In a typical presidential election, only about 7 percent of Washington correspondents vote for the Republican.Read more at location 2127
She surveyed 139 Washington bureau chiefs and congressional correspondents. Seven percent said they’d voted for George H. W. Bush, while 89 percent said they’d voted for Bill Clinton.Read more at location 2130
found similar results when he conducted an “unscientific survey” among his colleagues. He asked, “Who would make a better president, John Kerry or George W. Bush?” Among Washington-based journalists, about 8 percent said Bush and 92 percent said Kerry.Read more at location 2133
Robert Lichter and Stanley Rothman surveyed 240 journalists at the most influential national media outlets—including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS. In the elections of 1964, 1968, 1972, and 1976, the journalists reported voting for the Republican at rates, respectively, of 6, 14, 19, and 19 percent.4 When the surveys include reporters of local news, they generally find even more Republican support. For instance, when John Tierney polled journalists outside of Washington, D.C., he found that 25 percent preferred Bush and 75 percent preferred Kerry.Read more at location 2137
Of the journalists who reported voting for one of the two major-party candidates, 27 percent chose Bush and 73 percent chose Kerry.Read more at location 2144
It should be noted, however, that many local reporters cover subjects, such as weather and sports, that have nothing to do with politics. Thus, if our concern is the political bias of the media, then it is appropriate to focus on the journalists who report on political subjects.Read more at location 2145
The surveys that exclude local reporters consistently show that journalists vote for the Democratic candidate at rates of 85 percent or higher.Read more at location 2149
Indeed, when you look at non-survey-based evidence, as I will present, journalists tend to choose Democrats at extremely high rates, usually higher than 95 percent.Read more at location 2151
a number of journalists and social scientists have studied the benefits of “diversity.” One of the main conclusions of such studies is that newsrooms and other groups are aided in problem solving and information gathering if they receive the input from many different types of people.Read more at location 2158
Probably the most frequent criticism of such surveys is not that they are inaccurate but that they don’t matter—Read more at location 2165
a frequent claim by the left: “Journalists report only the way their corporate bosses tell them.”Read more at location 2167
First, if journalists are really nothing more than dupes of their boss, then why do they seek such jobs? Second, if corporate bosses really are so conservative, then why do they hire so many liberals? Third, even if corporate bosses had the time and inclination to monitor and control their journalists, how could they do this under a distortion theory of bias?Read more at location 2170
But That Was Just a Lie—Why Surveys May Understate the True Liberalness of JournalistsRead more at location 2213
One of Meirowitz’s greatest research contributions is a highly complex mathematical model that examines a person’s incentive to lie when taking a survey.Read more at location 2220
Suppose that you’re a liberal journalist, and suppose you understand that if most journalists report that they are liberal, then this will cause people to believe that the media have a liberal bias. Now consider that the latter result can influence policy. That is, if a voter believes that the media have a liberal bias, then he might believe that he’s not getting the whole truth about the benefits of conservative policies. This, in turn, may cause him to vote more conservatively in the next election, which ultimately leads to more conservative policies. As a consequence, if you’re a liberal journalist, and you care about policy, then you have an incentive, when answering such surveys, to lie about your political beliefs—that is, to say that you’re conservative.Read more at location 2226
this means that the surveys likely understate the true liberalness of journalists.Read more at location 2237
One is to analyze campaign contributions instead of survey responses. Another is to examine the journalists’ publicly expressed preferences for presidential candidates.Read more at location 2263
Consistent with the implications of the Meirowitz principle, these studies find that journalists are more liberal than the survey data suggest.Read more at location 2272
