The Press: Judging the Fourth Estate: A TiME-Louis Harris Poll

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Harris interviewers also questioned the selected sample about individual familiarity with recent news events. Eight out of ten Americans feel "very well-informed" about the Apollo moon program, and a sizable majority is equally familiar with the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Fewer than half of those polled feel well-informed about the tragedy involving Kennedy at Chappaquiddick, racial disturbances and campus protests. At the bottom of the list, substantial numbers profess confusion over the trial of James Earl Ray, the war in Viet Nam and the Middle East crisis.

Newspapers

Of the nearly nine out of ten Americans who say that they read a newspaper regularly, a clear majority is convinced that the paper they read is "sometimes unfair, partial and slanted," though less than one in three make the specific charge that it represents "special" rather than "public" interests.

When the sensitive issue of whether newspapers are too easy on protesters is raised, opinions among educational, racial and age groups vary widely. Across the nation, slightly more readers think that papers are too easy rather than too tough, an assumption that increases among older citizens and among those who have completed no more than the eighth grade. Nearly half of all whites feel that protest coverage is too soft on the protesters, as against only three out of ten blacks who feel that way. Among readers with college degrees, only one in three believes that newspaper treatment of demonstrators has been too easy.

In other sensitive areas, newspapers are given a stronger vote of confidence. By nearly three to one, readers deny that papers are "too full of sex," and nearly three out of five say that papers are not "too full of violence." As for being "too easy on the Establishment," only one in four thinks newspapers are, though the college educated are nearly twice as strong in their indictment of newspaper establishmentarianism as those with no more than an eighth-grade education.

The closer readers are to the news that their papers cover, the survey indicates, the more they tend to believe it. Local news is trusted "very much" by 40% of the readers, state news by 31%. Only one in four is as trusting of the world news printed by the nation's press.

The Harris survey also reveals a substantial distrust of news that comes out of the nation's capital. Though a majority of newspaper readers endorse Washington reporters as "the best in the country," about three out of four of those questioned believe that "the real story in Washington is behind the scenes, and only a small part ever gets into the news." Only one in ten would like to see more Government censorship.

A strong strain of old-fashioned individualism runs through reader response to editorial pages. By nearly two to one, readers say that they trust news stories more than editorials, and only a bare majority say that they generally agree with the editorial stands of their papers.