Tierney cited questionable evidence to suggest U.S. media is "heavily Democratic"
New York Times columnist John Tierney cited questionable evidence to suggest that Democrats dominate the ranks of the U.S. media. In an October 11 column (subscription only) titled "Where Cronies Dwell," Tierney characterized the American press corps as "heavily Democratic -- more than 80 percent, according to some surveys of Washington journalists." But Tierney's assertion contradicts a recent poll of U.S. journalists, which shows the proportion of Democrats in the press corps to be nowhere near the 80 percent that Tierney claimed.
As Media Matters for America previously noted, the 2002 American Journalist survey found that 37 percent of journalists called themselves Democrats, while 18.6 percent said they were Republicans, and 33.5 percent called themselves independents.
In asserting that "more than 80 percent" of the American press corps is Democratic, Tierney appears to be citing a 1995 Freedom Forum poll (Kenneth Dautrich and Jennifer Necci Dineen, "Media Bias: What Journalists and the Public Say about It," Public Perspective, October/November 1996, pages 7-14) which found that 89 percent of Washington bureau chiefs and congressional correspondents who responded to the poll voted for Bill Clinton in the 1992 presidential election. This study is problematic for at least two reasons. First, a survey of how American journalists voted in a single election over a decade ago says little about the party affiliations of journalists today. Second, according to media critic Eric Alterman in his book What Liberal Media?: The Truth About Bias and the News (Basic Books, 2003), only 139 of the 323 journalists asked to participate in the Freedom Forum study actually did, "a response rate so low that most social scientists would reject it as inadequately representative."
tierney's newspaper, the new york times, was the biggest purveyor of pro-war propaganda, with the washington post a close second. they might as well have been on the white house payroll. and where were all these democrats talking about the downing street memo? headlines in britain. not mentioned here. and why doesn't he just mention where he's getting it from, instead of the usual right wing unsubstantiated claims.
And in addition, the Times has had the special mission of being the right's reliable fallguy. Being slightly less extreme right than others they help create the Big Media lie: "the liberal media". MMFA's increasingly calling them on it.
But let's all recall, in the build-up to war. The rush to kick on Hans Blix (dead American soldiers at that point = 0, now coming up on 2000), the New York Times came out in support of the invasion.
Well, to be fair, as Media Matters demands to be exact, Tierney cited the 80 percent number as applying only to "Washington journalists."
Media Matters wrote, "In asserting that 'more than 80 percent' of the American press corps is Democratic ..." Well, I'm afraid Tierney didn't assert that.
Media Matters was better just criticizing the methodology of the 1995 Freedom Forum poll, as that poll dealt only with Washington journalists.
The issue is NOT whether MSM's are Democrat or Republican, but that they are FACTs challenged!
We can spin for ourselves, thank you very much.
- only 139 of the 323 journalists asked to participate in the Freedom Forum study actually did, "a response rate so low that most social scientists would reject it as inadequately representative." - mmfa ================================================================
mmfa spin doctors reject a study that polls over 40% of the targeted group...yet they cite many polls as credible concerning national opinions when only 1000 people are surveyed nationally.
More of this silliness will relegate them to "Jerry Springer" status in the blog world.
There do appear to be some problems with this article that are hard to pass up. MMFA is a little vague about what Tierney is saying and they require a subscription to NYT select in order to read the entire article.
This appears to be the gist of what MMFA is getting at:
"In asserting that "more than 80 percent" of the American press corps is Democratic, Tierney appears to be citing a 1995 Freedom Forum poll" --MMFA (Note: the reference to Democratic is outside the quoted text)
I have no idea if left045 has read the actual article or not, but he seems to think, this is not what Tierney said in his article. Because MMFA requires us to join NYT select in order to read the opinion piece (I know you can get a free trial subscription, but I regard that as a hassle) it is not easy to judge for ourselves on the matter.
If indeed, Tierney was making a generalization about all of the journalists in the country based on 139 respondants to a questionaire, I would agree that would be a ridiculous assertion.
MMFA should provide clearer documentation if they want to make a more effective argument here.
I don't see how MMFA is responsible for NYT content: if you're too lazy to be bothered with registering to read the source article, how about passing up the opportunity to comment on something you admittedly didn't bother to read?
"I don't see how MMFA is responsible for NYT content: if you're too lazy to be bothered with registering to read the source article, how about passing up the opportunity to comment on something you admittedly didn't bother to read?" --wheat
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Take it easy for a second. I never said MMFA was responsible for NYT content. Don't put words in my mouth.
