‘Everything is negative’: Schoolteachers’ perceptions of news coverage of education

‘Everything is negative’

All but one of the 25 teachers commented on perceived negativity in news coverage about the Australian school-based education system. Furthermore, a very high proportion (88%) of the participants said that they believed the reporting of schools and schooling was predominantly negative. This negativity was often evident in the reporting of results from the Australian national standardised tests known as National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), teachers said, as the coverage tended to focus on decline and comparisons. Such reporting generally presented a ‘doom and gloom scenario’ for the education system, according to a participant. ‘It’s represented as bad … literacy results are declining and young people today are illiterate and can’t spell’, she said. Another teacher believed news about schools was often based on politicians’ responses to test results. ‘I think the newspapers are really good at saying “the minister says we need better teacher training or NAPLAN shows that we have stagnated”’, he said. A teacher from a Queensland government school acknowledged that from ‘time to time’ good stories about schools did appear, but said most of the coverage was ‘shock, horror, look at all these dreadful things that are happening in the school system’.

Others believed the influence resulted from the cumulative effect of repeated – usually negative – news coverage of an issue. ‘Whether or not they believe an individual story I think there is a general perception that is created by constant media stories about what is going wrong’, was one comment. Another participant made a similar point in relation to the reporting of test results:

If you have the PISA results thrust at you all the time and somebody saying, ‘not only are we worse compared to every other country in the world but also we’re getting worse compared to ourselves 10 years ago’, that’s got to stick.

The teachers argued that the consistently negative portrayal presented in major news outlets was unfair and inaccurate and that the positive elements tended to be ignored. One cited the selective reporting of testing results as an example:

When the NAPLAN data was published our federal minister had quite a lot of material published about how we were slipping down the league tables, but last year when our 15 year olds were rated the 5th top all rounders (in PISA) … that barely got a squeak.

Several teachers said that they accepted that reporting of education had to include negative stories. Some argued that news outlets had a responsibility to expose the deficiencies and issues with the education system. However, the participants consistently said that the coverage lacked balance. To many, it seemed that the major commercial news outlets were only interested in negative news. As one said, ‘What makes news is bad news. Why don’t the journalists track the good stories down? They’re there’. Most of the teachers believed members of the public, particularly parents, would welcome more positive news about schools and students: ‘Everything is negative and I think if we change the perspective you’d draw a lot of people back in, to the good news stories, particularly with education’.

While most of the teachers acknowledged there were problems with the Australian school system, they believed it was generally performing well, describing it as ‘world class’ and ‘one of the best in the world’. One teacher argued that, in her experience, Australia compared favourably with other countries. ‘I’ve worked on three different continents … and I think we have a brilliant education system that is really undersold through our media’, she said.

A number of teachers made the point that negative news coverage of schools usually appeared in the bigger news outlets such as the daily city newspapers and commercial televisions news and that the situation regarding smaller news organisations, particularly local newspapers, was quite different. One of the participants said, ‘Read a local paper and you will find good news about schools everywhere’. Others said that local papers welcomed contributions from schools because they did not have the resources to produce enough material for their publications. Many of the teachers were under the impression that the bigger news outlets were not interested in positive news about schools, as evident in this comment: ‘If someone was doing something really wonderful … I can’t imagine someone saying, “let’s call the bigger papers or one of the news stations”’.

The teachers’ perception that news coverage of education is predominantly negative aligns with a large body of research that has identified the prevalence of negative stories in news reporting. The preference for negative over positive news was documented in the seminal study by Galtung and Ruge (1965) of foreign news and has since been confirmed by a number of researchers (Schudson, 2011; Shoemaker and Cohen, 2006), including Harcup and O’Neill (2001, 2016) who, in twice reviewing the original Galtung and Ruge news values, concluded that ‘bad news’ remained a key requirement in contemporary news selection.

