Media News - Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Mainstream media failing to make news understandable to public, says new report

The mainstream media is leaving the public in the dark by failing to explain basic information about the news, a new report has suggested. Audiences are being made to feel confused and excluded by reports they do not understand, according to the paper 'Public Trust In The News' by academics from Manchester and Leeds Universities, published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. In one example, none of the participants in several focus groups organised by researchers knew that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were from the same political party, despite extensive coverage of the US primary elections last year. The study also suggested that while mass media leaves many people feeling powerless and uncertain of what to believe, the internet helps them understand the news. Online media also makes them feel they can make a difference by giving them access to unofficial accounts from people unaffected by professional interests or political correctness and by allowing feedback to authorities, it suggested. However, the report also mentioned that the internet is leaving some people more confused than ever, because of its size and abundance of sources. Journalists interviewed as part of the study were underwhelmed by amateur news reporting on the internet, contending that blogs usually provide nothing more than second-hand information taken from elsewhere on the internet. The journalist respondents were also more likely than the public to say that news stories were liable to be untrue. (Journalism.co.uk)

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