Secondly, I have since looked into the "free trial registration process". It requires that I give my credit card info. I love MMFA and like to read the documentation that supports their claims. However, my simple point was that referring to an article that few will read because of registration issues, is a poor way for them to make an argument. I think that is clear.
- only 139 of the 323 journalists asked to participate in the Freedom Forum study actually did, "a response rate so low that most social scientists would reject it as inadequately representative." - mmfa =====================================================
mmfa spin doctors reject a study that polls over 40% of the targeted group...yet they cite many polls as credible concerning national opinions when only 1000 people are surveyed nationally.
In this case, the sample itself was utterly unrepresentative. It's a misnomer to call the work a "study" and even more of one to call it a "poll." It was a mail-in survey, with even less scientific validity than a phone-in "poll." 323 surveys were mailed to newspaper journalists covering congress, far too small a sample, even if all of them responded (which they didn't--only 139 bothered to fill out and return the questionaire, and 130 of these indicated their presidential preference). Of the 323, fewer than 60 went to the large papers, while 80 of them went to publications so small as to have only a single reporter in Washington. El Pregonero and the Hill Rag got the same number of "votes" in the survey as the Boston Herald and the New York Post.
The survey has been cited by dimmer conservatives as "proof" of "liberal media bias" for years now.
It seems that an understanding of a few basic issues connected with constructing, conducting and interpreting surveys is called for here. This link does a pretty good job of explaining some of these matters. It is possible to have a reasonable degree of confidence in the results of a survey that is properly designed. As Altermann correctly points out the so-called "Freedom Forum" (don't you just love right wing linguistic engineering) poll is not representative both because of its size and the fact that there was no effort to randomize the sample. There are other issues too which is why I provided the link.
Although I don't remember MMFA citing polls that are 10 YEARS OLD to make a point like this. The idea with people like Rush, Hannity, Coulter Malkin, O’reilly, Elders, Liddy, Ollie North, Bernarad Goldberg, etc. that there is some great liberal bias is funny. (This is a short list from print, television and radio, just off the top of my head, btw. I am sure people can help me out with many many more.) Could someone explain to this MEDIA member what irony is? As a side note, does anyone remember the election this poll is referring to? This was the first Clinton election wasn't it? Many people, not just "liberals" voted for Clinton in that election. George Sr. had made his "no new taxes" blunder and had a hurricane problem of his own. Point being, just because you voted for Clinton that election does not mean you were a liberal, as many saw Clinton as very much a moderate Democrat.
Exaclty right. It is funny that the right wants to paint anyone who had ever voted or donated for a Democrat as being a loyal liberal. They ignore that roughly %40 of the voting population is independant and moderate and belonging of no party. God forbid any of them try to run for politics having once voted for a Democrat many years ago or they'l be branded hard-core liberals for life. Yet they flood the media with people who are heavily partisan (paid) and devoted to spreading the Republican agenda and call them "bi-partisan, unbiased experts".
My question for Mr Tierney would be " so what ? ". It is not illegal to be a democrat, is it ???
Not yet (nervous chuckle).
Here's the question for Tierney: if so, why is Bush president? Why are we in Iraq? Why is there a huge deficit? Why is this a fascist country? Is all of that and more not good enough for you? Oh, right- Roe v Wade stands and there are still poor minorities and gays.
Here's the question for Tierney: if so, why is Bush president? Why are we in Iraq? Why is there a huge deficit? Why is this a fascist country? Is all of that and more not good enough for you? Oh, right- Roe v Wade stands and there are still poor minorities and gays.
by Uosdwis
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1) why is Bush President? He was voted into office by US citizens, not the Media. 2) why are we in Iraq? Ask Bush and Congress, not the Media 3) why is there a huge deficit? Again, how would the Media have any control over that? 4) Why is this a fascist country? It isn't, and any credibility you might have had just dissolved with that statement, but again how does the Media control the type of government we have? 5)Roe v Wade stands and there are still poor minorities and gays. Roe v Wade does still stand and there are still poor minorities (and even majorities), not too many poor Gays though...of course what does any of that have to do with the Media? It doesn't.
Here's the real deal, If the survey had come out the other way ( higher percentage of Conservatives in the Media), and even if it were from 1995 you liberals would all be screaming: This Proves Conservative Bias!!!!!
1. The reason the press is mentioned in the Constitution - as opposed to any other occupation outside of government - is precisely because of its vital role concerning the functioning and maintenance of democracy. The press is the public's watchdog, and clearly they have been AWOL during the Bush administration.
2. The press played a central role in granting legitimacy to the false claims of the administration regarding Iraq. Yes, Congress and Bush are to blame, but so is the media.
