By CHUCK RAASCH
GNS Political Writer

Click the thumbnail above to look at a chart of some of the poll results.

WASHINGTON — Since the Sept. 11 terror attacks, Americans' faith in police, firefighters and the military has greatly increased and stayed high. But for other institutions, especially the news media, the post-9-11 patriotic glow has worn off, according to the poll commissioned by Gannett News Service.

That is the conclusion of a new Gannett News Service Mood of America poll taken Oct. 16-22. The poll of 804 adults paints a picture of a country that continues to put high faith in the institutions that were central to the response to the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. More than 3,000 people died in those attacks nearly 14 months ago.

The GNS poll, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points, says that nearly nine out of 10 Americans today say they have more faith in police and firefighters since 9-11. Exactly eight out of 10 said they had more faith in the military since 9-11.

Slightly more than half of respondents said they had more faith in schools, but more than a third said they had developed less faith in schools since the attacks.

But the GNS poll also found that only half of respondents said they had more faith in the federal government, while some 43 percent said they had less faith. State governments fared only slightly better.

The worst results were recorded about the news media. According to the GNS poll, only 37 percent said they had more faith in the news media since the Sept. 11 attacks, while 54 percent said they had less faith.

Richard Harwood, a political scientist who has been conducting civic responsibility forums around the country this year, said he believes faith remains highest in the first responders to the 9-11 attacks.

Harwood likened it to an increase in military support leading into the Persian Gulf War of 1991, and thereafter. Government, and to a greater extent the news media, are now perceived as getting back to business as usual, including partisan sniping and coverage of increasingly negative news and political fights, Harwood said.

"Police, fire and the military are institutions that responded to very direct threats to our security," said Harwood, president of the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation.

For government and the news media, however, "there was a clear uptick (in confidence in these institutions), but I think they have essentially gone back to business as usual in the public's view."

He added: "We just saw around-the-clock coverage of the sniper shootings in the D.C. area. Coverage of political campaigns is no better or worse than before, in part because the campaigns are no better or worse than before.

"People felt after 9-11 that there was a window to change (the tone of public debate) and that window has closed,' he said. "People are enormously frustrated that we lost an opportunity."

Part of the problem, Harwood said, is that in the wake of 9-11, some politicians have felt pressure to avert contrary public positions over the fear of being labeled unpatriotic. Harwood also said there is a widespread perception that on some major issues, such as the economy, the differences between the two political parties have narrowed.

"Since 9-11, people believe political leaders have been fairly cowed by the political debate," he said.

The GNS poll also showed why the corporate accounting scandals have not had much of an impact on either political party.

GNS got a decidedly mixed response about respondents' opinions of corporate leaders:

- 21 percent agreed that "most are honest and try to do the right thing, while a few bad people give all corporations a bad name."

- 55 percent agreed that "a majority are honest but there is more dishonesty than we generally hear about."

- 22 percent said "most are dishonest and corporations deserve the negative attention they are getting."