COUNTERCOLUMN: All Your Bias Are Belong to Us

Editor and Publisher Magazine weighs in on the Media Bias Wars. With predictable results.

As reputable polls continue to suggest that most journalists are moderate or liberal, with relatively few conservatives

“Suggest?” “Suggest???” Hell, they’re screaming it from the mountain tops. There hasn’t been a clearer communiqué since the plague of the locusts.

A recent survey by the Pew Research Center, which appeared to uphold the notion of an ideological tilt in newsrooms -- both print and broadcast -- only added fuel to the fire. It suggested that self-described moderates dominate the newsroom, but liberals outnumber conservatives by a ratio of about 5-to-1 at larger print outlets and about 3-to-1 at local papers.

Well, the Pew survey didn’t “appear” to uphold anything. Its findings were conclusive, and replicates survey upon survey of similar scope and purpose which found the exact same thing.

The problem is, there’s no evidence it added fuel to the fire. If you add fuel to a fire, it generates illumination. But there’s no evidence the media profession sees any more clearly than it did before.

Journalism veterans interviewed by E&P disagree about why an ideological schism exists. Some say fewer conservatives enter journalism because the profession offers modest financial rewards and promotes aggressive questioning of the establishment.

Translation: conservatives are money hungry, and conservatives don’t question the establishment. Have you ever heard such snooty, condescending tripe?

But these same idiots who will tell you that conservatives aren’t prone to questioning the establishment will also go on to tell you at length how conservatives—including the conservative-owned media-- were brutal and merciless in exposing Bill Clinton.

But others contend that conservatives feel unwelcome in today's newsrooms because they contradict the "group think," to quote one editor.

Here we have an editor at once tacitly admitting that a “group think” does exist in newsrooms, and that conservatives—you know, as in half the country—contradict it. Watch the authors then deny it.

But if left-leaning journalists outnumber those on the right in newsrooms, what does that really mean for the end product? Can a reporter or editor be truly objective? Should they even try? What is a liberal or conservative, anyway? Do the historical definitions come even close to describing the mishmash of views many people hold?

E&P sought to probe some of these issues with a fresh eye, and with our particular audience in mind.

You know. Our particular audience. Newsroom types and publishers. That is, liberals.

Although views, of course, vary, what was most surprising in talking to editors was that, after all the controversy, so few acknowledged that a political imbalance exists at their paper or, if it does, that it was anything they were particularly concerned about or acting vigorously to correct.

Statistically, according to the Pew survey, the chances of these editors being avowed liberals is overwhelming Of course they’re not going to acknowledge that a political imbalance exists at their paper. Asking a liberal journalist whether a liberal imbalance exists at their paper, to steal a delightful analogy, is like asking a fish about water.

The majority of editors said they did not care about the ideological makeup of their staffs

It shows.

and they seemed to sincerely believe that professionalism -- their own, and their reporters' -- regularly overcomes any personal beliefs.

It’s not a matter of professional ethics. It’s a matter of intellectual framework. A Flatlander can have all the professional ethics in the world; but he will still not be able to comprehend the meaning of a three dimensional object.

We have reporters covering religion who don’t understand religion or religious Americans. We have reporters covering the military who can’t tell a soldier from a Marine from a Navy Corpsman. And we have editors and fact-checkers regularly embarrassing themselves by allowing their mistakes to slip through. A wealth of professional ethics cannot compensate for a deficit of knowledge.

In many cases, professional ethics may simply be confused with the newsroom “group think.”

and they seemed to sincerely believe that professionalism -- their own, and their reporters' -- regularly overcomes any personal beliefs.

Laughable.

None of the editors said they had ever asked potential reporters about their political leanings, or plan to in the future, and few believe an "ideological affirmative action program" is needed to bring more conservatives into newsrooms.