3. The press is really good at giving us the comings and goings of Paris Hilton and Michael Jackson, but not so good at giving us information regarding what the government is actually doing with our money. How can we fix or stop something if most people don't even know it's happening because the press is more interested in the latest missing white woman or the latest time Ann Coulter decided to call liberals weenies?
4. Unfortunately, we already have many of the instruments of fascism in place.
5. Roe is sitting precariously on the edge of the cliff, and your gratuitous comment about gay people (factually incorrect, by the way; single women - including lesbians - and children form the bulk of the poor in this country) leads me to believe you might have issues. And everything has to do with the media in the sense that political issues are framed by the media.
You use the words liberal, conservative, Republican and Democrat interchangeably. This goes to show the problem with the "poll" Tierney was referencing. It was about who a fraction of reporters voted for in one election, not party affiliation. Tierney calls them overwhelmingly democrats.
And there are studies showing that media owners are overwhelmingly Republican, and media owners are the ones who decide what actually gets on the air or gets printed.
I personally have no problem with people in the press having a political bias, as long as they reveal it honestly (fair and balanced is a joke). I do have a big issue with media concentration, media pretending to be objective when they clearly are not, media helping government to afflict the afflicted and comforting the comfortable, media distorting and lying - especially when it's to the benefit of power and to the detriment of the common good - media as stenographers to power, and absolutely bogus claims of liberal bias in the U.S. media. I have come to rely on foreign press to get my news because the U.S. press has become so absolutely useless to me as a conscientious citizen. What party the members of the press happen to express as their party affiliation? Who cares?
I don't think the media is right or left. It is Lazy and Corporate.
But Tierney's assertion contradicts a recent poll of U.S. journalists, which shows the proportion of Democrats in the press corps to be nowhere near the 80 percent that Tierney claimed.
I would urge MMFA not to fall into the trap of citing conflicting surveys about who journalists vote for on election day. To begin with, media organizations aren't self-contained decentralized democracies where that even has any meaning. The question at issue, when it comes to matters of bias, is what is and is not reported and how, not who someone votes for.
A copy of an LTTE sent to the NY Times about the Tierney column (they NEVER print any of the letters -- I have emailed them over 100 over the past several years):
To the editor:
Tierney's column, "Where Cronies Dwell" (op-ed, Oct 11) casually attributes the overwhelming predominance of Democrats on law school and journalism school faculties to what he calls "ideological cronyism".
But the essence of cronyism is the selection of people whose merit-based qualifications did not get them their positions, rather their loyalty, 'not what you know but who you know'. Does Tierney have any solid evidence that less qualified Democrats have been hired, let alone routinely hired, in these institutions in the place of more qualified Republican conservative applicants. Rather than insinuate or assume this phenomenon, let him present his case of proof.
The US military, especially the officer corps, is overwhelmingly Republican. No one suggests that this pattern is the regrettable result of "ideological cronyism".
xxxxxxx (aka "Cloudy")
139 of 323 responded and 124 of them voted for a democrat and 15 voted for a republican/other.
If the other 184 had responded then 147 would have had to vote for a republican/other and 37 for a democrat to balance the total....and that is laughable.
Liberal media? Certainly.
Voting for a Democrat ten years ago does not prove liberal bias. It does not establish a pattern of behaviour. All it does is show that, for some reason, people would rather have Clinton in office than "no new taxes" Bush Sr.
So to use that poll as proof of a liberal bias is completely illogical and faulty reasoning. To put it simply...it's stupid.
And considering the Republicans belive that facts can be biased, then what does that say about the working definition in the first place? Basically it means that Republicans think anything that disagrees with them is partisan and bais.
As the Republican Monarchy crumbles from within, Tierney resorts to tossing in the ole' liberal bias argument into the fray. When Republicans are facing bumpy roads (of their own making), must right-wingers always try to change the subject with this tired old argument?
Were conservatives asleep during the 90s??? Or all they all suffering from selective Alzheimers? The "liberal" media certainly didn't give Clinton a free ride during the 90s. I know about every woman he allegedly ever slept with. Thank you, you democratic crony reporters.
Yes, perhaps instead of Tierney asserting that the U.S. media is heavily democratic, he should have said that the US media VOTES heavily democratic.
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.