Researchers in education who have studied news content (Baroutsis, 2016; Shine, 2015a; Thomas, 2006) have also noted the predominantly negative tone of the coverage. Among the first to point to this were Berliner and Biddle (1995: 10) who argued the news media had effectively manufactured a crisis through ‘distorted and hostile’ reporting of the American educational system. Similar findings have emerged from Britain in studies of tabloid newspapers (Baker, 1994; MacMillan, 2002). Other related research (Baroutsis and Lingard, 2017; Shine, 2015a; Wallace, 2007) has noted a particular recent focus on testing, performance and accountability in the reporting of education and a repeated questioning of standards. Consistent with the findings reported here, a recent Australian study (Baroutsis, 2016) that considered news coverage of standardised testing also found that metropolitan news outlets generally framed coverage negatively, while the reporting in local and regional news organisations tended to be more balanced. This may be due to the fact that teachers and/or principals are more likely to have an ongoing relationship with a local or regional news journalist or editor. It may also be that local news outlets generally adopt a less adversarial approach to dealing with schools and teachers than do their metropolitan counterparts.

‘Teachers are to blame’

Another dominant theme to emerge from the interviews was the perception that news coverage tended to be critical of teachers. A high number of the teachers interviewed (84%) said they believed teachers were portrayed unfavourably in news coverage of education. Poor performance was considered to be most common criticism of teachers. Almost all of the teachers said they felt that news coverage of education unfairly attributed deficiencies or problems in education to teachers. ‘If things go wrong, teachers are ultimately to blame’, was one comment. Several participants referred to the prevalence of news coverage that portrayed teachers as not well educated or trained and/or as low achievers academically. ‘We continually hear about low entrance scores to get into teaching. We continually hear about teacher under performance’, said one. Another argued that teachers were typically represented in one of two ways: ‘They are either rabid unionists or people who could not get a better job’.

Teachers noted that cases of teacher misconduct, whereby, for example, a teacher had committed a crime or had an improper relationship with a student, invariably attracted intense news media attention. Some of those interviewed believed that teachers were treated differently to other professionals in news coverage and were subjected to greater scrutiny and pressure. For one participant, this was exemplified in the use of league tables to rank schools: ‘We don’t make league tables of lawyers or journalists. We don’t see other public service organisations looked at in this way’. Another made a similar point. ‘What I do each day is questioned at every level’, she said. ‘People don’t question doctors in the same way’. The few teachers who did not perceive news coverage of teachers as critical did not see it as positive either. For example, one described the news portrayal of teachers as ‘indifferent’, while another said she did not believe that teachers had an image in the media, adding, ‘How sad is that?’

Research from Britain has questioned the claim that teachers are routinely criticised in the news, finding that ‘contrary to teachers’ almost unanimous perceptions, there was much explicitly supportive or positive reporting of teachers’ in a large sample of news from the 2000s (Hargreaves et al., 2007: 5). However, Goldstein (2015) offers a starkly different perspective about coverage in the United States, claiming that the news media repeats ‘ad nauseam anecdotes’ about the worst types of teachers ‘(such as ‘rubber room’ teachers, who collect pay, sometimes for years, while awaiting termination hearings on accusations of corporal punishment or alcoholism)’ (p. 9). Most of the related research confirms that teachers do often come under attack in the news but contends that the coverage tends to centre around performance, directing blame at teachers for a perceived decline in educational standards (Cohen, 2010; Shine, 2015a; Thomas, 2011). The focus on performance is likely linked to accountability measures such as large-scale testing that have been introduced in many developed countries. Such measures, combined with a focus on improving teacher quality, have put teachers under increased pressure, intensified their role and affected morale (Ball, 2010; Day, 2012; Dinham, 2013). Related news coverage is said to compound the problem (Hattam et al., 2009; Shine, 2015a; Thomas, 2011). This has been confirmed by Australian teachers who have reported ‘feeling attacked’ and in ‘a constant state of defence of the profession’ (Blackmore and Thorpe, 2003: 583–588) due to news media representations.

