For a long time I have said MSM doesn’t have a liberal bias but rather a liberal agenda. Understand, that’s the same as saying “That’s not a dog. That’s a Great Dane.” Yes, MSM is liberally biased. That is absolutely provable. It is much more difficult to prove my stronger “agenda” claim but I believe the preponderance of evidence shows that agenda rather clearly. I have seen many articles on how MSM will report the foul deeds of Republican office-holders and office-holders. (See what’s missing in that last sentence? Me, too.) I have also noted the scale-shifting techniques of MSM (nearly 100 liberal “good guys” vs several dozen conservative “bad guys” (nine dozen is several dozen, right?) within the same paragraph) and the chosen terminology to describe the “warring factions,” where the liberal “good guys” get called by the name those “good guys” chose while the conservative “bad guys” get called a dysphemistic name the MSM and “good guys” chose for the “bad guys” (Pro-Choice vs anti-abortion).
Do I need to expound on the MSM treatment of the Tea Parties, the Town Hall meetings, the 912 gatherings? How about that alarming report of one of the aforementioned rioters who bit off the finger of one of the “good guys” that got a huge splash? Oops, that was the other way around. Mea culpa and silence the story. How about all those overpowering stories about that black handicapped man who was selling flags at a Town Hall meeting and got sent to the hospital by SEIU thugs and the resultant felony convictions? Never happened? Or the media outrage concerning the New Black Panther thugs who prevented a free vote in Philadelphia and their resultant felony convictions? Oops, didn’t happen either.
But, like I said, there is longitudinal proof of MSM liberal bias. Complete with numbers, facts, graphs, findings, etc.
As the key findings for that graph show, over that 13-year period (16 years by some matrices) the Republican candidates never got even 20 percent of the MSM vote. It is very clear by that graph alone that MSM is very staunchly liberally biased. It cannot be honestly denied. It is also very clear, when studying the position of the populace as a whole, that MSM is quite easily left of the population.
In 1964, the populace voted 61 percent for Johnson while nearly 38.5 percent voted for Goldwater in a clear landslide election. But that is a far cry from the 94-6 vote in MSM. And the geographical graph shows most of the country was less than 60 percent in favor of Johnson (or in favor of Goldwater).
In 1968, Nixon won with just short of 43.5 percent of the vote while Humphrey garnered just over 42.7 percent. That completely destroys MSM’s 86 Humphrey/14 Nixon poll. (Sidenote: DC went over 80 percent Humphrey while MA and RI went over 60 percent (but under 70 percent) Humphrey in the strongest Democrat locations that year.)
In 1972, Nixon won by a landslide. He garnered nearly 60.7 percent of the vote while McGovern gained barely over 37.5 percent. And McGovern only won MA (with less than 60 percent) and DC (with over 70 percent). Again, the population didn’t even come close to matching MSM’s 81-19 McGovern position.
In 1976, Carter received 50 percent of the vote while Ford received 48 percent. Again, only DC voted over 80 percent for Carter and no state gave 70 percent of the vote to Carter. In fact, Carter won 3 states with less than 50 percent. Again, that’s a far cry from the 81-19 MSM vote.
But that only shows 13 years of (ancient) history. What about more “modern” times? Is there any proof MSM is liberally biased nowadays? You betcha there is.
This graph shows that 87.7 percent of the White House press corps who were willing to anonymously release their vote information voted Democrat while only 12.3 percent voted Republican from 1976 to 1992, a period of 17 years (20 years in some matrices). How did the population at large vote? I already provided the 1976 results. Let’s look at the other results in this time-frame.
In 1980, Reagan won with 50-3/4 percent of the vote while Carter gained 41 percent. Three independents shared nearly 8 percent of the vote. In fact, Carter won only six states and DC. Four of those states, Carter won with less than 50 percent of the vote, and DC was the only place Carter got more than 60 percent of the vote. And DC came in over 70 percent for the Democrat. Doesn’t come close to matching up with the pie chart, does it? Are you sensing a longitudinal trend yet?