Amazing. After decades of great weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth over pursuing aggressive affirmative action programs in the newsroom—after years of liberals arguing that including Latins in the newsroom improves coverage of Latin American communities, that including African Americans helps with the coverage of African American communities, that including gays and lesbians improves coverage of gay and lesbian communities, that including women improves coverage and makes coverage more relevant for half of your audience in all cities (all points I agree with, and are no longer in serious debate among journalists), these knuckleheads are now going to turn around and argue that coverage of conservative communities, churches, and the military will not be materially improved by the recruiting of reporters from these communities, as well?

Breathtaking.

Evidence from polling was slow to surface until a 1981 survey of 240 journalists at national news outlets by S. Robert Lichter and Stanley Rothman found that 81% of that "media elite" sample said they voted for Democratic candidates for president in every election between 1964 and 1976.

Ok. So findings have been consistant for over two decades. FOX News is kicking everybody’s ass. And journalists are still pretending the jury’s out?

Folks, the jury’s come in and long since rendered its verdict. The only reason journalists think the jury’s still out is because they aren’t even in the same district as the rest of us.

In January 1998, a survey commissioned by E&P of 167 editors around the country found much less of an imbalance, with 57% saying they voted for Clinton in 1996, versus 49% of the public. Only 14% said that journalists "often" let their opinions influence their coverage, with 57% conceding this "sometimes" happened.

So here we see a solid majority of editors flatly contradicting the idea that professional ethics is sufficient to ensure neutral reporting.

And what of the public view of all this? In September 2003, a Gallup Poll found that 60% of self-described conservatives think the news media is too liberal, as did 40% of moderates and even 18% of liberals. A growing number of liberals, about 30%, feel the media slants to the right, a view promoted by Eric Alterman in his book, What Liberal Media?

Ok. So more than two decades of studies from different sources and different methodologies show the same overwhelming imbalance, but Editor and Publisher’s going to give Alterman props over the ‘media slants to the right?’ argument?

Almost no serious American thinker really believes this. Alterman himself does’t really believes it. He concedes the liberal dominance of the newsroom on almost all the basic social issues and all the basic, shared assumptions of ‘groupthink.’

Does that mean that most media outlets are biased, and increasingly so, or just that more people today, left and right, are looking for news coverage that validates, rather than tests, their world view -- and when it doesn't, they charge "bias"?

A false controversy, wholly manufactured by the authors and those who want to obfuscate the issue. People can look for validating news all they want; it has absolutely zero bearing on the underlying bias within the newsroom. The Pew polls and other findings make no reference to the makeup of viewership or readership. Neither of these is a factor in measuring liberal newsroom dominance or its effect on coverage.

The evidence of the overwhelming dominance of liberals in the newsrooms stands on its own merits.

A more unusual theory comes from Professor David Baron of Stanford University, who in a February 2004 research paper theorized that profit-hungry news corporations tolerate leftward bias because it helps them attract liberal journalists who tend to accept working for a lower wage. Thus liberal bias "is shown to be consistent with profit maximization."

Now that’s an interesting argument.

Indeed, observes executive editor Smith of the Democrat-Gazette, "There are probably more social reformers in journalism than accountants. We tend to attract a certain kind of person."

Let’s see…it was conservatives who pushed for welfare reform. It’s conservatives pushing for tort reform, education reforms, social security reforms, and tax reforms. It’s conservatives pushing to reform abortion law and it’s conservatives pushing for the radical reform of the politics of the middle east region. But conservatives aren’t reformers. What balderdash!

Cal Thomas, known to take a conservative viewpoint now and then, backs the "unwelcome" argument, but adds that the profession "doesn't pay all that well unless you get to a certain level," discouraging many conservatives. Larry King, executive editor of the Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald, agrees that conservatives "have more of a background that is perhaps more attuned to the financial aspects of the world."

Change the subject of King’s declaration to from “conservatives” to “Jews” and you get a sense of the speciousness and arrogance of his argument.

Gee. And I thought conservatives—particularly religious ones, were “poor, uneducated, and easy to command.”

