Journalist Survey

Ultimately journalism is predicated on faith in the public. Here, journalists' views have become dramatically more pessimistic.

The percentage of national journalists who have a great deal of confidence in the ability of the American public to make good decisions has declined by more than 20 points since 1999. Confidence among local journalists has fallen as well.

What is going on? Does this suggest that as news people get closer to their audiences they conclude people are less wise than they once believed? Is it possible that market research data is persuading journalists today that they understand their audiences better and also that those audiences are dumber than they thought?

Or, is the loss of confidence in the public more tied to journalists' views about the content of news? They see news doing a poorer job of covering complex issues and conclude that this will leave Americans unprepared for making good decisions.

It is also possible that journalists are leaping to another conclusion: They see the content of the news becoming shallower and conclude that this must be what the public wants or why else would their organizations be providing it?

There is also a fourth possibility: liberal journalists unhappy with President George W. Bush's policies could be dismayed that the public chose Bush in 2000 and until recently have largely approved of his performance.

In the end, whatever the cause of declining faith in the public, the implications are troubling. Even if the economics of journalism work themselves out, how can journalists work on behalf of a public they are coming to see as less wise and less able? A cynical view of the public becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that leads journalists to produce a shallower product because they think the public cannot handle anything else.