See additional articles on Journalism Ethics.

Pew Center Survey of Reporters Finds Increasing Anxieties, Concerns

Reporters increasingly dislike what they see in the mirror when they look at their field of work with more and more reporters indicating that "bottom-line pressures" are hurting coverage.

Roughly half of the 547 national and local print, online, and broadcast journalists surveyed by the Pew Research Center, the Project for Excellence in Journalism, and the Committee of Concerned Journalists now say the field is "off the mark and headed down the wrong path."

Study authors say economic pressures "more than ever" are diminishing the quality of journalism and making news "thinner and shallower."

Not a good omen for serious environmental journalism, as environmental journalists know better than anyone else.

News executives surveyed are apparently more optimistic that journalism is "going the right way" than are reporters, with 57 percent of executives and 39 percent of scribes feeling that way, a finding that may neither surprise nor please reporters. Reporters from national news organizations generally appear to be somewhat more pessimistic about the directions of journalism than do their counterparts in local news outlets.

"But overall, things seem grimmer than five years ago," an article by Jennifer Saba in Editor & Publisher closed. The news article's headline: "More Journalists Dismayed with Profession."

In addition to concerns about "shrinking workplaces," the survey identified "almost universal agreement among those who worry about growing financial pressure that the media is playing too little attention to complex stories," again, not a good sign for robust environmental coverage.

More reporters dismiss popular concerns that the media overall are "too cynical," instead faulting the press as "too timid, not too cynical." At the same time, fewer reporters appear to champion the media's traditional "watchdog role," with print reporters about twice as likely as broadcast journalists to say the media are doing well in that respect -- but by ratios of 15 to 6 percent among national print and TV reporters and of 9 to 5 percent among locals.

About 80 percent of national and local reporters surveyed said the media pay too little attention to complex issues, with that concern gaining some ground among local reporters during the past decade but losing some among nationals.

The Pew Research Center report is available online at http://www.stateofthenewsmedia.org/journalist_survey.html.