In 1984, Mondale won MN with less than 50 percent of the vote and DC with over 80 percent. Reagan won 49 states. Reagan also gained 58-3/4 percent of the overall vote in his landslide win, compared to Mondale’s 40-1/2 percent. Again, that MSM pie-chart is totally destroyed by the populace.
In 1988, the elder Bush garnered nearly 53.4 percent of the popular vote while Dukakis garnered close to 45.7 percent. The Libertarian Ron Paul received 0.5 percent. Dukakis won DC with over 80 percent of the vote and 10 states, with less than 60 percent in each of those states. The elder Bush won 40 states, with over 60 percent in 8 of them. Pie chart? What pie chart?
In 1992, the last year of the totally destroyed pie chart, Clinton won with 43 percent of the popular vote. The elder Bush had approaching 37.5 percent. Perot, who was by no means a liberal, gained 18.9 percent of the popular vote. Clinton won four states with less than 40 percent of the vote. To be fair, the elder Bush also won four states with less than 40 percent of the vote. But Clinton, the winner, only won one state with more than 50 percent, his home state (and that with less than 60 percent). Oh, and he won DC with over 80 percent of the vote. Again, that pie chart is wholly inadequate in reflecting the public, and wholly to the left of the public.
But 1992 is a very long time ago. Many voters in the 2008 election cycle weren’t even aware there was a whole new place outside their neighborhood in 1992. For them, I’m still talking about ancient history. Is there anything to my claim regarding history in their awakened lifetimes? In a word: Yes.
Newspaper Editors
In January 1998, Editor & Publisher, the preeminent media trade magazine, conducted a poll of 167 newspaper editors across the country. Investor’s Business Daily reporter Matthew Robinson obtained complete poll results, highlights of which were featured in the MRC’s February 1998 MediaWatch.
KEY FINDINGS:
* In 1992, when just 43 percent of the public voted Democrat Bill Clinton for President, 58 percent of editors surveyed voted for him.
* In 1996, a minority (49 percent) of the American people voted to reelect Clinton, compared to a majority (57 percent) of the editors.
* When asked “How often do journalists’ opinions influence coverage?” a solid majority of the editors (57 percent) conceded it “sometimes” happens while another 14 percent said opinions “often” influence news coverage. In contrast, only one percent claim it “never” happens, and 26 percent say personal views “seldom” influence coverage.
Note this is a poll of editors and not reporters. Also note the reporters polled in 1992 were 12-1 in favor of Clinton. But that doesn’t change the fact there is a clear leftward gap between the people and MSM editors. The 1996 elections were a carbon-copy of editors’ leftward gap with the population. And, as shown in that snapshot, the editors are very much to the right of their own reporters. So if there was a clear leftward gap between the US citizens and the MSM editors and there is a clear leftward gap beween the MSM editors and the reporters…
* When asked “How often do journalists’ opinions influence coverage?” a solid majority of the editors (57 percent) conceded it “sometimes” happens while another 14 percent said opinions “often” influence news coverage. In contrast, only one percent claim it “never” happens, and 26 percent say personal views “seldom” influence coverage.
Let’s defrag this a little, shall we?
Poll of MSM editors, question: How often do journalists’ opinions influence coverage?
It often happens: 14
It sometimes happens: 57
It seldom happens: 26
It never happens: 1
No answer/Don’t know: 2
So, clearly, 97 percent of MSM editors declared journalists’ opinions influenced their coverage, at least on occasion. And the fact that reporters are clearly to the left of editors and editors are clearly to the left of the population at large, what does that say to you about the influenced coverage of political stories?
But let’s get back to the longitudinal study at hand. So far we have for all intents and purposes looked at 1964 to 1998 and found MSM to be consistently and clearly to the left of the general population. And we have seen that the reporters’ opinions do influence their reporting. But what of more recent years? Is there a sudden sea-change? I think not.
