I know a lot of journalists, but I don’t know one who would claim that they’re immune to messaging. In fact, I think most journalists acutely understand that all humans are vulnerable to these kinds of influences, which is why they need standards & guidelines to minimize their influence in reporting

Finally, frequency is also relevant to the findings about perceptions that the press gives advertisers special treatment. It seems like an understatement to say it's rare in standards-based newsrooms, yet 15% of teens think it happens always/almost always and another 34% think it happens often.

I'd argue the same for verifying facts before publishing them. Again, something reporters & editors do every single day in any legitimate newsroom. Yet only 30% of teens believe this is something journos do "always, almost always, or often." 47% say only "sometimes," 19% "rarely" & 4% "never."

But journalists gather information from multiple sources in the vast majority of their reporting--every single day. At a bare minimum, that's certainly "often." Agree here that single-source stories do get published (& generally shouldn't), but that doesn't make this perception re: frequency right.

Respectfully, I'd still argue these are misperceptions. We didn't ask teens if these things *ever* happen, we asked how often they think they happen.

Only 29% of teens think professional journalists & the orgs they work for "always, almost always or often" gather information from multiple sources.

I was addressing your specific claim about NYT coverage of Letitia James.

A sample:

I think if you read the actual coverage, not reflect on the impression of it you get from people here, you will find that it’s not a wasteland of false balance. We can have meaningful debates about how coverage could be better, but saying it’s altogether absent or toothless seems performative.

Seems like you have a pretty clear picture.

I am a parent in Chicago.

And all of this is being covered like it’s a big deal, IMO.

Hard news reporting shouldn’t be the mouthpiece for your outrage. It should be the basis for it.

And I would argue that it’s not the job of the press to have its hair on fire, as such. It’s the job of the press to rigorously report on anything worthy of the public’s collective hair being on fire.

No legitimate newsroom would report that we are losing our democracy as a fact in hard news coverage. But plenty of opinion journalists have made that argument (and some the opposite argument) based on the facts established by that hard news coverage.

I don’t agree that’s an accurate way to describe contemporary news coverage.

Also, I’m really curious: which news organization described this as “a bold bucking of norms”?

That isn’t the only story the NYT has done on this — not even close. It’s a follow-up. Pretending like that isolated, cherry-picked phrase (from a social post) is representative of their coverage of the demolition of the east wing isn’t really honest, is it?

Do you actually read/watch/listen to their coverage?

You don’t think this has been covered — prominently — by national news organizations?

Which news organizations do you feel haven’t sufficiently covered these things for the public to know as much as you do about them? (Also, how do you know so much about these things, if not from “the media”?)