‘Very often, there’s a spin on it’

When asked about their views on the accuracy of news coverage of education, 60 per cent described it as inaccurate and/or unbalanced. The views ranged from participants who considered it strongly and overtly inaccurate to those who said that the reporting generally contained elements of truth but that the selection of material for publication tended to reveal a bias or agenda on the part of the journalist or media outlet. Some organisations, namely the ABC, were considered more trustworthy and accurate than others. Overall, participants were most sceptical about newspapers, or the press, and more than one-quarter of the teachers singled out ‘the Murdoch press’ as particularly likely to publish inaccurate or biased information.

Several of the teachers attributed clear cases of inaccuracy to journalists not doing their job properly. One said, ‘I have seen articles and news reports that were blatantly incorrect. It’s as if the journalist spoke to one source and never even thought to check a website to see if the facts and figures were right’. Another said reporters tended to make ‘sweeping generalisations’ about educational issues. Such generalisations were a strong source of frustration for one who described his reaction to journalists reporting that standards of teaching and education are in decline:

From time to time I’ve taken issue with such people and emailed them and said, ‘where is your evidence of this? You present this as though it is an incontestable fact. You did not write “some people think that standards have been falling”’.

In some cases, perceptions about accuracy in coverage were based on the participants’ own interactions with journalists, which were almost always characterised as negative. A principal, who had been interviewed on multiple occasions, said he had developed a strong preference for live TV or radio interviews because the content could not be edited. ‘With print journalists you never know what you are going to get’, he said. Others reported similar experiences, including a teacher who said she had become more aware of deficiencies in coverage after being interviewed:

Once you have been quoted yourself you are really aware of how inaccurate they are. In my last interview I spoke to the journalist for about an hour and I was quoted in one paragraph and she managed to misquote me.

Another participant said to ensure accuracy she generally tried to bypass reporters entirely by writing her own stories and submitting them to the local newspaper.

Others described the situation as more complex and variable, saying the issue was more about a lack of balance in the coverage. ‘I would not say it is inaccurate but if you use a bit of critical literacy you can see what sort of spin they [the journalists] are trying to put on the situation’, said a principal. Another teacher said that while some of the facts were generally accurate, the coverage was influenced by the selection of material and the way it was put together. Some believed reporters sought the quotes and the information they needed to present a certain story. ‘Very often there’s a spin on it. You can identify the journalists who write with a bias. They select the data, the information they want to present to justify their argument’, was one comment.

Despite their frustration at perceived inaccuracies in coverage, very few of the teachers or principals were seeking to be interviewed by journalists. When asked whether they believed teachers should be able to speak freely to the news media, more than one-third of the participants (25) responded ‘no’. A further 30 per cent stipulated that teachers and principals should only deal with journalists after undergoing formal media training. ‘I’ve seen people torn apart by journalists because they are unprepared’, said one principal. ‘If we’re going to let teachers talk to journalists then we need to give them some necessary skills and abilities’. Such distrust of journalists can have significant implications for news coverage, and this is discussed in more detail later.

‘No one seems to tell the real story’

More than half of the teachers interviewed (56%) said that they believed news coverage of education did not reflect the realities of life in the classroom. The reporting of education was generally perceived to be superficial, based on what one principal described as ‘single issue stuff’. The stories often presented a series of facts, generally related to statistics, but rarely seemed to look into the reasons behind what was happening in education. Overall, the teachers believed the reporting did not adequately capture the realities of contemporary teaching and learning. To the participants, it seemed that journalists rarely seemed to understand the complexities of the issues in education, as illustrated by this statement: ‘They seem to think education is black or white. There is a multitude of issues that need to be dealt with sensitively from different angles. I don’t see a lot of that in education journalism’.

However, journalists were not considered solely to blame for shortcomings in the reporting. Some participants attributed the perceived lack of reality in the coverage to the way schools tended to interact with the news media, which was usually through government departments. ‘I think anything that we see on the news about education is incredibly superficial and simplistic’, said one teacher. ‘It’s not the real world at all. It’s been set up and the department sets it up, not the journalists’.

