A majority of journalists polled by Pew Research Center (55%) say that not every side of a story deserves equal coverage in reporting the news and when it comes to achieving greater racial diversity in their newsrooms, a minority say it is a big priority where they work.
That 55% not favoring equal coverage is compared to the 76% of the U.S. public at large who say journalists should always try to provide such coverage.
And while a majority of journalists (67%) said their news organizations have achieved “sufficient” gender diversity, only 32% say that is the case for racial and ethnic diversity and less than half (42%) say that addressing diversity and inclusion issues is a “major priority” in their newsrooms.
Social media appears to be a double-edged sword in the hands of journalists and their audiences.
A strong majority (87%) of journalists surveyed said social media has either a “very positive” or “somewhat positive” impact on promoting their news stories, and 79% said it helps them connect with their audience and find sources. But almost one-third (67%) said that social media has either a very negative or somewhat negative impact on the state of journalism and only 18% said it has a positive impact on journalism.
In a related issue, 42% of journalists said they have been harassed or threatened in the past year, and of those, 78% said the harassment came through some type of social media.
The survey was conducted among 11,889 journalists Feb. 1-13 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 1 percentage point. The survey of the general public was among 10,441 U.S. adults March 7-13 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.5 percentage points. ▪️
