Credibility

Questions of credibility of the news media have been a perennially favorite topic for inquiry. Credibility emerged as an important conditional variable in the emerging psychological science of persuasion after World War II. For many decades, journalism researchers have examined various dimensions of credibility of news reports. The Gallup survey, for example, has for many years asked a question about how much “trust and confidence” people have in the mass media—defined as newspapers, television, and radio—“when it comes to reporting the news fully, accurately and fairly” (Gillespie 2004). The proportion of the public having a “great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence in the mass media was 44 percent in 2004, down sharply from the 54 percent measured the previous year, and quite a bit lower than the 68 percent in 1972 when the series began. It is likely that the 2004 dip resulted from negative public reaction to several well-publicized media scandals involving reporters Jayson Blair of The New York Times (2003) and Jack Kelley of USA Today (2004). In both cases the newspapers were embarrassed by revelations that the reporters had fabricated portions of major stories that received widespread public attention.

Questions about the media's overall credibility were the focus of a number of systematic studies in the 1980s that created the impression there was a “credibility crisis” in the mass media. Examining credibility, several organizations gathered national survey data on the topic, the results of which were widely reported. This perceived credibility crisis in the news media led researchers to pose questions [Page 371]to link public judgments of credibility to controversies involving journalists and their work practices. The Pew Center for the People & the Press concluded that the public found the press credible but were worried about the ethics of some press practices. For example, journalists were often seen by the public as not being concerned that their stories might hurt people, or that they took advantage of victims of crime or disaster. The public also felt that journalists do not always correct their mistakes and too often violate people's privacy.

Media credibility has been tested by public perceptions of such controversial news practices as using unnamed sources, checking into the background of candidates for office, requesting detailed medical information about public office holders and candidates, and investigations (including stakeouts) into private lives of public officials. Some people feel that the news media are out to “get” officials when controversial investigative methods are trained on their favorite candidate. This appears particularly true when people have not previously paid attention to how news is gathered. Such perceptions call into question the credibility of news reports.

In recent years new diversity in media programming has focused renewed attention on political values and ideology as the basis of judgments of news credibility. Some news sources with explicit ideological slants have become popular with conservatives (e.g., Fox News, Drudge Report) and liberals (e.g., Air America, Huffington Post). This polarization of news exerts pressure on mainstream news organizations and may influence audience judgments about the framing, emphasis, balance, and thus credibility of their reporting.

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