State of the News Media 2005

The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz asks FNC executive daytime producer Jerry Burke about PEJ's findings that Fox anchors frequently express their opinion: "I encourage the anchors to be themselves. I'm certainly not going to step in and censor an anchor on any issue...You don't want to look at a cookie-cutter, force-feeding of the same items hour after hour. I think that's part of the success of the channel, not treating our anchors like drones. They're, number one, Americans, and number two, human beings, as well as journalists."

An interesting paragraph in Howard Kurtz's PEJ sum-up: "One interesting contrast among the nightly newscasts: CBS was 50 percent more likely than NBC and twice as likely as ABC to air reports on disasters and other unexpected events (Dan Rather loved hurricanes). The 'CBS Evening News' was also twice as likely to carry feature stories (such as the ethics of using high-tech duck decoys, or rising credit card debt) unconnected to breaking news."

The Project for Excellence in Journalism has released The State of the News Media 2005. Some of the report's sections are old news, but there are many illuminating tidbits about television news and its past, present and future. I'll be posting new items from the report throughout the day. Send your reactions via the tip box...

The PEJ study didn't attempt to identify bias on cable news. But it says this is evident: "Fox journalists were more opinionated on the air." The study says nearly seven out of ten stories (68%) included personal opinions from FNC's reporters -- "the highest of any outlet studied by far." 4% of CNN's segments included journalistic opinion. 27% did on MSNBC.

On stories about the war in Iraq, 73% of FNC stories included "personal judgments," compared to 2% on CNN and 29% on MSNBC. And the same is true for presidential election coverage: 82% of FNC stories included opinions, compared to 7% on CNN and 27% on MSNBC. Here are the details...

FNC's coverage of the war in Iraq has been "distinctly more positive than negative," the PEJ study finds. "Fully 38% of Fox segments were overwhelmingly positive in tone, more than double the 14% of segments that were negative. Still, stories were as likely to be neutral as positive (39%) and another 9% were multi-subject stories for which tone did not apply. On CNN, in contrast, 41% of stories were neutral in tone on the 20 days studied, and positive and negative stories were almost equally likely -- 20% positive, 23% negative. Some 15% were multi-faceted and not coded for tone."

> But: While FNC was more positive about the war, no discernable tone was detected in FNC's coverage of the presidential election.

Some bullet points from PEJ's analysis of cable news ratings trends:

> FNC is the undisputed champion. "From now on, to grow, Fox News must focus more on winning over viewers who already had access to it but heretofore chose not to watch, or not to watch as much."

> "While Fox News has a larger core audience, CNN may be the winner when it comes to the 'news on demand' people." Those people only tune in "when events pique their interest." The pattern is particularly true for younger viewers.

> Between 2002 and 2004, "the overall audience" for cable news grew slightly, "but Fox's share grew even more, a sign of cannibalizing its cable rivals."

> In order to grow, cable must be more than talk radio on TV: "It will have to attract new viewers with new kinds of programming."

The introduction to PEJ's cable TV report: "The challenge for cable news is that it has now reached adulthood." This introduction captures the state of cable news perfectly: "The question for cable news from now on may be how it defines news." After all, "the content of cable news is measurably thinner, more opinionated, and less densely sourced than other forms of national news." And: "In a sense, the cable channels need to decide what comes first, programming or journalism," the report asserts...

The PEJ study quotes CNN chief Jon Klein's statements about "roll-up-your-sleeves storytelling," and puts it to the test: "CNN, according to the data, does indeed seem to offer more neutral reporting. Its adherence to storytelling, though, seems to be more of a mixed bag. Its NewsNight with Aaron Brown is heavy on such pieces, but its noontime programming spends less time on packaged pieces than Fox or MSNBC."

The Pew study of Iraq war news coverage "fails to support a conclusion that events were portrayed either negatively or positively most of the time," the AP's David Bauder says. "The three network evening newscasts tended to be more negative than positive, while the opposite was true of morning shows, the study said. Fox News Channel was twice as likely to be positive than negative, unlike the more evenhanded CNN and MSNBC, the study said."

The PEJ study finds that "cable news stories are more thinly reported than other news media," USA Today's Peter Johnson writes. "The 600-page report also finds that the traditional 'journalism of verification' -- in which reporters check facts -- is ceding ground to a new 'journalism of assertion,' in which information is offered on radio and cable talk shows and via Internet bloggers, with little or no attempt to verify the facts."