Sadly, Television Remains a Primary Source of Economic News

TV Turnoff Week

I have always had a serious problem with people relying on television as their primary source for news and other information.  The world is too complex to summarize in a few minutes during a news lineup, especially when equal amounts of coverage are given to news about the funding of children’s healthcare programs and an athlete’s admission that he used performance enhancing drugs.

This is one of the reasons I have made an effort to participate in TV Turnoff Week every year. (This year it is two weeks: April 20th – 26th and September 20th – 26th.)

While TV news coverage is probably adequate when covering things like ARod’s drug use, or Britney Spears child custody problems, it is extremely ill suited to handling complex issues like the legislature or the economy.  It is easy for a TV news cast to tell you how many jobs General Motors has eliminated but its not as easy to educate the viewer about the interplay between GM shareholders, management, lenders, and labor unions that went into the decision to cut jobs.

The e-mail I posted about yesterday claimed that 54% of Americans do not believe the economic stimulus package that passed the Senate today will be good for the nation.  What I want to know is where those people get their news and if that news source helped them build a solid “knowledge foundation” upon which to examine the package.  After seeing the results of this research by the National Center for Business Journalism I am inclined to believe that the answer to that question is a firm “No”.

The research, released today and completed at the close of 2008, is based on 450 interviews with heads of household throughout the United States who participate in financial decisions and whose household income totals $50,000 or more.

Television is cited as the primary source of news about the economy by more Americans than daily newspapers, the Internet and radio combined. In addition, more than half of those who primarily receive their economic news from television rate the coverage as good. It fails to answer the question “Good compared to what?”  Water cooler talk?  E-mails from the ConservativeAlertSystem? Rush Limbaugh?

The breakdown of respondents primary sources for economic news breaks down as:

• 48% – Television
• 21% – Newspapers
• 16% – Internet
• 8% – Radio
• 7% – Other

Of those who specified television, 56 percent said the coverage was good, 6 percent said excellent, 30 percent only fair, 5 percent poor and 3 percent “not sure.”

Six in ten of the respondents said they have made financial decisions based on economic news received from media sources.

Other findings:

• News of the financial crisis and federal bailout topped the list of most memorable financial stories of 2008 by a wide margin, followed by the housing market collapse and subprime mortgage scandal.
• Cited as the most important business coverage was the effect of oil prices, followed by the value of the dollar and reports about companies and jobs.

“The drastic nature of recent economic and financial news has Americans constantly looking for immediate information about where things may be headed. Our research indicates they make family financial decisions based on that information, which underscores the need for accurate, quality reporting on the economy.”

–Andrew Leckey, President of the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism

For the complete report, including the opinions of respondents comparing the news networks, visit www.businessjournalism.org.