Campaign Journalists
New York Times columnist John Tierney surveyed 153 campaign journalists at a press party at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. Although it was not a scientific sampling, Tierney found a huge preference for Democratic Senator John Kerry over incumbent Republican President George W. Bush, particular among journalists based in Washington, D.C. He found that journalists from outside Washington preferred Kerry by a three-to-one margin, while those who work inside the Beltway favored Kerry’s election by a 12-to-1 ratio.
So the media outside the beltway was 75 percent for Kerry while the media inside the beltway was a whopping 92 percent for Kerry. (Let’s forget the fact that opinion drives reporting for a moment.) And what did the general population say in 2004? Did MSM finally agree with the general population? In a word: NO! The younger Bush won with 50.7 percent of the popular vote and Kerry, MSM’s absolute clear choice, only got 48.3 percent of the vote. The only state Kerry won by more than 60 percent was MA. But, hey, look! A surprise! DC gave Kerry over 80 percent of their vote! Okay, maybe that’s not a surprise after all.
And for you “religious nutjobs” out there, I mean you Christians like me, here’s something to consider:
“We tried to test for a likeability bias. With which presidential nominee, we asked, would you rather be stranded on a desert island? Mr. Kerry was the choice of both groups: 31 to 17 among the Washington journalists, and 51 to 39 among the others. ‘Bush’s religious streak,’ one Florida correspondent said, ‘would drive me nuts on a desert island.’”
In 2008, Obama won with clearly less than 55 percent of the popular vote. And that was despite the sycophantic MSM’s every desperate attempt to prop up Obama and utterly destroy Palin. I didn’t notice a huge amount of anti-McCain stuff but I did notice a huge “ignore Biden” in MSM. Heck, CNN was selling Obama T-shirts and MSNBC was getting tingly (perhaps erotic innuendo?) feelings for Obama.
So now we have incontrovertible evidence that MSM has been clearly to the left of the population since at least 1964, which makes 45 years (49 by some matrices) of liberal bias in the reporters. We have only one percent of editors, who are clearly to the right of reporters and clearly to the left of the population at large, claiming the reporters’ opinions never effect their reporting. And we have current polling, which shows 40 percent of Americans call themselves conservative while only 20 percent call themselves liberal. Add into that mixture the fact that Republicans and Independents both declare, by large margins, that the Republican power-brokers are clearly to the left of the base, and what do we get? We get a liberal media reporting on a liberal government and telling their stories to a conservative population.
Since the US population is so lazy that they’re “not into politics” so they can’t learn for themselves what’s going on in their own country, where they actually get to vote for their servant/leaders, I have to wonder what the elections over the past 45 years or more would’ve been like if MSM mirrored the populace’s political persuasions. There is no doubt in my mind that the liberal MSM has had a hugely deleterious effect on the voting of the conservative population for at least the past 45 years.
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Cross Posted on Truth Before Dishonor
If the proof is longitudinal, I guess that it’s because we give journalists so much latitude.
Excellent article. This is why I laugh when liberal relatives and friends say that I watch too much Fox News. What I tell them is that Fox News is closer to truth than anything they are watching. Even those of us who are over age thirty and consider ourselves conservative were fed a steady diet of left-leaning news in our teens and early adulthood. With the advent of talk radio and Fox News liberals lost their complete domination of the political messages we receive each day. They still control the vast majority of political thought but thank God more people are waking up every day.
I am always amused at the excuses lefties make for Fox’s popularity. They’ll never, ever admit it’s b/c FINALLY a right-leaning TV news outlet came into existence. Something a substantial segment of the public desired.
Fox News exists precisely because the previously-existing sources were so biased toward the left; without that bias, there’s have been no niche for Fox to fill.
Of course, Mr Hitchcock watches Fox just because all of the babes thereon are wearing short skirts.
FOX NEWS is closer to offering balanced reporting than anything else on TV, however FOX does include both left and right leaning shows: Greta leans somewhat to the left and Glenn Beck leans far right.
