Liberal bias in the media
I as a conservative am rankled by what I perceive as a liberal bias in the media. Is this a figment of my imagination? Probably not. An independent search by the reader of this blog would help him judge the facts for himself/ herself. But in case s/he is short of time, let me quote some statistics which might be telling in that regard: "A new survey confirms that liberals and Democrats dominate the major media. The website of the Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) reports the findings from a new book, "The American Journalist in the 21st Century: US News People at the Dawn of a New Millennium." It finds that 40 percent of journalists described themselves as being on the left side of the political spectrum and conservatives were only 25 percent. Moderates made up 33 percent. In terms of political party affiliation, 36 percent of journalists said they were Democrats, but only 18 percent said they were Republicans. (My add: The current national split for registered voters is much more even in contrast to the lopsided numbers for journalists.) Viewed in context, citing Gallup poll data on the ideological make-up of the public, the article on the PEJ website says that 40 percent of the journalists are liberal but only 17 percent of the public is. While 41 percent of the public is conservative, only 25 percent of the journalists are. That means there is a tremendous gulf in terms of the political views of journalists and the public. "1
Why do I raise the points above of this liberal bias? Because as we lap up election coverage this election cycle and then discuss it in our living rooms, it is worthwhile to ponder over where all of our news is coming from and whether the folks discussing the news have any ulterior motives or not. Let's say you have a situation in which 4 journalists on CNN are chatting about the upcoming Presidential elections. You listen to the news coverage and at some level, would hope that what you are getting is a balanced and even coverage of the issues and where the candidates stand on them. But had it turned out that all 4 of them had voted Democratic in the last Presidential cycle, would this make you think twice of the nature of the information that you are receiving? Hopefully yes. Because at the end of the day, not all journalists can be expected to meet up to the lofty standards that were set by one of my professors who when asked his opinion on a matter replied, "The class is not a forum for me to express my opinions. It is my role to help you connect with the repository of literature that exists and hope that what I am able to present you with is a balanced coverage of the topics at hand representing the different strands of research which has looked at this topic." Wow!
Given all of this, I have a suggestion which is inspired from the manner in which business news is typically covered. Let's say we have a stock analyst from Morgan Stanley talking about the prospects of General Electric. At the end of his coverage, the analyst must disclose whether he or any of his family members currently holds any stock in that company. In addition, he has to also disclose if his firm, Morgan Stanley had any business dealings with General Electric over the last 12 months, whether it be in the form of investment banking business or in any other form. Now how about having a similar disclosure norm for the political journalists who cover the political news segments. At the end of a 1 hour segment run by CNN on the upcoming presidential elections, we might have a disclosure on the lines of : "Campbell Brown: Democratic; Wolf Blitzer: Democratic; Anderson Cooper: Democratic; Rolland Martin: Democratic". And then, the audience, people like yourself who expect the media to be unbiased, could make up their minds about what they listened to was balanced media coverage or not. If this sounds like too drastic a plan that curtails individual privacy, we could at least move to a system where at the end of each segment, we have a statement on the lines of: "Of the 56 (I am making a number up, for illustrative purposes) journalists who were a part of the crew, 39 of them were registered Democrats, 6 were registered Republicans and the remaining were unaffiliated with either party." I am certain that the audience would be enlightened by such information.
While there are some who try to point out that the media does not have a liberal bias, I think this suggestion of mine would make the debate moot and settle the issue for once and all on the basis of facts. Let's stop this liberal hogwash. Today! Thoughts or comments?
1 Source: http://www.aim.org/aim-report/aim-report-new-evidence-of-liberal-media-bias-november-a/, accessed 12th June 2008
Why do I raise the points above of this liberal bias? Because as we lap up election coverage this election cycle and then discuss it in our living rooms, it is worthwhile to ponder over where all of our news is coming from and whether the folks discussing the news have any ulterior motives or not. Let's say you have a situation in which 4 journalists on CNN are chatting about the upcoming Presidential elections. You listen to the news coverage and at some level, would hope that what you are getting is a balanced and even coverage of the issues and where the candidates stand on them. But had it turned out that all 4 of them had voted Democratic in the last Presidential cycle, would this make you think twice of the nature of the information that you are receiving? Hopefully yes. Because at the end of the day, not all journalists can be expected to meet up to the lofty standards that were set by one of my professors who when asked his opinion on a matter replied, "The class is not a forum for me to express my opinions. It is my role to help you connect with the repository of literature that exists and hope that what I am able to present you with is a balanced coverage of the topics at hand representing the different strands of research which has looked at this topic." Wow!
