A few months ago, a group of researchers was interested in finding out whether or not Americans supported what they considered five “core journalism values.” So they surveyed 2,727 Americans and asked whether they agreed or disagreed with 20 different statements. …
The study in question — which was done by the Media Insight Project, a joint effort of the American Press Institute and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research — contains a lot of interesting data and analysis, some of which I’ll get to later. …
There are two main problems with the claims being made off of this API/AP-NORC study. The first is that the study invents an artificially stringent standard for what it means to “support” a journalism value. The second is that, while it surveys thousands of civilians to discover their thoughts on various values, it never actually surveys journalists to see how they feel about them. CONTINUED
Joshua Benton, Nieman Lab