A Gallup poll conducted back in the fall showed only 9 percent of Americans trust the media “a great deal,” and only 31 percent trust the media “a fair amount.” The remainder – fully 60 percent of Americans –have virtually no trust in the media.
When Gallup first started asking about trust in the media in the 1970s, about 70 percent of Americans said they had high levels of trust for the press.
I also stumbled across a 2018 report from the American Press Institute that found 50 percent of Americans don’t know what an op-ed piece is. More than 40 percent don’t know what attribution is.
That was around the time we were contemplating creating a new digital newspaper for Augusta. As a long-time teacher of media ethics, the Gallup and the API findings were a big part of what convinced me to take on the role of editor for this paper. I believe it’s possible to operate a newspaper ethically – to follow rules I was taught as a journalism student back in the 1980s:
- Opinion belongs on the opinion page only.
- All news stories should be full, fair and accurate
- News organizations serve as the fourth estate of government; their role is to protect the public’s right to know what the government is doing and to serve as a conduit for public information.
- Journalists are granted special rights under the First Amendment; that means they have the duty to serve the public and to conduct their work in the most ethical, transparent way possible
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I probably don’t have to tell you that things have changed a bit in the news world since the 1980s. News organizations, print, digital, and broadcast/cable/satellite/streamed, have moved toward a model of political journalism similar to that which dominated in the 18th and 19th centuries. I’ve heard a lot about how the public doesn’t like political journalism and wants news organizations just to give them the facts – the truthful facts.
Well, those of us at The Augusta Press are staking a lot on our confidence that the public is telling the truth about what they want in a news product. I have to admit, it makes me a little nervous; ultimately, what news producers produce is what sells. If political news didn’t sell, it wouldn’t exist, but I’m betting on the successful future of The Augusta Press based on something a friend wrote in about journalism in 1897.
Joe Campbell, a professor at American University, believes that 1897 was a watershed year in journalism. It was the year in which American rejected the previously very popular yellow journalism of Hearst and Pulitzer and opted for the public service model Adolph Ochs was using to revitalize the nearly defunct New York Times. According to Campbell, 1897 was the year sensationalism fatigue finally set in for Americans. They just couldn’t take the wild headlines and exaggerated stories that characterized the yellow press. Americans started buying newspapers like Ochs’ Times, newspapers that focused on “all the news that was fit to print,” news that was crafted to meet the public’s information needs regarding public and political matters. We’re betting Augustans are getting tired of the late 20th century model of political journalism and are ready for a news medium that is impartial and devoted to truth and accuracy.
If you ever have questions about why we told a story a particular way, or you think we were not full, fair, and accurate, in the way we cover a story, call us on it. My email is at the end of this column, and I will be functioning as the paper’s watchdog on itself – a role with the fancy title of “ombudsman,” but which essentially means a real human – me — will respond and answer your questions. Sometimes we may have to agree to disagree in the end, but we are always willing to explain ourselves.
We see you as our partners in this endeavor – as constituents, not consumers. Help us serve your information needs by being in conversation with us. If we do good, tell us. If we do bad, tell us that, too. Most of all, help us prove that there is, in fact, a market in Augusta, for full, fair, accurate, truthful, and impartial news.
Debbie Reddin van Tuyll is Editor-in-chief of The Augusta Press. Reach her at debbie@theaugustapress.com
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