Given all of this, I have a suggestion which is inspired from the manner in which business news is typically covered. Let's say we have a stock analyst from Morgan Stanley talking about the prospects of General Electric. At the end of his coverage, the analyst must disclose whether he or any of his family members currently holds any stock in that company. In addition, he has to also disclose if his firm, Morgan Stanley had any business dealings with General Electric over the last 12 months, whether it be in the form of investment banking business or in any other form. Now how about having a similar disclosure norm for the political journalists who cover the political news segments. At the end of a 1 hour segment run by CNN on the upcoming presidential elections, we might have a disclosure on the lines of : "Campbell Brown: Democratic; Wolf Blitzer: Democratic; Anderson Cooper: Democratic; Rolland Martin: Democratic". And then, the audience, people like yourself who expect the media to be unbiased, could make up their minds about what they listened to was balanced media coverage or not. If this sounds like too drastic a plan that curtails individual privacy, we could at least move to a system where at the end of each segment, we have a statement on the lines of: "Of the 56 (I am making a number up, for illustrative purposes) journalists who were a part of the crew, 39 of them were registered Democrats, 6 were registered Republicans and the remaining were unaffiliated with either party." I am certain that the audience would be enlightened by such information.
While there are some who try to point out that the media does not have a liberal bias, I think this suggestion of mine would make the debate moot and settle the issue for once and all on the basis of facts. Let's stop this liberal hogwash. Today! Thoughts or comments?
1 Source: http://www.aim.org/aim-report/aim-report-new-evidence-of-liberal-media-bias-november-a/, accessed 12th June 2008
Labels: Liberal bias, Media
posted by sutirthabagchi | 9:01 AM
5 Comments:
Couple of problem with your POV. Firstly, you incorrectly assume that personal views of a competent journalist affects his job. While it may be so in some cases, you can not generalize. Secondly, disclosing personal political belief may unduly affects viewer mentality.
Finally, I fail to understand the significance of the fact that more journalists are democrat than republican. Are these numbers supposed to be 50-50? While population is roughly split in the middle, Journalists are not representative of entire population. They are more educated, more urban, more wealthy than average American.
I have no problem with fiscal conservatives, this country needs a lot of them. Unfortunately, there is little difference nowadays among a religious right, fiscal right and failed-oilman-becomes-president type right. Which conservatism do you stand for?
Anyway, America needs to shift towards center from right to keep the balance.
Let me first respond to your question regarding what is the problem if journalists lean more heavily Democratic than the general population. Unfortunately in today's times, their own view points affect what they cover and how they cover it. This is not how it has always been historically however that is what it has become today. Now for someone like me who has very grounded beliefs and reads and thinks extensively on these issues, I can usually see through the half-lies that are brandished on CNN and the other network channels. However for
the average voter who does not and relies on let's say a 1 hr. news
broadcast in the evening for getting a sense of current events, he is liable to be misled by the biased reporting.
Let me suggest an example: Is it a recession? You would think so going by the recent news coverage. Fact of the matter is that the U.S. has had positive economic growth in the last two quarters, including the last quarter
of 2007 and the first quarter of 2008. Maybe you don't know this but
let me mention that there is a non-partsian expert body called the
National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) which has the sole
authority to call whether we are in a recession or not. The NBER
defines a recession as two consecutive quarters of negative growth. Not only have we not had two consecutive quarters of economic growth, we haven't even had a single quarter of negative growth! But does that stop media pundits and those from the left to cry out loud that we are in a
recession? Of course not. In fact I remember a study which shows that the coverage of economic issues during Democratic administrations is much more favorable than during Republican administrations after adjusting for the actual values of the economic variables such as growth and inflation. So the average voter is likely to think that the Republicans are screwing things up. That is just one example. There are infinitely many more examples.In fact there is a website exclusively to this issue: http://newsbusters.org/
Coming to the second part of your comment around where I stand on my
beliefs, let me paint a picture for you: The one very important thing that I would draw your attention to is that the conservative movement which I always believe in is different in very important ways from the
Republican Party, which I generally believe in but not all the time. Essentially there are 3 camps within the Republican Party- Camp 1 is the economic conservatives who believe in lower taxes and smaller government, camp 2 includes the social conservatives who like the party because of its stance on abortion and gay rights (or the lack thereof) and finally, camp 3 which includes the national security hawks. I personally consider myself an ardent adherent of Camp 1; generally in agreement with Camp 3 (e.g. I would rather have my cell phone conversation taped rather than be blown up by an Islamic bomb) and sympathetic to Camp 2's view points but opposed to them in a legalistic manner because they are ill-consistent with my liberatarian
principles. e.g. if I believe an individual is free to choose his
occupation in the economic sphere of life, he should be free to decide who he wants to choose as his life partner in the social sphere of life. In fact in another of my posts I talk about my subtle points of difference with the social conservatives regarding the issues of gay marriage.
