Kurtz claimed "a lot of journalists" are giving to Dems -- but number giving at all is tiny percentage of whole
On the June 24 edition of CNN's Reliable Sources, host and Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz said: "MSNBC.com had a lengthy investigation this week ... they found a lot of journalists contributing to political candidates and political parties, mostly Democrats." Throughout the segment, the on-screen text read: "Journalists' donations: Many give to Democrats." While Kurtz did not define what he meant by "a lot" and the on-screen text did not define "many," the assertions are contradicted by the MSNBC report itself. As the report notes, the actual number of journalists identified in the study as political donors -- 143* total -- is a "tiny fraction of the roughly 100,000 staffers in newsrooms across the nation."
Kurtz did not acknowledge the tiny percentage even after one of his guests, Huffington Post media editor Rachel Sklar, pointed it out, saying that the number who gave was "like one percent." (The actual percentage appears to be less than two-tenths of one percent.)
Further, in characterizing the investigation as finding that "a lot of journalists" contributed to political candidates and parties, Kurtz failed to note that the study included journalists whose job has no bearing on political coverage. For instance, the study showed that Henry Riemer gave "$1,700 to Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean in 2003-2004 and $1,000 in 2004 to Democracy for America, which gave to Democrats." Riemer was a sports statistician for The Boston Globe when he made these donations. The MSNBC report itself noted that "[m]any of the donating journalists cover topics far from politics: food, fashion, sports." From the report:
Many of the donating journalists cover topics far from politics: food, fashion, sports. Some touch on politics from time to time: Even a film critic has to review Gore's documentary on global warming. And some donors wield quiet influence behind the scenes, such as the wire editors at newspapers in Honolulu and Riverside, Calif., who decide which state, national and international news to publish.
The pattern of donations, with nearly nine out of 10 giving to Democratic candidates and causes, appears to confirm a leftward tilt in newsrooms -- at least among the donors, who are a tiny fraction of the roughly 100,000 staffers in newsrooms across the nation.
From the June 24 edition of CNN's Reliable Sources:
KURTZ: One more issue here, MSNBC.com had a lengthy investigation this week -- you can put up a graphic -- they found a lot of journalists contributing to political candidates and political parties, mostly Democrats. We see there some of the names, Joe Scarborough, former CNN reporter, Fox News producer. Is there another part to that [graphic]? There was also correspondents for CBS, ABC, and MTV. Rachel Sklar, should journalists make political donations, period? Doesn't that make them look partisan?
SKLAR: Well, what I find interesting about this is that the assumption immediately that making the donation is what makes you partisan, or is that the journalists who don't make donations have no biases whatsoever. I actually am more interested in what is not disclosed. In this case, if donations are disclosed to news organizations and the news organizations themselves don't have a rule against making those contributions, if everything is transparent and people are held accountable, then I don't think it's a problem. I think that that's a --
KURTZ: Let me get Michael Medved in, because we're short on time. Should they make these donations? And 125 of the 144 people tracked by MSNBC gave money to Democrats.
MEDVED: Yeah, I think it's a huge problem and it shows the disproportionate sympathy for liberal causes and candidates in mainstream media.
SKLAR: Oh, I don't think it shows that at all.
MEDVED: The reason it is a problem is because it's so passionate -- you have to be so passionate about a campaign to actually give money.
SKLAR: But like one percent did.
MEDVED: Look, I give opinions everyday, all the time -- that's what I do -- and yet I would be very careful not to contribute to a campaign because once you're a financial backer of a candidate, how can you then go on your show or on your -- in your magazine and say I'm not in the tank for the candidate or a party for which I contribute.
KURTZ: All right, got to wrap it here. You get the last word. Michael Medved, Rachel Sklar, thanks for an interesting discussion this morning.
* A subsequent correction to the MSNBC study changed the total number of those surveyed from 144 to 143 because "[o]ne of the names was included in error in this list of newspeople who contributed to political campaigns." From the MSNBC correction:
Joe Cline, a graphic artist at The San Diego Union-Tribune, is in the advertising department, not in news. His name has been removed. Because Cline had given to Republicans, the adjusted tally is 143 journalists: 125 giving to Democrats and liberal causes, 16 to Republicans, and two to both parties.
