News Munchies

Media Biased, Pew Research Says; What Else Is New?

By Richard B. Barger, ABC, APR

Originally Posted Tuesday, 25 May 2004 at 12:00 AM
Updated Friday, 17 October 2014 at 01:24 PM

Well, now it's official, as if we needed confirmation.

The media are liberal. More liberal than the public -- who the media, in their infinite arrogance, do not trust -- and more liberal than they were nine years ago. All but Fox News Channel, that is; the media identify them as too conservative.

Those are the key results, in a nutshell, of a just-released study from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.
 

Reporters' Ideological Self-Identification

National journalists tend to self-identify as liberal more than their local brethren. Some 23 percent of local journalists identify themselves as liberal, compared with 14 percent in 1995; only 12 percent call themselves conservative.

Ideological Leanings of the Public vs. Journalists

Did some liberal journalists tend to report their leanings as moderate, just to confound critics who doubtless would point to these data as proof of the leftward tilt of mainstream media? The study didn't attempt to dismantle this Chinese box; Pew merely analyzed journalists' self-reported information.

Having mastered the double standard, the media's anti-Bush slant pops up again and again:

Reporters are convinced that their colleagues are too easy on President Bush. Only eight percent of the national media say their profession is "too critical" of the president; some 55 percent find the media "not critical enough."

In contrast, in 1995, according to a Times Mirror study, reporters believed that the media were "too critical" of President Clinton. Just two percent of reporters surveyed believed media had given "too much" coverage to Clinton administration achievements; 48 percent said they had seen "too little."

Five years ago, 52 percent of reporters trusted voters a great deal. Based on the ideological information in the study (above), it hardly seems coincidental that, after the Bush election, this figure has dropped to 31 percent.

How Much Do Journalists Trust Voters?

The media -- reporters, editors, producers, news executives -- seem flummoxed by a question asking them to identify any news outlet that they consider liberal. However, 69 percent have bought into the conventional wisdom that Fox News Channel is a conservative outlet. When pressed for a liberal outlet, 20 percent of respondents finally were able to come up with The New York Times.

Good journalists try to keep their own political leanings out of the news, of course, but this is harder if there is a group mindset, such as that implied by the Pew study and described by Jayson Blair, disgraced former New York Times reporter, in his book, "Burning Down My Master's House" (see "Blair Book Bubble 'bout To Burst").

Does this ideological bias spill over into news reporting? Well, that's certainly the opinion of many citizens. The Pew study doubtless will add fuel to that perception.