Before brandishing the Republican Party with the same brush, I would
encourage you to understand some of these finer facets of our
socio-economic life. And yes President Bush is not the Republican Party! Ronald Reagan is more like my personal hero and of millions of others who identify themselves with the party. So that is where I fall.
Thanks for taking the time and replying. I am interested how we (first generation Indians living in USA) follow American politics and where we agree and disagree. Four Paragraphs below are the responses to your four paragraphs.
Let me ask you this: What is your view regarding Fox News channel? Are not they extremely biased towards right? You say average Joe will be misled by CNN. What will happen when he/she watched Foxnews? You accuse CNN for having left-bias. How come you don't mention the fact that significant part of the national media (Foxnews is number one rated) is extreme right?
I do know the definition of a recession. Thanks for reminding. Nobody is blaming solely Bush for this "prospering" times. Average Joe thinks, economy is not really flying and president is fighting an unwarranted war that needs crap load of money. he is making the connection. Media goes by popular trend. And please don't refer to newsbusters.org. They are a conservative watchdog. Anyway, I am digressing. I was arguing specifically against your proposal that journalists should make their personal beliefs/party affiliation public. That proposal have problems, a lot of them. If that happens, that will completely split the viewership. No dem will watch is republican and vice versa. Maybe now you will claim that average voter is smart after all and they will not influenced by such discloser.
I understand where you stand but I doubt that you understand the impact of camp 2 and camp 3 is having on the Republican Party and on this country. Where is the fiscal conservatism, which I support BTW, in the last seven years? Bush and Co led Republican Party to hole and unfortunately McCain has to do really good if he wants to beat Obama.
President Bush is the leader of the party and I am sorry to say that you are in a minority in your own party.
Thanks for leaving comments Amlan. Fox News is the only conservative news channel out there and it is quite well known. There are people from Berkeley, (the liberal bastion of the U.S.) publishing academic papers on how an increase in the market share of Fox News channel leads also to an increase in the % voting Republican. There are people at moveon.org who were unhappy about Hilary Clinton doing an interview with Bill O'Reilly. All that I am saying here is that Fox's political leanings are well known and not in contention. However it is CNN and all of the other cable networks besides Fox which have a decidedly leftist bias but which will nevertheless claim that they do not have such a bias. If they admit that they have a bias, then I am fine with that.
Regarding the influence of Camp 2 and camp 3, you have to realize that these things ebb and flow. Several of the Republican candidates over the last 50 yrs. have been true fiscal conservatives unlike President Bush himself. If you look at Barry Goldwater's book "Conscience of a Conservative" you will see him asserting the rights of gays and calling himself a Honorary gay. Similarly Bob Dole, the 1996 candidate against Clinton was hardly a social conservative himself. So yes while it is true that the social conservatives have had a heyday under Bush and should, John McCain come to power their influence on the polity will reduce.
While President Bush is currently the President, he is far from the Republican Party. The Republican Party is a much larger being and it cannot be held responsible for every single act of an individual party member. See Bush wasn't a great economic conservative himself. He started his campaign in 2000 by saying that he is for a compassionate conservatism. The only folks who would say that kind of crap are people who really do not understand the meaning of conservatism because they understand that eventually, conservative principles do more to help the common man than old and worn out ideas of socialism or collectivism. I still would go with RR as my personal hero and I know that is true of many others, who while being Republicans, are not completely satisfied with the state of their beloved party.
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