Journalism and journalists across the world face rising political polarisation, economic upheaval of the digital age and issues related to Covid 19 pandemic but still they have withstood all the turmoil. In the midst of all difficulties, the American Journalists express a high degree of satisfaction and fulfilment in their jobs, according to an extensive new Pew Research Center survey,
In the survey, the PEW Centre found that seven-in-ten journalists said that they were “very” or “somewhat” satisfied with their job, and an identical share say they often feel excited about their work. Even larger majorities say they are either “extremely” or “very” proud of their work – and that if they had to do it all over again, they would still pursue career in the news industry. About half of journalists say their job has a positive impact on their emotional well-being than the 34% who say it is bad for their emotional well-being
The survey identified several specific areas of concern for journalists, including the future of press freedom, widespread misinformation, political polarization and the impact of social media.
RESTRICTIONS
The Survey found that 57 per cent of journalists are “extremely” or “very” concerned about the prospect of press restrictions being imposed in the United States. About 71% say made-up news and information is a very big problem for the country. At the same time, four-in-ten journalists say that news organizations are generally doing a bad job managing or connecting misinformation.
A large majority of journalists say they come across misinformation at least sometimes when they are working on a story, and while most say they are confident in their ability to recognize it, about a quarter of reporting journalists (26%) say they have unknowingly reported on a story that was later found to contain false information,
STATEMENTS AND OPINIONS
On the question of best approach to coverage when a public figure makes a false statement, two-to-one, journalists say the best approach is to “report on the statement because it is important for the public to know about” (64%) rather than to “not report on the statement because it gives attention to the falsehoods and the public figure” (32%).
A little over half of journalists surveyed (55%) say that in reporting the news, every side does not always deserve equal coverage, greater than the share who say journalists should always strive to give every side equal coverage (44%).
VIEWS
Roughly eight-in-ten journalists surveyed (829.) saw that journalists should keep their views away from reporting. However, 55 per cent think journalists are largely able to keep their views out of their reporting, while 43% say journalists are often unable to. On political leanings of the audience at the organization where they work, roughly half say that their audience leans predominantly to the left (32%) or right (20%). An additional third say their organization has a more politically mixed audience, while 13% are unsure.
Even as they recognize audience leanings, journalists express deep concerns over political sorting in news consumption habits, with three-quarters of those surveyed saving it is a major problem when people with the same political views get their news from the same news organizations.
BASIC FACTS
Three-quarters of journalists largely agree on the basic facts of the news – even if they report on them in different way. However, 52% say it is not possible to report news that nearly everyone finds accurate.” An even greater share of the U.S. public overall (62%) says it is not possible to report news that is universally accepted as accurate.
TRUST OF PUBLIC
Only 14% of journalists surveyed think the U.S. public has a great deal or fair amount of trust in the information it gets from news organizations these days. Most believe that Americans as a whole have some trust (44%) or little to no trust (42%). When a similar question was posed to the general public, 29% of U.S. adults say they have at least a fair amount of trust in the information they get from news outlets, while 27% say they have some trust and 4490 have little to none.
SOCIAL MEDIA
The PEW Research Centre said that 94% of journalists report using social media in their work to some degree. Among them, 87% say it has a very or somewhat positive impact on promoting news stories, and 79% say it helps them connect with their audience and find source for their news stories, two-thirds of all journalists surveyed (67%) say social media has a very or somewhat negative impact on the state of journalism as a whole. Just 18% say social media has a positive impact on the news industry, while 14% say it has neither a positive nor negative impact.
