Research Reveals U.S. Media Leans Left, Blind to Own Bias
by Fred Jackson and Jenni Parker
May 26, 2004
(AgapePress) - A new poll of the nation's journalists is providing more alarming evidence that the vast majority of them hold extreme liberal bias and are far less conservative than the general public.
The poll was done by the Pew Research Center, a secular organization that monitors the media and public policy issues. The survey found that the vast majority of those employed in the national and the local media describe themselves as liberals and moderates, with national media leaning far more toward the liberal side of the scale.
Only seven percent of the national journalists surveyed described themselves as conservatives, and the numbers were not much better for local journalists. That ratio may help to explain differences in the way the media report on American politics, and even in how they assess their own job of collectively covering news about political leaders and their policies.
According to Pew's research, reporters and editors, particularly in national news organizations, feel the press has gone much too easy on President George W. Bush's Administration. Tellingly, solid majorities of national print and TV journalists, as well as Internet journalists, say the media has not been critical enough in its coverage of the Administration, and a smaller plurality of local print journalists agree (46%).
The Pew Research Center notes that liberals in national and local news organizations "overwhelmingly feel the press has not been critical enough of the Bush Administration. Roughly two-thirds of liberal journalists (68%) express that view, compared with 28% who say coverage has been fair and 3% who believe the press has been too critical of the Administration."
The Center also reports that only "a narrow majority of national journalists (53%) give the coverage a grade of A or B; local journalists are far less generous in their grading of how their colleagues in national news organizations have covered Bush (43% A or B)." But then, in a similar survey in 1995, national journalists offered far more positive opinions of media coverage of the Clinton Administration (65% A or B).
And the heavy liberal bias among media professionals can definitely be seen in how they responded to questions about social issues. For example, Pew found that liberal journalists by a wide margin (61% to 33%) place a greater priority on government provision for the needy than on individual freedom. Meanwhile, conservatives by an overwhelming 88% margin say it is more important that everyone be free to pursue life's goals.
Also, when asked whether homosexuality should be accepted by society, 88% of national media journalists agreed, along with 74% of those who work in the local media, that it should. And when asked whether a belief in God was necessary for a person to be moral, 91% of the national media journalists said such belief was not essential for morality, as did 78% of those in local media.
Ultimately there is agreement among media executives, managers, and reporters across the board that it is generally a bad thing for a news organization to take a "decidedly" ideological point of view in its news coverage -- whether liberal or conservative. According to Pew's report on the survey, "Fully 72% of national journalists and 74% of local journalists have a negative view of news organizations taking a strongly ideological stance in their coverage."
However, there are indications that most liberal members of the media have a hard time recognizing liberal bias. In Pew's survey, while moderates and liberals could usually identify conservative news organizations far more often than liberal ones, about three-quarters of liberals (74%) and a majority of moderates (56%) said they could not think of any news organization that is especially liberal.
