Trivial pursuits: a daily dose of fluff and ills.

There is mounting evidence that the media on which we depend for our knowledge of the world affect us powerfully, for good or for ill. There is also much evidence that we have come to distrust these same channels and to hold journalists in low esteem. In such a time the awarding of a Pulitzer Prize for civic journalism to the Grand Forks (North Dakota) Herald in April was heartening. The award recognized the paper's role in preserving the town's sense of community during the devastating flood there and its aftermath.

"I think the Herald in the days immediately after the flood was the identity of this town," said Mike Jacobs, the editor. "It went to residents of the community who were widely dispersed. It was a touchstone for them." The citation accompanying the prestigious Pulitzer Prize spoke in similar terms.

This is what a good newspaper can do. But newspapers and television news can do the opposite. A case in point is the way in which the reporting of crime news can negatively affect the way people view their own communities. Crime coverage has long been a staple in the news, but we have seen a steady rise in the time given to crime on evening news programs and the space allotted to it in the morning papers. And there are objections.

"You don't realize how much all this endless negativism tears down people's hopes," wrote one reader to the Washington Post's ombudsman, Geneva Overholzer. Replying, Overholzer admitted that good news about crime - for example, a drop of 22 percent in overall crime and 29 percent in homicides - got little play in her paper, in contrast to the detailed daily reporting of murders, thefts, and muggings. She also took note of evidence showing that heavy watchers of TV news see the world as menacing, and tend to overestimate both the amount of crime in their communities and the criminal involvement of various ethnic groups.

What effect, then, has the daily drumbeat coverage of the possible scandal involving President Clinton and an intern had on the national spirit? Clearly there has been an abandonment of personal standards, an increase of prurient curiosity, an addiction to the story resembling a fixation on soap opera. People are reading and listening. But since January the media have come under attack from many critics for overkill in their coverage.

Paul Newman, for one, spoke in a television interview with wondering disdain of the networks that pulled anchors from Cuba during the pope's visit - "an event of international importance" - to cover the Lewinsky story. In a press conference Betty Friedan scolded newspersons for their obsession with the salacious and speculative to the neglect of more important news. CBS's Dan Rather expressed disgust with the media frenzy over Lewinsky. Letters expressing similar sentiments have poured into newspapers and magazines. One reader told the Post, "Never in American history has so much been said by so many who know so little about nothing."

Although some journalists defend the media's performance on the ground that "it is news" and by citing the public's apparent appetite for the sordid, many others, to their credit, are critical. In an article in the April American Journalism Review about this give-and-take, writer Sherry Ricchiadi quotes Pulitzer-winner James V. Risser: "The speed with which this story developed and the willingness of news organizations to use poorly sourced information has caused some of the criticism and for good reason....It seems to me the media went out of control on this." MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann, though he covered the story heavily himself, thinks journalists should exercise greater care. "I just can't imagine Walter Cronkite sitting there reading a story that argues about the meaningfulness of oral sex or giving graphic details on it."

This is the essential point: in the gradual progression from straight news to soft news" over the past twenty years, journalists finally seem to have crossed the line. "Until now there have been topical subjects too grubby for anyone except comedians or the tabloids to touch, and on the other side of the bright media line were subjects of high consequence," wrote essayist Kurt Anderson (New Yorker, February 16). But now, "for the first time ever there is no line - it's both consequential and as grubby as it gets."

One way for print and television reporters and editors to buck this trend - and to regain public trust - is suggested by the Grand Forks Herald story; that is, by putting more emphasis on civic journalism in a time of diminishing straight news. Another is handling straight news - what happened yesterday - as just that: sticking to the facts, giving information, avoiding opinion. Journalists are now holding forums nationwide to examine their values and responsibilities. We must hope that they will experiment with what will restore trust and forge community. There could not be a more appropriate moment.