs. That is a fact, like ot or not.
Posted by MildyAmused1 at 06:55 PM : Jun 07, 2007
+ report abuse
********
Yes, I do. And BS to the rest of it. Read the other post by cpaide. That is the truth. The rich have all kinds of tax shelters etc etc etc and at the end of the day they pay a much less percentage of their gross income then the average American.

cpaide, am I wrong ?

[donnie900]

Too many opinions in the media today. Too much political analysis thats incognizant. When people do too much thinking for you, you never trust them.

[erichsh]

I certainly agree that there should have been more reporting by the press on "enhanced torture". I'm speaking, of course, about the recently discovered Al Qaida torture manuals describing and illustrating exactly how to remove an eye, chop off a limb, burn, electrocute and otherwise permanently maim their victims. Never saw this in the news? I'm not surprised. Compare that to "waterboarding" the next time you wring your hands about how evil and terrible this country and this Administration is.

[dimajazz]

The press doesn't tell us anything about what all the government agencies are up to. It's mostly gossip and repeated news over and over. There are few spotlight stories or digging on government abuse of humanity. George Tenet was too afraid to tell the President that it would be unwise to invade Irag but he had no difficulty in promoting "enhanced torture." Where is the press on these type of subjects.

[observantx]

Until the news media begins to ask the hard questions for every story about our elected officials and the legislation being cobbled together in the halls of Congress, we will be subjected to more recycled blather and spin from our political class.

Those basic questions are more than "Who, What, When, Where, How, and Why." What is required now is diligent tracking down of "where" did the idea for this legislation originate, "who" really is going to benefit by ramming this through, "why" is there a sudden rush to get this passed even in the dead of night, and "what" are the real consequences of the legislation down the road. It requires time, research, fact checking and source verification. The MSM has spent the last 10 years cutting back on hard news and shifting to vacuous infotainment instead. We now have more effort devoted to the escapades of a spoiled silver spoon heiress than the impact of our current kinglet at the G8 meeting or the genocide in Dafur.

We cannot blame the media entirely. We each have to examine our own reading and viewing habits. Do we sit glued to the latest "reality" program or do we actually read a newspaper now and then.

Until we demand real news, we're going to keep getting smiling talking heads saying nothing.

[xzavierbrown]

the 'stephen colbert show' of COMEDY CENTRAL was the soruce of most liberal news

[walt1944-2009]

How can anybody trust the news, especially when it comes out of Washington. You first get the daily "SNOW JOB" from Tony Snow, which is repeated practically verbatim (as if Snow got the latest issue of the 10 Commandments from Mount Bush) on the Fox network. CBS, CNN, NBC, and ABC may give it passing remarks, but they don't look at anything coming from Temple White House too close or you could tick someone off and lose your job! Otherwise, really important news items, like the May 9th "edict" giving Bush "emperor powers" in the event of a disaster (to be determined by him, of course!) are ignored and have to be "leaked" on the internet!

It's all a conspiricy as we step bodly toward a new world order in America: the USSA (United Socialist States of America).

SIG HEIL, BUSH!