KEY FINDINGS:
Tierney found a strong preference for the liberal Kerry: “When asked who would be a better president, the journalists from outside the Beltway picked Mr. Kerry 3 to 1, and the ones from Washington favored him 12 to 1. Those results jibe with previous surveys over the past two decades showing that journalists tend to be Democrats, especially the ones based in Washington.” To see why journalists preferred Kerry, “we asked our respondents which administration they’d prefer to cover the next four years strictly from a journalistic standpoint.” More than half the journalists thought Bush was the better news subject: “The Washington respondents said they would rather cover Mr. Kerry, but by a fairly small amount, 27 to 21, and the other journalists picked Bush, 56 to 40....The overall result was 77 for Bush, 67 for Mr. Kerry.” “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.’”
[link to www.mediaresearch.org]
Considering the way Bush's second term is crashing and burning, it would seem that the journalists covering the Democratic National Convention simply had a bit of foresight -- especially on the "better news subject" front.
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Perhaps John Tierney should have done an identical survey at the 2004 Republical National Convention. Those results would have been interesting.
- 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. - bruce1ace ================================================================
Slam dunk. Liberal media?...as sure as the sun comes up in the east!
"Slam dunk."
So people who have deeper knowledge about Washington tend to vote Democrat. That doesn't prove bias, as a simple thought experiment will show. Imagine two rooms full of politically independant people, where one room has access to reliable worldwide media and blogs and the second room gets FOX news and powerline. The first group knows great detail about Rovegate, DSM, Iraq, Schiavo, Gannon, Katrina etc. The second group gets all the bad news cut or minimized, with positive spin put on everything. Which way do you think the two groups will lean politically afterwards?
The truth has a liberal bias.
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Not to put to fine an edge on it, but no the sun does not always rise in the East. It depends on your geographical location- the polar regions are excluded.
No! I am not trying to be a "smart a**", but devils inhabit details.
frijolesnegra wrote: "Not to put to fine an edge on it, but no the sun does not always rise in the East. It depends on your geographical location- the polar regions are excluded."
On a lighter note. The only two places, (on Earth) where the Sun does not rise in the East are the exact North and South Poles. If you are standing on the North Pole, the Sun rises in the South as that is the only direction you can go. Same is true for the South Pole except you can only go North.
Everywhere else, the sun rises in the East. It may take a few months in the polar regions, depending on the Season, but it always rises in the East and decends in the West.
If you are north of the Arctic circle in the summer, the sun never sets at all; it moves along the horizon in a circle. In the winter, it never rises at all. At points as far south as the northern lower 48 states, the sun rises in the northeast and sets in the northwest during the summer. You might argue that east is east and west is west, but that won't get you very far if you're trying to navigate anywhere. Northeast is not east.
Obviously, this is waaay off topic to the thread.
Maybe there's a liberal bias in the press because the conservative camp is populated by so many who champion censorship and suppression of dissent. I don't know how many journalists really like Larry Flynt, but I'll bet very few of them like the idea of making Hustler magazine illegal. Also, given that Republicans going back at least to Nixon in 1962 have been bashing on the media and blaming them for their problems might make the media less than friendly toward them. Bush and his father have made no secret of their low opinion of the media, and that they regard them as hostile. Stunts like putting Gannon/Guckert in the press room as a shill probably don't endear a lot of reporters to the administration either.
-mid
This 1998 survey of journalists conducted by FAIR, in consultation with the Survey and Evaluation Research Laboratory at Virginia Commonwealth University, tends to vitiate the claims made above. While there are certainly criticisms that could be made of their methodology it is, on the whole, a more carefully constructed survey yielding far more reliable results. Note that nowhere in this survey can we account for the influence of "infotainers" like Limbaugh, Coulter, Hannity, Savage et al. Claims of Liberal "bias" in the media are highly suspect and have never been conclusively demonstrated. In fact the whole discussion is bogus and a pure distraction. There are many other issues that need to be examined as this selection of essays by Robert McChesney very capably demonstrates.
The whole thing about liberal bias started, not with any poll, but back in the 70s. REpublicans didn't like that the media would talk about poverty and homelessness and how the government should look at these issues that affect all society in some way. Republicans, who typically don't care about poor and homeless and blame them for their situations, believed that was a sign of media bias and it's purpose was to attack the Republican agenda.
So they started the "media bias" line in way back then in hopes of stopping the media from covering anything that exposes flaws in Republican policy. Who would have thought that people were stupid enough to believe it?
Even if it were completely true, it is still a type of lie. It's like saying the majority of planet earth is women (%52) so that absolutely has to mean there is an anti-male bias.
But men have an overwhelming majority of control, wealth and power.