Other factors were also seen to contribute to the limitations of the news coverage. For example, one of the participants believed teachers were generally not good at explaining their role. A number of others recognised that it was inherently difficult to adequately capture the nature of schools and teaching. One of the teachers said she thought it was hard for journalists to comprehend how the education sector worked, adding, ‘If you have not worked in our system, it’s a different world and a different language’.

For some teachers, a particular frustration related to news coverage about the teaching role. Such coverage, they believed, generally failed to portray the true nature of contemporary teaching. A principal argued that there was ‘an absolute failure’ on the part of the news media to recognise the complexity of teachers’ work. ‘Teachers are not going to school, they are going to work and it’s highly complex and highly technological’, she said. Others referred to a lack of coverage about how teaching had changed:

I personally have not seen any news reports that have told me the reality of the changing face of teaching. It’s a very different place from 20 years ago. The pace is much faster. The workload is much increased. Teachers have a lot of demands on their time that they didn’t use to have and no one seems to tell the real story.

One of the repercussions of such coverage, according to many of the teachers, was that the public often believed that teachers had a relatively easy job, worked short hours and had lots of holidays. This was a frequently raised concern. Almost two-thirds of the teachers interviewed referred to community misperceptions about their working hours and holidays. Many said they regularly had to ‘defend’ themselves against comments about teacher holidays and workloads.

Other research (Baker, 1994; Blackmore and Thorpe, 2003; Shine, 2016; Thomas, 2002) has also described news coverage of education as simplistic and lacking context and analysis. One such study, that analysed the reporting of education topics over 20 years in a Western Australian daily newspaper (Shine and O’Donoghue, 2013a), concluded the content generally focused on the events of the day and ‘rarely presented detailed explanations or explorations of issues’ (p. 225). Instead, news coverage of education tends to focus on presenting opposing perspectives on various measures or policies (Shine, 2015a).

In the case of a contentious topic such as standardised testing, the coverage is framed in terms of arguments for and against testing, according to Gerstl-Pepin (2002) who argues such an approach neglects to ask ‘complex questions surrounding the tests themselves’ (p. 43). For a number of teachers interviewed here, the reporting of testing results was a particular source of frustration. Many claimed that journalists did not understand the national testing system, NAPLAN, and that it was regularly misrepresented.

Implications and recommendations

Recent research has suggested that repeated negative news coverage can have repercussions for teacher workforces. A survey of trainee and newly qualified teachers in the United Kingdom found ‘teacher bashing in the press’ was the second most popular reason named for contemplating quitting, with 30 per cent of participants referring to the impact of such coverage (Marsh, 2015). Negative and misleading news coverage has also been named as a factor in Australian teachers’ decisions to leave the profession (Fetherston and Lummis, 2012). Other research has argued that prospective teachers may be deterred from entering the profession due to the news media’s focus on teacher performance and its frequent portrayal of teachers as low achievers (Shine, 2015b). As teacher shortages are a regular and ongoing issue for many countries including Britain, Australia and the United States, this finding is concerning and provides a strong argument for more balance in mainstream news coverage of education.

The perception that news coverage is often biased and/or inaccurate, as described by the teachers, affects the credibility of news, journalists and news outlets. It also contributes to a documented overall lack of trust in journalists (Cushion, 2009; Morales, 2012). Despite the fact that reporters have identified objectivity and balance to be central to their role (Stack, 2007), this and other studies suggest that the public believe reporters often present biased stories (Gil de Zúñiga and Hinsley, 2013; Glynn and Huge, 2014). One of the implications of this, as described by some of the teachers in this study, is that members of the public can be wary of reporters and reluctant to be interviewed. This limits the ability of reporters to canvass a wide range of views on various issues and to effectively represent the wider community. In the case of education news, teachers’ voices are often absent from the coverage (Cohen, 2010; Shine, 2015a; Thomas, 2006). This is in part due to the fact that they are usually prevented from speaking to the media without approval from their employer. Previous research (Thomas, 2011; Ulmer, 2014) has argued that teachers should be able to regularly contribute to news debates about education and that such contributions may improve the nature and tone of the coverage. This study suggests, however, that teachers themselves may not be seeking a greater say because they are worried about being misquoted or misrepresented in the public domain.