But an open and honest assessment would show that overall, more opinion on FOX NEWS leans left, my sense is that it runs about 55-60% left of center.
Wait, babes in short skirts on FNC? Maybe I should watch more often then… of course, now I’m picturing Glenn Beck ranting while flanked by the Man Show Juggies and I’m a little disturbed.
Ropelight, if Greta “leans somewhat to the left” then I’m Frank Sinatra. FNC hasn’t had a liberal on it since Colmes left.
Anyway, John, there’s a gap in your reasoning, and it’s this – I don’t see it demonstrated that voting a certain way necessarily means your reporting is biased a certain way. I’m as left as they come, and yet a passing familiarity with rightist talking points means that I could probably do a decent job writing a conservative-leaning piece.
And the same MSM you rip into for being “left-leaning” is the same bunch that ignored the red flags on the ACORN video story, puts a positive spin on torture and marginalizes critics of wars. Perhaps the “bias” the MSM shows is that it doesn’t completely agree with either of us.
I will say this, though – there’s an honesty to FNC and MSNBC that deserves to be appreciated. You watch FNC, you know you’re getting news with a conservative spin. You watch MSNBC, you’ll be getting the same with a liberal spin. It’s refreshing to know the biases of the reporters before going in – it lets you know what to take with a grain of salt.
Jeff, how do you account for this:
It seems to me that the editors said the same thing I did, but to a lesser degree.
At the risk of opening tangents I don’t want opened, let me throw out a few thoughts. I would never be an unbiased journalist (I don’t think there is such an animal as an unbiased anyone.), nor would I likely be able to pull off a position as an agenda-free journalist. I have my principles and my values and I can’t get around those.
In my HS speech class oh so many years ago, we had a week of prep for a 2 v 2 debate and a week of giving those debates. The topic: Abortion. I adamantly refused to debate the pro-abort side so my pro-abort partner had to debate the Pro-Life side (and yes, that is biased, the way I wrote that). It was then and there that I decided no matter how much I liked debating, I could never be a member of the Debate Team. In my mind, that also left out lawyering.
Anyway, today, I could never write a serious article expounding the virtues of abortion. I could never write a serious article expounding the truth of the AGW science. I could never write a serious article affirming the rights of two men to marry each other. I could never write a serious article showing favor for single-payer health care or card-check. And I definitely could never do it, knowing people would make their votes based on my writings. Because it would all be a lie and I would be doing great harm.
Even if I could write those articles, they would be written in caricature fashion because that’s not where my beliefs reside.
Could you write an article, read by all residents of MA, expounding the virtues of a constitutional amendment declaring marriage to be strictly one man and one woman, given that a vote was soon upcoming and your article would influence the vote? Or could you write an article showing all the harm single-payer would do, given your article could throw single-payer supporters out of Congress and possibly the White House? Could you write an article showing how cutting taxes on the top 20 percent of income-earners improves the economy while raising taxes on those people harms the economy, knowing your words will influence the voters?
Even if you could write those articles, I suggest your writing would necessarily be a caricature strictly because you don’t believe any of that (assuming I’m right on the specific subjects, just for the sake of argument if I’m not) and you would not be able to get your mindset to properly fit the writing.
It kind of reminds me of a marriage-counseling session where the wife plays the role of her husband and the husband plays the role of his wife. While they may be fully trying to play the other’s role with integrity, they will caricaturize their part.
What I’m saying is, despite all honorable intent, a person brings to the table that which the person has. And it can be seen in what he does.
John, that’s a fair point, but I think you’re confusing an op-ed with an actual news article. Op-eds are supposed to be biased and you know that going in. It’s the personal opinion of the writer of the piece, and so it’d be foolish to argue something you don’t believe under your name. Your charge above is quite different – you’re saying that reporters are biased in their news reporting. It’s a lot easier to hide – or overcompensate for – your own personal biases in a news article just based on who you interview or the language you use to describe your sources.