William "Skip" Hidlay, executive editor of the Asbury Park Press in Neptune, N.J., also dismisses much of the ideological chatter, citing strong journalistic skills as the key for reporters.

Technical journalism skills are not the antidote to media bias. They can mask it somewhat, but you’re only treating the symptoms. Technical journo skills cannot help a Manhattan journalist who thinks Texans are from another planet understands, say, Evangelicals, if nobody else in the newsroom understands Evangelicals, either.

Dennis Ryerson, editor of The Indianapolis Star, says it's different, however, when it comes to hiring political activists, explaining why his paper had turned away an applicant for an editorial page position "who had recent involvement in an anti-abortion group."

Ah, the bias beast rears its ugly head. Why should pro-life politics interfere with a position at an editorial page? Well, look at the language Ryerson uses: he tips his hand by using the term “anti-abortion” rather than “pro-life.”

At least he didn’t use the term “anti-choice,” which is always a laugh riot.

Meanwhile, Katie Couric gets to march for abortion rights without a problem.

Jim Witt, executive editor of the Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram, warns against sacrificing the best possible newsroom talent available to achieve political diversity. Says Witt, "You can't put together a newspaper like a football team."

Why not??? We’ve been putting them together like jars of Jelly Bellies for years!

Then again, a good football team has balance.

Oh, Nevermind!

Such attitudes may be surprising at a time when newspapers are desperately seeking more diversity in the hiring of women, blacks and other minorities, a mission that strongly surfaces at annual journalism conferences hosted by the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) and the Associated Press Managing Editors (APME). Media critic McGowan portrays it this way: "You put so many diversity czars in charge, and their priority is to recruit journalists of color." If the urgency of getting other minorities into newsrooms is so great, why isn't it equally important to have an ideological balance?

Woohoo! Somebody gets it!

"I don't think it is the same thing," replies Ryerson. "I can see why we look at the number of women, the number of blacks or other minorities. I don't think it is fair to assess the political leanings of a newsroom."

Like asking a fish about water…

Like some others, he may believe that the last thing the industry needs is more reporters with an ideological chip on their shoulder.

No, we don’t need reporters with ideological chips on their shoulders (though half of them do have one, but won’t or can’t admit it.). What we do need, however, are newsrooms which, in the aggregate, bring a variety of viewpoints and commonly held cultural assumptions to the editorial process. We need every newsroom to have a critical mass of conservative or red-state reporters who, when confronted with a galley page that says Christian conservatives are ‘poor, uneducated, and easy to command’ have the presence of mind to go to the boss and say “this is a stupid, stupid stereotype and we shouldn’t run it.”

Right now, we don’t have that.

Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center, notes that one of the big surprises of his recent poll was that journalists are much more secular than the public at large. "Religion is difficult for reporters to cover," he adds, " because they don't come from that world. That's the real values gap."

That was a surprise?

Indeed, one of Pew's sharpest findings this year was that while 58% of the general public holds that one must believe in God to be a truly "moral" person, only 6% of national journalists feel that way, and 18% among the local press.

Remember, these are the same nattering nabobs who clucked like rabid hens when George Bush showed his alleged lack of sophistication and learnedness when he mentioned Jesus Christ as his favorite political philosopher.

Jesus Christ won him West Virginia.

I don’t think you have to be a Christian to cover Christianity, or Jewish to cover the Jewish community. Or military to cover the military. But you ought to have SOMEONE on the staff who’s intimately familiar with those traditions—who is steeped in them—to point out where the false stereotypes are, to point out where the reporter has misgrasped fundamental issues, and to sharpen the reporting of the man on the beat.

Oppel recalls a situation during his time as editor of The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer when the paper was covering the PTL scandal (a story which resulted in a Pulitzer Prize). An evangelical graphic artist on staff helped give perspective on the religious community, including leads to sources.

See what I mean?

Ah, there’s lots more. Check out the whole thing.


Splash, out

Jason