It would be valuable for future research to seek the perspectives of education reporters and editors on the challenges and limitations of reporting on schools and teaching. According to Schudson (2011), most of the subjectivity in news coverage arises from the structures, routines and limitations of newsgathering, as opposed to personal biases on the part of reporters or editors. Time pressures and deadlines necessarily restrict the amount of research and fact-checking that can take place. Deadlines and space restrictions have an impact and can result in stories that ostensibly meet objectivity requirements with the inclusion of two opposing perspectives. Another consequence of the limitations of daily news production is the tendency for journalists to rely on certain official sources such as politicians, bureaucrats, government employees and academic experts for comment as they are often easily accessible and considered credible and reliable (Deuze, 2007). In the case of reporting of education, research has shown politicians, academics, commentators and union representatives are the dominant sources quoted in news coverage (Shine, 2015a, 2016; Stack, 2006). If teachers are generally reluctant to be interviewed, as this research suggests, journalists are forced to increasingly rely on official sources to the ultimate detriment of both teachers and the public.

One way to address the perceived shortcomings of reporting in education would be to examine the reporting of education within journalism school curricula. As part of this, students could be provided with information about the structure and nature of contemporary schooling and introduced to some key issues in education, such as the use of standardised testing, and the related research. The prevalence of negativity in mainstream news coverage raised here should be explored within the context of journalism education. For example, journalism students could be asked to consider why news is so often framed negatively and whether the tendency to focus on the bad is always in the public interest, or indeed, what the public actually wants. A number of studies (Coleman et al., 2012; Gans, 2004; Lee and Chyi, 2013; Lowrey, 2009) have argued there is a significant gap between journalists’ news values and audience interest. After interviewing news consumers from around the world, Shoemaker and Cohen (2006) found that personal relevance was found to be the most important consideration in the participants’ definition of news and that ‘in all of the 10 countries, people (including journalists) disagreed at least partially with how the news was selected and presented in their newspapers’ (p. 351). According to Coleman et al. (2012), people are turning to alternative sources for information, including Google and YouTube, in a desire to find raw, unfiltered information with no bias or agenda. As Lee and Chyi (2013) argue, ‘the fact that most news content is deemed of little value by the public today calls for industry introspection’ (p. 817).

Students and journalists could also be encouraged to explore alternative reporting approaches such as solutions journalism. This relatively new model of journalism is defined as rigorous reporting about how people are responding to problems. According to a Nieman Reports article (Dyer, 2015), an increasing number of news organisations have adopted this approach, including The Seattle Times, which publishes an ongoing solutions journalism series known as Education Lab that highlights ‘promising responses to persistent challenges in education’.

This study contends that journalism students, journalists and editors need to be made aware of teachers’ perceptions about the flaws and weaknesses in education coverage. Access to teachers is an ongoing issue, but journalists can and do interview teachers and should persist in their efforts to do so. They need to earn the trust of teachers by accurately quoting and representing them. They should aim to look beyond the orchestrated education media events and instead aim to provide detailed and contextualised education news that reflects the reality of contemporary schooling and teaching.

Teachers and educators also have a role to play in improving the reporting of education. Despite their misgivings, they must work with journalists to ensure teachers’ voices are heard and their roles are appropriately recognised. They need to bring the news media’s attention to shortcomings in the education system as well as highlight the many positive elements of schools and schooling. Teachers can help journalists better understand the system and represent it more appropriately and accurately. However, to do so, they need to be more available to the news media. To this end, education bureaucracies should adopt a more open and proactive approach to dealing with the news media.