Just heard from NPR this morning, March 16, 2004, about Study: Public Losing Trust in Media. Here are some statistics we found about the state of journalism from The Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ):

“Public attitudes about the press have been declining for nearly 20 years.”

Americans think journalists are sloppier, less professional, less moral, less caring, more biased, less honest about their mistakes and generally more harmful to democracy than they did in the 1980s.

Consider a few statistics from PEJ’s 2004 State of the News Media report:
*The number of Americans who think news organizations are highly professional declined from 72 to 49 percent.
*Those who think news organizations are moral declined from 54 to 39 percent, and those who think they are immoral rose from 13 to 36 percent.
*Those who feel news organizations try to cover up their mistakes rose from 13 to 67 percent.
*The number of Americans who think news organizations generally get the facts straight declined from 55 to 35 percent.
*Those who feel who feel news organizations care about the people they report on declined from 41 to 30 percent.
*Those who think news organizations are politically biased rose from 45 to 59 percent.”