By Phil Riske | Senior Reporter/Writer
resident Trump continues his tirade against the news media, and a study released yesterday (We don’t trust news media; but what is ‘fake news?”) Americans have a negative view of the media, believe coverage is more biased than ever and are sharply divided in their views along partisan lines. The president’s disdain for news media and Tuesday’s survey remind me of some observations I made several years ago about the reputation of journalists, corporate execs and, yes, lawyers. The Pew Research Center placed those occupations under a dark cloud as being somewhat worthless.
“A journalist, a business executive and a lawyer walked into a bar . . . and were promptly told, ‘We don’t need your kind around here,’ ” began a story in Phoenix Business Journal about how its readers rated 10 professions on their contributions to society
Only 28 percent of respondents said journalists contribute a lot to society’s well-being — that was down 10 percentage points from a previous polling.
Business executives were valued by 24 percent, an improvement from 21 percent, “when Wall Street nearly wrecked our economy,” the newspaper reported.
Eighteen percent thought lawyers contributed a lot to society.
It would be easy, if not expected, for this journalist, who works for a law firm, to refute the newspaper’s findings, but they follow results reported in numerous surveys over the past decade. Those same surveys also have shown the public has had no love for Congress, but respondents liked their individual senators and representatives.
It would be safe to assume individuals like their attorneys and they have favorites in the media (especially TV weather people, although they aren’t real journalists.)
While few, reporting mistakes in coverage of the president only have served to heighten distrust of news media as we reported here today.
The bottom line of all this is a question: What are the legal and journalism professions doing to better explain what they do and why they should be appreciated?
They do deserve much more appreciation.