The following are summaries of the four studies: ■ In July 2004, PoliticalMoneyLine (now CQ MoneyLine) found that the ratio of (i) journalists who gave to the Kerry campaign, to (ii) journalists who gave to the Bush campaign was 93:1. Thus, of the journalists who gave to one of the campaigns, 98.9 percent gave to Kerry.19 ■ In 2008, William Tate of Investor’s Business Daily searched federal records for the campaign contributions of journalists. He found that for every journalist who contributed to the McCain campaign, twenty contributed to the Obama campaign. Thus, of journalists who gave to either campaign, 95.2 percent gave to Obama.20 ■ In June 2009, Jennifer Harper of The Washington Times examined campaign contributions of ABC employees during the 2008 presidential campaign. She found that they gave 80 times as much money to the Obama campaign as the McCain campaign. Thus, of the money that ABC employees gave to one of the campaigns, 98.8 percent went to Obama.21 ■ In 2007, Bill Dedman, an investigative reporter for MSNBC, identified 144 journalists who had made political contributions between 2004 and the start of the 2008 campaign. Of these, he found that 123 journalists gave exclusively to Democrats and liberal causes, while 15 gave exclusively to Republican and conservative causes. (Two gave to both parties, and apparently the remaining four gave to causes that could not be identified as partisan.) Thus, of those who gave exclusively to one side of the political aisle, 89.1 percent gave to Democratic or liberal causes.Read more at location 2275
In October 2008, Slate, an online magazine founded by Michael Kinsley and Microsoft, asked its contributors and staff to reveal for whom they planned to vote in the presidential election.Read more at location 2298
On January 5, 2007, Bill O’Reilly interviewed veteran NBC News reporter Andrea Mitchell. He challenged her to name one conservative at NBC News. Mitchell would not, or perhaps could not, meet the challenge:Read more at location 2311
A similar case occurred, on October 19, 2009, on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. Host Joe Scarborough asked co-host Mika Brzezinski how many conservatives worked at her former network, CBS.Read more at location 2339
Criticism III: Surveys of Journalists’ Political Views Tell Us Nothing NewRead more at location 2362
“Everybody already knows that most journalists are liberal. Why do we need a survey to tell us that?”Read more at location 2366
surveys are more remarkable and surprising than people realize. That is, for example, suppose you were asked, “What percentage of reporters are liberal?” You’d probably say “A lot.” However, you might also consider 70 percent or 80 percent “a lot.”Read more at location 2367
Suppose you visited some of the most liberal places in America, such as Berkeley, California, or Cambridge, Massachusetts. The residents of those places are actually more conservative than Washington correspondents.Read more at location 2371
The following are the results of all such two-way combinations of the groups: ■ Unionized, nonreligious people voted 76–24 for Obama. ■ Unionized, low-income people voted 70–30 for Obama. ■ Unionized, anti-Walmart refuseniks voted 87–13 for Obama.31 ■ Nonreligious, low-income people voted 72–28 for Obama. ■ Nonreligious, anti-Walmart refuseniks voted 85–15 for Obama. ■ Low-income, anti-Walmart refuseniks voted 88–12 for Obama.Read more at location 2392
Note: x ALTRI GRUPPI A SINISTRA.... MOLTO MENO A SINISTRA DEI GIORNALISTI Edit
10. The Second-Order Problem of an Unbalanced NewsroomRead more at location 2413
another consequence, which I call the second-order problem, may be worse. This is that any reporter, even if she is a conservative, will be surrounded at her work environment almost entirely by liberals.Read more at location 2418
organization that becomes overwhelmingly dominated by one political group.Read more at location 2421
When the group is, say, very liberal, mainstream Democratic positions begin to be considered centrist, and positions that would normally be considered extremely left wing become commonplace.Read more at location 2426
Christopher Cardiff and Daniel KleinRead more at location 2428
They found that, in general, Democratic professors outnumber Republican professors by a 5:1 ratio. However, this varies considerably by field. For instance, in sociology the ratio is 44:1; in ethnic studies, 16:1; political science 6.5:1; physics 4.2:1; economics, 2.8:1; electrical engineering 2.5:1; accounting, 1.2:1; and finance, 0.5:1.Read more at location 2429
Although the imbalance doubles when you move from 70–30 to 90–10 (that is, note that 90 minus 10 is twice as large as 70 minus 30), the effect of the imbalance more than doubles.Read more at location 2437
Suppose you randomly chose three colleagues at your work to join you for lunch. What’s the chance that all three of them would be right-of-center politically? The answer, if your workplace has a perfect 50–50 political balance, is one out of eight (= 0.5 × 0.5 × 0.5).Read more at location 2442