Imagine you’re a reporter and you’re working on a story. You’re a conservative, but you know that your article can’t appear to be conservative because you’re not allowed to be biased. On a subconscious level, your desire to be “unbiased” would cause you to give sources on your own side short shrift, and it may cause you to sacrifice some of the point of the story in pursuit of the illusory concept of “balance.”
And I think you’re also underestimating the role of sensationalism in what you call “media bias.” You think the MSM is pro-soak the rich and I think they’re pro-war. But those positions can both be explained by taking sensationalism into account.
Finally, I wonder whether you’re ascribing a whole set of views to a group of people based on nothing more than their voting records. There’s nothing that says that just because a reporter votes for Democrats that he’s also anti-war, pro-taxation, pro-immigration, and anti-invasions of personal liberty. I certainly don’t hew to the liberal line on every issue out there, and I sincerely doubt you hold every conservative viewpoint in the dictionary as well. A theoretical moderate “Third Way” Democrat would still vote for Obama and local Democrats, but would probably be nursing something of an antipathy towards the Kos/FDL crowd that would come out in their reporting and make their article seem biased towards the right, or at least the center-right.
Either way, I don’t think biased reporting is the problem. The problem is that we make people pretend that they’re not biased in order to be “respectable.” The best journalism, IMHO, is that pursued with an agenda.
On this point, I don’t think we differ a whole lot. Or, we’re closer here than a whole lot of other things.
I believe the best journalism admits the bias (and the agenda) behind it and the best editors admit their product is biased (or has an agenda) or tries to add in enough bias (or agenda) from the other side to try to do a balancing act. To try to claim a lack of bias is a falsehood.
You gave other information and I’ll try to quote and respond to specifics in a jiffy (if I’m not too lazy), but I wanted to point out you have so far ignored the response of the editors that were polled. The editors themselves admitted a journalist’s bias does indeed affect the reporting; they just differed on the degree to which the bias affects it.
But here is an issue. If you’re a liberal reporter working for a big-time newspaper, such as NYT or LAT, you already know you’re writing for a piece of liberal media. You have much more leeway to be your liberal self. And you can use all the liberal terminology to bias your article (in a semi-hidden fashion) such as reporting on Republican bad-deed-doers and bad-deed-doers (that you forgot to mention were Democrats) or Pro-Choice counter-protesters of anti-abortion advocates (giving chosen name to liberal group and liberal name to conservative group) or mixing your counting terms (nearly 100 on the left (80 is nearly 100) vs several dozen on the right (9 dozen is several dozen) in the same paragraph of the article).
The degree to which things are reported, the page placement, the number of articles, etc, all show a bias (an agenda in my mind). The degree to which things are omitted show that same bias (agenda).
Yes, sensationalism is a major factor. “If it doesn’t bleed, it doesn’t lead.” But I see much more of the people dying of starvation in Central Park when Republicans are in office than when Democrats are in office. It’s bias by omission. (And, again, Republican does not equal Conservative in the minds of Conservatives but it does in the plurality of minds of Liberals.) And I also don’t see the media representation of the GWOT as pro-war but rather anti-war, Chamberlain pacifist.
I’ve already hit on at least one tangent and there are many other tangents I could hit on, but I’m hoping I can get that little bit of toothpaste back in the tube.
Bernie Goldberg addressed this in his book Bias that came out a few years ago. As an experienced newsman himself, he understood the culture of the MSM very well. As he explained it, most journalists are not intentionally biased, nor do they consciously set out to report the news in a biased way. Rather, they’ve become so absorbed in a liberal culture that taking the liberal position just happens naturally. To them, being pro-choice, pro taxes, pro Democrats, etc isn’t being biased to the left, it’s simply being normal, whereas being pro-life, pro gun, and pro Republican seems completely alien to them. So, reporting the news from a liberal perspective isn’t something they do by design, it’s simply hard wired into their world view.
Well, FOX isn’t stupid in hiring a lot of FOXes to report their news. Indeed, in that vein, I still miss the very Dhue-able Laurie Dhue!
Hey, what’s wrong with the foxy news channel?