Posted on 05/02/2004 1:16:21 PM PDT by mhking
Don Hewitt just came out of the closet.
In a recently published interview, the executive producer of "60 Minutes," the CBS news magazine show, admitted his partiality to John Kerry, the presumed Democratic presidential nominee.
"I would bet I'll probably vote for Kerry," said Hewitt, the octogenarian.
Of course, Hewitt insisted he has no Democratic or liberal political leanings. Just as the writers, producers and correspondents for "60 Minutes" deny a bias against Republicans and conservatives.
Never mind recent well-publicized segments featuring explosive interviews with former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, former counter-terrorism adviser Richard Clarke and Washington Post scribe Bob Woodward, all of which attacked George W. Bush.
Now if "60 Minutes" were a news "commentary" show, it could be as biased as it wanted. But it casts itself as a "news magazine" program, suggesting to unsuspecting viewers that its reporting is nonpartisan and non-ideological.
So Hewitt and his crew are guilty of the journalistic equivalent of false advertising.
And they are not the only ones. In fact, most major news organizations are guilty of the same offense.
Their producers, their editors pretend to be "impartial," their correspondents, their reporters feign "objectivity." But the reality is most of those who present the political "news" on network television, in the major daily newspapers are both Democrat and liberal.
Just look at the empirical evidence.
In 1996, the Freedom Forum released a survey, conducted by the Roper Center, of 139 Washington news bureau chiefs and congressional correspondents. It revealed that 89 percent of Washington reporters responding said they voted for Bill Clinton in the 1992 presidential election compared to a mere 7 percent that voted for George Herbert Walker Bush.
Fifty percent said they were Democrats compared to a scant 4 percent who identified themselves as Republicans. Some 61 percent owned up to being "liberal" or "moderate to liberal" versus 9 percent who considered themselves "conservative" or "moderate to conservative."
And those survey results were no aberration. Similar media polls have yielded similar results, including, notoriously, a straw poll of reporters covering George W. Bush's first presidential campaign.
The poll was conducted by Alexandra Pelosi, an NBC producer at the time (who happens to be the daughter of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the liberal San Francisco Democrat).
Of 31 reporters who responded to Pelosi's straw poll – including representatives from such major publications as The Boston Globe and Newsweek – 26 thought that Al Gore would win the presidency. (And probably all hoped he'd win).
Of course, the correspondents, the reporters who cover politics for the news networks, for the major daily newspapers, insist that their party affiliation (or undeclared leanings), their political ideology has no effect whatsoever on their work.
They claim to be fair to Democrats and Republicans alike, balanced in reporting both liberal and conservative positions on issues.
But that's a fiction.
There's no way Republicans and conservatives can get a fair shake by the major daily newspapers or by the broadcast networks when 90 percent of political reporters either vote or lean Democrat, when an overwhelming majority tilt liberal.
The perversity of it all is that most major news organizations profess their commitment to "diversity;" profess their desire to have newsrooms that look like America (or at least the readers or viewers those news organizations serve).
But when they talk about diversity, they mean race and gender and sexual orientation. They couldn't care less about political diversity.
And that's why much of political reporting in the major dailies, on the network news is so biased.
The news judgment of those covering the presidential election, deconstructing the Iraq War and reconstruction, the following the 9/11 commission hearings, analyzing the latest opinion polls is colored by their overwhelmingly Democratic, preponderantly liberal leanings.
So here's a challenge for political reporters at major newspapers, at the news networks: Follow Don Hewitt's lead. Come out of the closet. Tell your readers, tell your viewers where you stand politically.
Are you a Democrat or Republican? Are you liberal or conservative? Did you vote for Gore or Bush in the last presidential election? Are you leaning Kerry or Bush this time around?
The reading public, the viewing public deserves to know the politics of those who report the political news, who shape public opinion, who influence the outcome of elections.
For informed news consumers make good citizens.
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Call me crazy, but I've suspected as much for quite awhile now... |
| Professor's Study Shows Liberal Bias in News Media | ||||||
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Great Debate#9 Break up Microsoft?...Then how about the media "Big Six"? [ ... -Poll confirms Ivy League liberal tilt--
A poll by the Center for the Study of Social and Political Change in 1992, eighty-three percent of film and television writers, directors and producers voted for Bill Clinton. Eighty-three percent. The vote that Clinton received in the country at large, forty-three percent.
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| Election Cycle | Total Contributions | Dems | Repubs | % to Dems | % to Repubs |
| 2004 | $562,508 | $553,008 | $4,000 | 98% | 1% |
| 2002 | $5,629,541 | $5,622,541 | $4,000 | 100% | 0% |
| 2000 | $4,484,383 | $4,463,333 | $20,050 | 100% | 0% |
| 1998 | $3,296,514 | $3,284,564 | $8,450 | 100% | 0% |
| 1996 | $3,123,163 | $3,110,913 | $1,750 | 100% | 0% |
| 1994 | $1,754,809 | $1,086,978 | $4,100 | 62% | 0% |
| 1992 | $1,802,623 | $1,785,223 | $32,900 | 99% | 2% |
| 1990 | $1,179,935 | $1,169,553 | $11,525 | 99% | 1% |
| TOTAL | $21,833,476 | $21,076,113 | $86,775 | 97% | 0% |
On, Off, or grab it for a Media Shenanigans/Schadenfreude/PNMCH ping:
http://www.freerepublic.com/~anamusedspectator/
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