Now suppose that you’re a Washington correspondent and you conduct the same experiment. Then the chance that all three of your lunchmates would be right-of-center is approximately 1 in 3,000 (= 0.07 × 0.07 × 0.07). If you engage in this social interaction twice a week, then only once every thirty years will all three of your lunchmates be conservative. Meanwhile, the probabilities would change significantly if liberals comprised only 60 or 75 percent of the newsroom. The probabilities that all three of your lunchmates would be conservative change from 1 in 3,000 to 1 in 16 or 1 in 64.Read more at location 2446
Journalists almost never find themselves in a situation where they are outnumbered by conservatives.Read more at location 2452
“Oh, we got both kinds of political views: liberal and progressive.”Read more at location 2464
the most famous illustration of this occurred after Richard Nixon won the 1972 presidential election. Pauline Kael, a film critic at The New Yorker, proclaimed “I can’t believe it. I don’t know a single person who voted for him.”Read more at location 2468
MATT: How can George Bush possibly win? I don’t know a single person at Stanford who will vote for him. HEALY: (after a long silence) Matt, you know when you’re on the airplane, flying back to the East Coast, and you look down and see all those green square patches? MATT: Yeah. HEALY: You know who lives there? MATT: No. HEALY: Republicans.Read more at location 2474
“In the eyes of most journalists,” said Ethan Bronner, a reporter for The Boston Globe, “opposing abortion … is not a legitimate, civilized position in our society.”Read more at location 2482
Marianne Rea-Luthin, president of the Value of Life Committee of Boston, confirmed such attitudes: “Reporters often say to me, ‘Gee, you’re reasonable,’ as if all pro-life people are unreasonable.”Read more at location 2486
“Too often, we wear liberalism on our sleeve and are intolerant of other lifestyles and opinions … We’re not very subtle about it at this paper: If you work here, you must be one of us. You must be liberal, progressive, a Democrat.”Read more at location 2494
[S]ome of the conservatives’ complaints about a liberal tilt are valid. Journalism naturally draws liberals; we like to change the world. I’ll bet that most Post journalists voted for Obama. I did. There are centrists at the Post as well. But the conservatives I know here feel so outnumbered that they don’t even want to be quoted by name in a memo.Read more at location 2503
This is a difficult election for me. But voting for John McCain is an easy choice. He’s a man I admire, I agree with many of his policy positions, and, since I am a moderate but loyal Republican, I feel a kind of kinship with him. Barack Obama is an exciting candidate, and I wish I could share the enthusiasm so many Americans feel for him … … I don’t hate President Bush like so many do, but even I can say his presidency has been a disappointment.… I’m hopeful that an Obama victory would be a wakeup call as well as an opportunity [for more libertarian-minded conservatives] to take back the party from the religious right and social conservatives.… So regardless of what happens on Nov. 4, I won’t be too upset. But neither will I be too excited.Read more at location 2509
“I’m voting for [Obama] to support an energy and transportation policy that will focus on creating viable sources of renewable energy and reducing carbon emissions; to support a cautious and multilateral foreign policy that ensures American security with diplomacy, not a cowboy hat; and to support economic policies that benefit all Americans instead of just the wealthy.” ■ Two more Slate employees quoted David Sedaris when explaining why they prefer Obama: “I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. ‘Can I interest you in the chicken?’ she asks. ‘Or would you prefer the platter of sh*t with bits of broken glass in it?’ So, yes, I’m having the chicken.”Read more at location 2518
Katherine Kersten offered the following advice to any conservative considering a career in journalism:Read more at location 2527
At first there was significant resistance [about my hire]. But over time you become more accepted. Part of it is when the ribbing—that sort of thing—comes, I just smile and take it in stride. People can actually see that I’m human. You have to be nice. You have to have a good sense of humor. And you have to be firm in your convictions, or you’ll just become liberal like everyone else.Read more at location 2528
views, such as those by Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, or Joe Biden.Read more at location 2538
Within any group it’s natural for members to magnify their differences of opinion.Read more at location 2569
[Obama’s] victory, it appears, was a triumph for the cautious center-right politics that has described the Democratic Party for several decades. Those of us who expected more were duped, not so much by Obama but by our own wishful thinking.Read more at location 2574
The mainstream Democrats, at least in small degrees, feel guilty.Read more at location 2577
