MSNBC claims to be an objective news station, but they cannot escape the fact that they’re more opinionated that their peers.
The Pew Research Center’s State of the News Media 2013 report discovered that 85 percent of the content on MSNBC was opinion-related in 2012. On Fox News, 55 percent of the coverage was opinionated, and CNN, at 47 percent, was the only station that aired less opinionated coverage than hard news.
Between the three cable networks, interview segments have jumped 31 percent and live event coverage pieces were down 30 percent since 2007.
“Daytime programming now resembles primetime, with interviews and opinion replacing coverage of live events and breaking news,” the Pew report found. “This adds up to a news industry that is more undermanned and unprepared to uncover stories, dig deep into emerging ones or to question information put into its hands.”
This display was most recently prevalent during the 2012 presidential election when journalists “acted more as megaphones, rather than as investigators of the assertions put forward by the campaigns,” the report stated.
“In the 2012 race, only 27 percent of statements in the media about the character and records of the presidential candidates originated with journalists, while roughly twice that many came from political partisans,” the report found. “That is a reversal from a dozen years earlier when half came from journalists and a little more than one-third came from the campaigns. At the same time, the campaigns also found more ways than ever to connect directly with citizens.”
This may be a key reason why 31 percent of U.S. adults have stopped turning to news outlets because they have “no longer provided them with the news they were accustomed to getting.” Men have been turning away more quickly than women, and more educated and higher-earning people have been leaving more quickly, as well.
For the first time since 1978, fewer than 40,000 employees work in newspaper newsrooms, down 30 percent since the industry peak in 2000.
News employees have noticed their readers have moved to getting their information online, and they are looking to net a profit on the digital side.
“Indeed, 450 of the nation’s 1,380 dailies have started or announced plans for some kind of paid content subscription or pay wall plan, in many cases opting for the metered model that allows a certain number of free visits before requiring users to pay,” the report said.
That model might work well to make up for the advertising dollars lost, since the report shows word-of-mouth is becoming the most popular way to first hear about a news story. People the turn to the Internet to get the full scoop.
“A majority of Americans seek out a full news story after hearing about an event or issue from friends and family,” the newest Pew report found. “For nearly three-quarters of adults (72 percent), the most common way to get news from friends and family is by having someone talk to them — either in person or over the phone.”
