Posted on 05/14/2004 12:53:24 PM PDT by jmstein7
The wide majority of Washington newspaper reporters and news bureau chiefs consider themselves liberals or moderates and voted for Bill Clinton in 1992, according to a poll released yesterday by the Freedom Forum.
The survey of 139 journalists shows that 89 percent voted for Mr. Clinton, who received 43 percent of the vote nationwide in the presidential election, and 7 percent backed George Bush.
Two percent of the reporters identify themselves as conservative, and 4 percent are registered Republicans, according to the survey conducted by the Freedom Forum, a First Amendment foundation, and the Roper Center, a polling firm.
Fifty percent are registered Democrats, and 37 percent are independents. Ninety-one percent describe themselves as liberal or moderate.
To conservatives and Republicans, who now control Congress, the poll supports a long-held suspicion that a liberal media bias makes it doubly difficult to get their message from Washington to voters.
The Freedom Forum, which published the poll numbers as part of a 217-page report on Congress and the media, assessed the overall findings this way:
"Reporters and editors are so cynical about Congress that they neglect to give news consumers what they want: more stories about how congressional decisions will affect them. And members of Congress are so cynical about the institution in which they serve that they are a major reason the public has so little respect for Congress."
House Speaker Newt Gingrich yesterday told a luncheon gathering of the nation's newspaper editors it is time for them to reassess their coverage.
"I unequivocally believe, as a Republican activist, that the core of the news media is biased, that the bias is amazing," the Georgia Republican said at the annual meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE).
He criticized the way reporters wrote about Democrats' ethics complaints against him and about the House GOP's "Contract With America."
"I mean, don't take Newt Gingrich," he said. "Go talk to any set of serious conservatives in America and ask them whether or not they think the media is slanted. And then at some point if you're really serious about this, rather than just being defensive, you might say to yourself, 'Gee, what if it's true?' "
Three percent of the journalists in the Freedom Forum poll said the Contract was a "serious reform proposal," while 59 percent said it was an "election-year ploy." The Contract called for a balanced budget, tax cuts, welfare reform and increased defense spending, all of which were passed and sent to President Clinton.
The Freedom Forum released its report, "Partners & Adversaries: The Contentious Connection Between Congress and the Media," at the ASNE gathering in Washington. Elaine Povich, the report's author and a former Capitol Hill reporter for the Chicago Tribune, denied that the poll confirms a liberal bias in the news media.
"One of the things about being a professional is that you attempt to leave your personal feelings aside as you do your work," Mrs. Povich said in an interview. "What I think is true, more people who are of a liberal persuasion go into reporting simply because they believe in the ethics and ideals," she said. "Now that sounds kind of Pollyanna. A lot of conservatives go into the private sector, go into Wall Street, go into banking. You find people who are idealistic tending toward the reporting end."
But Mrs. Povich said she sees more "conservative-leaning" reporters arriving in Washington. "It's incumbent upon the conservatives to go out there and make their case," she said. "And if the reporters are professional at all, they will have to take into account what the conservatives are saying. It's the other side of the story."
The Freedom Forum and the Roper Center collected mailed surveys from 139 Washington reporters and news bureau chiefs during November and December - the heat of the budget battle between Mr. Clinton and congressional Republicans.
The pollsters used a similar method to question 100 editors nationally. Republicans fared somewhat better in that survey.
Fourteen percent of the editors are registered Republicans, and 31 percent are Democrats. Sixty percent voted for Mr. Clinton, 22 percent for Mr. Bush. The questionnaires revealed that newspaper editors do not harbor a great deal of confidence in any major U.S. institutions, including newspapers.
Asked to grade their confidence in 13 institutions, 25 percent had a "great deal" of confidence in newspapers, while 64 percent had "some" confidence.
The Freedom Forum's report quoted Rep. Barney Frank, Massachusetts Democrat, as saying: "I do not remember a time when the press was as negative as it is. I am now enjoying the best press of my life. And it's because I am attacking people and being negative. I get much more attention for three wisecracks and a point of order than I get for a full compromise to a difficult legislative solution."
At a panel discussion yesterday, Linda Grist Cunningham, executive editor of the Rockford Register Star in Illinois, said, "We've gone from being skeptics to being cynics."
Referring to that morning's opening ceremony, she added: "The American flag comes through, and there's pomp and circumstance. Less than half of the audience put their hand over their heart. What is wrong with us? We've gone from being skeptical to being cynical, and I think that's bad."
Let's assume that all these years later, there are fewer who put themselves in this category. What are we down to? Maybe 88% now?
Probably below 20% now.
This poll revealed way way too much about the liberal leanings of journalists, so they'll never ever answer that question honestly ever again.
89% of the media voted for Clinton in 1992! You've heard the numbers -- here's the proof!
| 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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You don't suppose that's still true, do you?
Surely, twelve years later, the media have reformed themselves and become more balanced. Haven't they?
Thanks for the ping!
Journalism self-defines as being un-self-critical. An individual journalist might be a little cautious about tooting his own horn about objectivity, but any journalist who actually goes off the reservation and questions the objectivity of other journalists is instantly - if not retroactively - expelled from the fraternity. Consequently anyone who is openly conservative is "not a journalist - not objective."
The left has no shame. Admitting this is an indictment to the crime.
plus their motivation is "we want to change the world" or "we want to make the world a better place" or "we want to further social justice" or "we want to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted." You know, typical liberal claptrap. THAT is why the media is so dogmatically liberal these days.
Vance Packard, in one of his social-commentary (a.k.a. "muckraking") books, The Opinion-Makers IIRC, noticed this trend in the 1960's, which was already strong and thoroughly documented by the Columbia School of Journalism. In the 1970's the trend became overpowering, and the percentage of Columbia J-School people answering up to your cited motivators passed 90% about 15 years ago. These are the people who will be making editorial decisions for their papers when the boomers are retired, about whether to resist calls for e.g. euthanasia and triaging primary medical-care patients, or whether to let in another 120,000,000 Chinese MBA's to help keep Social Security afloat and American businessmen (very temporarily) happy.
BTTT!!!!!
BTTT!!!!!!
But what about Rush?! What about O'Reilly?! What about Coulter?! /incessantbabble
The original article posted seemed to conclude that the survey done was flawed, due to the method of sampling used.
"So the Freedom Forum survery appears to have dramatically undercounted the scores of conservative journalists in Washington, despite their significant influence in setting the national agenda. Many of these conservatives appear regularly on TV pundit shows and their opinionated columns resonate across the country through conservative radio hosts and on the op-ed pages of newspapers.
The Freedom Forum survey gave much greater weight to the voting choices of reporters from small publications who have next to no influence in the nation's capital. These work-a-day reporters rarely, if ever, appear on TV and their stories concentrate on the hum-drum actions of local members of Congress, not on national affairs."
You couldn't get the Contract for America passed today. There is no one who would even introduce it. This includes most of those members of congress who came in with the class of 1994.
Remembering that a balanced budget was a Conservative Idea is incredible today.
Regards,
TS
These journalists are now *ahem* "progressives."
As opposed to them answering a question honestly, ever.
Let me see if I undestand this correctly. People become reporters because they are idealistic ( and presumably "want to make a difference")but once they get into the profession they set their ideals aside in order to do their job professionaly. Is she really saying they are just over-paid stenographers?
For the most part --- they KNEW he was an a$$hole - and wouldn't tell the public....
Almost as high a percentage as blacks --- whom the media accuses of "block voting"
The media owns a large share of Clinton's legacy - which was a tragic and cowardly two terms of office, with the country under attack.......
Clinton focused more attention on his diminutive penis than on the nation..
Semper Fi
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