Two issues in San Francisco reveal just how extreme mainstream members of a group becomeRead more at location 2588
In November 2005, 58 percent of the voters in San Francisco voted for Proposition H, which banned the sale of guns and required all existing gun owners to turn in the guns that they already owned. Notwithstanding the proposition’s violation of the Second Amendment, a majority of San Francisco favored the measure. The same was true of Proposition I, which banned military recruitment in the city’s public schools. At the time of the vote, the United States, so it appeared, was stuck in an unpopular and unsuccessful war in Iraq. Accordingly, it’s not surprising that many people opposed the war. But Proposition I was more extreme than that. It opposed not just the war but also the troops, since it hampered their ability to recruit reinforcements for the battle zone.Read more at location 2589
I can attest that a non-trivial number of my university colleagues subscribe to this theory.Read more at location 2596
[W]e are convinced, based on our own research, that the [Bush] administration has been deceiving the nation about critical events in New York and Washington, D.C. We believe these events may have been orchestrated by elements within the administration to manipulate Americans into supporting policies at home and abroad they would never have condoned absent “another Pearl Harbor.”Read more at location 2598
George W. Bush invaded Iraq because Saddam Hussein was about to begin listing the price of Iraqi oil in euros, instead of dollars; that George W. Bush is a “drunk”; and that bombs planted inside the building, not a hijacked plane, were the cause of the damage to the Pentagon on 9/11.Read more at location 2608
Occasionally members of the mainstream media admit their liberal bias.Read more at location 2622
One such admission occurred on September 27, 2009. During the prior few weeks, James O’Keefe and Hanna Giles had released some of their now-famous undercover videos of ACORN employees. In the videos, O’Keefe and Giles dressed as a pimp and prostitute. Their videos show ACORN employees giving advice on how to set up a brothel that would involve fifteen-year-old girls. While conservative talk radio, Fox News, and many Internet sites devoted a huge amount of coverage to the videos, The New York Times was silent on the subject. Despite this, two days after the first video aired, the U.S. Census Bureau severed all ties to ACORN.13 Robert Groves, the Census director, said that ACORN had become “a distraction.” The Times ran a story about the Census Bureau’s decision but it mentioned nothing about the videos. As O’Keefe and Giles released more videos—and other outlets began making the videos the lead story of the day—the Times finally began to mention the videos. The Times’s public editor criticized his paper’s response. “Tuning in Too Late” was the title of his piece on September 27, 2009.14 [F]or days as more videos were posted and government authorities rushed to distance themselves from ACORN, The Times stood still. Its slow reflexes—closely following its slow response to a controversy that forced the resignation of Van Jones, a White House adviser—suggested that it has trouble dealing with stories arising from the polemical world of talk radio, cable television, and partisan blogs. Some stories, lacking facts, never catch fire. But others do, and a newspaper like The Times needs to be alert to them or wind up looking clueless or, worse, partisan. Some editors told me they were not immediately aware of the ACORN videos on Fox, YouTube and a new conservative web site called BigGovernment.com.Read more at location 2623
Two decades earlier, David Shaw of the Los Angeles Times wrote a Pulitzer Prize–winning series of articles about abortion and how unfairly his fellow journalists generally treat pro-life activists and their arguments. One of the most egregious examples involved an April 1989 abortion-rights rally in Washington, D.C. As Shaw wrote,15 The Washington Post gave it extraordinary coverage, beginning with five stories in the five days leading up to the event, including a 6,550-word cover story in the paper’s magazine on the abortion battle the day of the event. The Post even published a map, showing the march route, road closings, parking, subway, lost and found and first-aid information. However, a year later, when pro-life activists held their “Rally for Life,” the Post gave it only a tiny fraction of the coverageRead more at location 2644
Leonard Downie, the Post’s managing editor, explained that the culprit for the asymmetric coverage was the second-order problem: “When the abortion-rights people held their rally [last year],” he said, “we heard about it from our friends and colleagues.”17 However, the Post did not benefit from the same kinds of interactions with the pro-life side. The result, as the Post’s ombudsman admitted, was “embarrassing.”Read more at location 2654
