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