Earlier this year, our annual We Media poll with Zogby Interactive showed deep dissatisfaction with newspapers and the leadership of news media. Now, two additional reports show how deep the dissatisfaction runs.
On a one to 100 scale, newspapers scored a 63 in the American Customer Satisfaction Index quarterly survey. That put them behind the airlines and cell phone providers.
“That’s bad enough,” writes Business Week’s Jon Fine, “but what’s worse is how badly newspapers’ ACSI score has slipped since the surveys began plumbing consumer sentiment. It’s off 12.5% since the survey’s debut in 1994.” That’s the steepest “satisfaction” drop of any industry.
Newspapers are also developing a bad rep with very people who can help them — future journalists. Harvard students are fleeing newspaper careers and embarrassed to say they want to be reporters, Bloomberg reports.
The old joke is that, as they report on a frequently unpleasant world, newspapers always seem to slip to a new low. But the latest is bad news at a time when publishers are trying to value content and build a case for charging for it.
