|
Most Americans say press freedom matters: according to the study, 73% of Americans call press freedom extremely or very important to society.
But push a little further, and support gets conditional, fast: 53% say preventing inaccurate reporting matters more than protecting press freedom, and 60% say the government should be able to force a news outlet to take down a story that poses a national security risk.
That’s not necessarily a contradiction, Eddy said. “Americans are not treating press freedom as a sort of all-or-nothing value,” she said. “A lot of times people are negotiating a lot of conflicting values and interests.”
Eddy pointed to the survey’s core trade-off question as an example, saying it shows people are open to some limits on the press, and largely agree that the government should be able to restrict news reporting in certain cases.
Similarly, when forced to choose between letting the press report the news even if some reporting is inaccurate, and preventing inaccurate reporting even if it limits press freedom, over half of U.S. adults prioritized preventing inaccurate reporting.
The willingness to accept limits on press freedoms on national security grounds is an especially important finding for journalists navigating ongoing government restrictions.
For example, when CNN, MS NOW and POLITICO were barred from the White House, the administration argued that their reporting had endangered national security. (A federal judge has since temporarily restored access, finding that the administration’s actions violated due process rights.) Limits on press access to the Pentagon have also been made on national security grounds.
What “press freedom” means to different audiences
There’s no single shared definition of “press freedom” among the public. Pew’s focus groups connected press freedom to larger themes such as accuracy, government or corporate influence, censorship and access to information.
Eddy said Pew kept its questions on “inaccurate information” and “national security” broad on purpose, as that’s how the terms are often invoked in real life.
“Someone might say, ‘we propose we hold the story because of national security concerns’… they (audiences) are not always entering with a lot of this context,” she said.
To test the results, Pew also asked more specific questions, from Americans’ views of government-ordered takedowns of stories to “publishing classified information about military operations during active conflict” — and found responses consistent with the preference to national security.
“We try to not overinterpret what they are telling us,” she said. “We kind of take them at their word.”
Pew found Americans respond very similarly when the actor is a social media company rather than the government: 60% say the government should be able to require a news organization to take down a story that poses a national security risk, and 67% say a tech company should be able to remove a post for the same reason. This suggests that Americans might not fully understand what the First Amendment covers, as social media companies are not bound to it in the same way as the U.S. government.
That gap in definitions also splits along party lines, though not in the way that might be expected.
Although self-identified Democrats were far more likely than Republicans, 64% to 29%, to say they’re concerned about restrictions on press freedom, there isn’t a similar gap in party affiliation when it comes to whether people value press freedom, Eddy stressed.
“In fact, the data tells us that’s not the case,” she said. “Eighty-one percent of Democrats and 66% of Republicans both rate it highly important to society.”
Political leanings do affect what Americans see as the biggest threat to press freedom, however. In focus groups, Eddy said, “left-leaning participants tended to emphasize government restrictions,” while right-leaning participants “more often raised concerns about false information, media bias and the influence of news organizations.”
“It’s almost like they’re talking past one another,” she said.
Pew also tested basic First Amendment knowledge, and Eddy said the team went in skeptical: “It (The First Amendment) seems very simple in concept, but I think when you apply it to, what are the specific things that people should know about, what this does and what it protects, and what it does not protect — it gets very hard.”
“I think we were very aware entering this that this is a very complicated issue in a very complex news environment,” Eddy said. “There seems to be a gap between people believing in the principle and understanding and kind of value of press freedom… and then understanding the mechanics of press freedom and the First Amendment and the kind of practical elements of what is protected.”
| 