So really, where is the bias? The same is true of the media. Even IF %80 of the people who make up the media are self-defined as Democrat (which they aren't), the media is owned and controlled by republicans. The people with the money and power and control over what does or doesn't get shown are Republican. I'm sure a majority of planet earth are Liberal if you include the poor and minorities. But who has the power and control and influence? The minority of rich, white Republicans.
"...33.5 percent called themselves independents."
From my own limited personal experience working around people, not journalists mind you, who label themselves "independents" it seemed that given a choice they supported conservative, hence, Republican positions on issues, especially the Siren Song of tax-cuts and limiting government spending.
Clinton beat Bush Sr. with 370 vs. 168 electoral votes (which equates to almost 69%). Does that mean the states are overwhelmingly Democrat?
In the District of Columbia Clinton got 92,619 (84.6%) vs. Bush with only 20,619 (9.1%)!!! So you probably could have polled the DC Janitors and seen they overwhelmingly voted Democrat. Bush Sr. simply was not a very popular candidate in most of the country, and Journalists (including in DC) simply voted pretty much the same as any other group.
The Freedom Forum "study" is completely useless for trying to determine any sort of bias in the media.
Sure, if you average the "New Media" with the established media, you probably arrive at a relatively even split....like the country.
The "New Media" arose because the established media was "heavily Democratic".
Quite simple, really.
Wrong. The Conservative media was started by Republicans and think-tanks who felt the media should be cheerleaders for the party in power..and at the time this all started that party was the Republicans. The Repbulicans were angry that the media was pointing out flaws and inconsistencies int heir policies as opposed to just blindly following the conservative agenda.
So they start the "liberal media" boogeyman to stop criticism. Then when they lost some of their power, they found they could continue the "liberal media" boogeyman to stop the media from praising ANY Democratic policies...even those that worked, or the public agreed with.
Then they just started their own "conservate" media and talk shows. Shows that are NOT concerned with journalism, ethics, social responsibility, informing the public, fact finding, but ONLY promoting the conservative agenda. Which was their goal all along.
Rest assured, until Air America came along, there was no "liberal media". But there WAS a conservative media and has been for a while. And look at what happens...anyone who disagrees or dares to hold the conservative media accountable is labeled as a partisan democrat and biased.
So were we better off BEFORE or NOW ? To help you with your answer, when was the last time you remember the US being so divided and agry?
Word!
Journalists are usually college educated, often work abroad, and value objectivity. So, of course, they tend not to be Republicans.
Generally, however, they are journalists first, unlike in those in the conservative media, who are conservatives first.
“The Media Elite: America’s New Powerbrokers” by S. Robert Lichter, Linda S. Lichter and Stanley Rothman
this book that came out in 1986, was one of the first to make that "liberal bias" claim about the media. and what it did show was that the book itself was based on slanted surveys, questions and unfair comparisons. the book shows that journalists tend to be more conservative on economic issues than average americans but compares them to the buisness elite, instead so they seem more liberal, 63% favored less regulation for instance. On issues of race, equality, and the environment, they tended to be in line with the majority of americans( democrats and republicans) .....What someone has to prove is not how the media votes but if their party affiliation influences their reporting. I would think someone who considers themselves to be liberal might have more of an open mind when it came to different points of view than someone who is conservative and this might be of importance when reporting unbiased stories. What I want to know is do conservatives want the media to be all conservative because then they would be doing exactly what they condemn or do they want balanced reporting because then you would have to get rid of most AM talk radio,at least 1 or 2 mainstream tv news stations,half of all the newspapers, and all of sinclair broadcasting....is that what they want?
The "New Media" arose because the established media was "heavily Democratic". Quite simple, really. by qwerty -
Quite simple minded yes
Alterman says something to the effect that even if most reporters are Democratic or Liberal they have no real substantial influence over the news, just like a Democratic or Liberal assembly line worker has a no say in the design of a car they are helping to manufacture.
The reporters answer to the editors, the editors answer to the executives, and the executives pander to the corporate advertisers.
I agree that the media is probably more "liberal" (whatever that means) when it comes to social issues but it is very hard right when it comes to corporate power and economic issues (because the media is corporate). When have you seen a really critical look at labor issues, sweatshops, globalization, corporate personhood, etc by the networks or cable new outlets? Hardly never if ever.
bogus statistics AND bogus logic lead to a bogus conclusion.
Even if the statistics were correct, it wouldn't prove that "the media is liberal". The opinions of the employees don't matter. (especially where I work) The opinions of the owners and editors is what gets reflected in the outlet.
I mean, most GM workers are pro-union. Does that mean GM is?
and most Wal-Mart employees are in favor of raising the minimum wage. Does that mean Wal-Mart is a liberal socialist company?