A week-long look at bias in mainstream American media
Part 2: We Got the Numbers!
by Tyrone L. Heppard
With regard to a liberal bias in American media, everyone
thinks they have evidence that backs up their side. This is because surveys
have been taken that “prove” and “disprove” the existence of such a bias.
Take
for instance the Media Research Center whose taglines include, “I don’t believe
the liberal media” and, “America’s media watchdog”. You only need to spend 10
minutes on their official website to find out that they decry any media
coverage that, ironically enough, doesn’t conform to the traditional
conservative line of thought; but more on that later.
They
did, however, do some research that needs to be considered as far as liberal
media bias is concerned. In the annals of the MRC archives, there’s a 1981
study conducted by Robert Lichter and Stanley Rothman (of George Washington
University and Smith College, respectively) in the form of a book called “The
Media Elite”.
Lichter
and Rothman set out to survey journalists and reporters to learn more about
their political attitudes and voting patterns. They interviewed people who
worked in either the newspaper or TV business. Among those surveyed were the NY
Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, PBS, ABC, NBC and other
media outlets.
In 1986, David H. Weaver and G. Cleveland
Wilholt publish “The American Journalist” which helps back up the results of
the Lichter-Rothman study. They surveyed 136 staffers and executives from the
Associated Press, United Press International and the Boston Globe – who they
thought represented the elite media. 32.3 percent of reporters said they rated
themselves as more liberal; only 11.8 percent called themselves conservative.
Also, out of all the journalists surveyed, 43 percent said they were democrats
and only six percent said they were republican.
Okay - so
the reporters tend to be liberals who vote democratic. What about the audience
though? They are the ones who ultimately have to decide whether they buy the
argument; that because journalists tend to vote democratic, they are likely to
push a liberal agenda in the media. For an answer to that question, we have to
look at who Americans like to get their news from.
Before
looking at which media outlets Americans trust and distrust the most, much like
the journalists, we have to look at the voting patterns of the general American
public. According to the right-leaning Rasmussen Reports, polls in April 2012
showed that the 36.4 percent of Americans are republicans, 33.4 are democrats
and 30.2 percent are 3rd party or independent voters.
Earlier
this year, Public Policy Polling released the results of their 3rd annual news
trust polls. They asked people their opinions of many of the major TV news
outlets (Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, CNN, ABC, NBC) as well as PBS and Comedy Central
(due to the popularity of the Daily Show and The Colbert Report). Right away,
there are some very interesting results.
 |
| So the only people who trust Fox News are the people who work there? |
As far
as who people trusted based on party affiliation, democrats say they trust PBS,
ABC and CBS the most (with 21%, 19% and 17%, respectively) while 53 percent of
democrats said they didn’t trust Fox. Republicans all said they trusted Fox the
most with 68 percent of the vote; MSNBC is their least trusted TV news source
with 28 percent of the vote.The
results from the polling show two important things with regard to the liberal
media bias.
First, when compared to the results of similar polls taken in 2010
and 2011, the data shows that despite all of this talk of a liberal bias, trust
in TV news has been on the rise. Second, republicans don’t seem to trust
anything but Fox News, while both democrats and independents think everyone
except Fox is legitimate.
So what's their angle? Why keep harping on something that people aren't buying? I'm sure there's a simple explanation. Seriously. This won't take long....
Tomorrow: Part 3: "Working the Ref"
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