New Survey Finds Huge Gap Between Press and Public on Many Issues

Six in ten among the public feel the media show bias in reporting the news, and 22% say the government should be allowed to censor the press. More than 7 in 10 journalists believe the media does a good or excellent job on accuracy–but only 4 in 10 among the public feel that way. And a solid 53% of the public think stories with unnamed sources should not be published at all.

Perhaps the widest gap of all: 8 in 10 journalists said they read blogs, while less than 1 in 10 others do so. Still, a majority of the news pros do not believe bloggers deserve to be called journalists.

Asked who they voted for in the past election, the journalists reported picking Kerry over Bush by 68% to 25%. In this sample of 300 journalists, from both newspapers and TV, Democrats outnumbered Republicans by 3 to 1–but about half claim to be Independent. As in previous polls, a majority (53%) called their political orientation ?moderate,? versus 28% liberal and 10% conservative. —Joe Strupp —New Survey Finds Huge Gap Between Press and Public on Many Issues (Editor & Publisher)

This article notes that the survey may have over-sampled upper management, with 43% of respondents being editors or news directors, many of them well-paid, and only 47% rank-and-file reporters.