Kurtz and Medved are two pawns for the GOP.
Many media outlets won't let their journalists contribute to campaigns or causes to avoid the appearance of bias, which is a shame and rather anti-American.
But for MMFA to try and downplay a study that has found the same results as every study ever done on the subject is laughable.
The media are generally liberal. Cronkite admits it, Peter Jennings admitted it, and there is no research that proves otherwise. If there is, post it.
"a study that has found the same results as every study ever done on the subject is laughable."
-Really? EVERY study. Let's see it then if your position is so strong.
"The media are generally liberal."
-This has been debunked so many times you just sound like an idiot.
Liberals live by proof, facts, evidence, etc. Until you show proof to any of this you're just trolling again.
I'm still trying to understand why anyone looking for guests on a national non-religious show would consider booking Medved?
O'Reiily makes more sense than Michael.
Kurtz and Medved are Hannity and O'Reilly wannabees.
Kurtz, Medved, Hannity and O'Reilly can't even claim to have been usetabees. Like in usetabe one that told the truth.
Ever since the Conservatives lost to Kennedy they have created Conservative Think Tanks to swing America over to the right whether America likes it or not. So much for democracy. And the crowning achievement is Bush tainting the DOJ to steal the 2008 election. So much for democracy. Not that Conservatives ever believed in democracy.
This spin and twist of logic about how 144 individuals donated to the Dems must mean a liberal media is getting more and more insane each day with the Conservatives.
In my community alone we used to have 6 independent radio stations. They are now all owned by Clear Channel an obvious Conservative based Company. The lunacy is hearing O'Reilly, Hannity, Savage all bleating like goats about liberal media when there isn't even a single liberal media in my community. Our radio station is all Conservative, our local paper is a pure one hundred percent pro Republican Conservative rag, we only have zero liberal opinion pieces in the paper. Our local television station made of only 4 channels are all Conservative shills and moles.
So you can see all the media in my community is working 24/7 with the shovel and that's a lot of cow manure they are shovling.
Halrequin... you have no liberal media in your neighborhood? You don't get ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN or MSNBC? What about PBS and Ovation? Do you get any local papers? Talk Radio is one facet of the 'news' industry, and it is gaining in popularity because Conservative opinions carry more weight among people that actually listen to news. It's all about ratings.
The point about this 'stuf' is that it's just a small sample. Use all of the statistics you want, but the point is that media outlets such as papers and television stations are largely liberal. This then causes stories and perspectives to be addressed from the liberal viewpoint. I'd like to see a real study to see where the press falls in the political spectrum. It might be more than 9:1.
Talk Radio is one facet of the 'news' industry, and it is gaining in popularity because Conservative opinions carry more weight among people that actually listen to news.
- cann0nba11 / Sunday June 24, 2007 09:14:38 PM ES
By conservative do you mean Rush, Bill, Savage, Boortz or Hannity? Many conservatives who post here tell us time and time again that they are "entertainers" or "comedians". You can't have it both ways. If they are supposed to be "news" organizations then the criticism posted here are justified. They tell lie upon lie and find racists humor funny. To cover their a** they resort to "we have to be PC". No you don't have to be "PC" just try being the "christian" you claim to be. If they are comedians then you conservatives sure do listen to a lot of comedy and use the jokes those comedians make as facts.
... you have no liberal media in your neighborhood? You don't get ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN or MSNBC? What about PBS and Ovation? Do you get any local papers? Talk Radio is one facet of the 'news' industry, and it is gaining in popularity because Conservative opinions carry more weight among people that actually listen to news. It's all about ratings.
Dude, you should do a seminar on how to write con propaganda in 50 words or less! I mean this short paragraph contains so much misinformation, I would be impressed by your efficiency if the crapola you are flinging wasn't so vile and moronic. Repeat after me, ABC, NBC, etc., ain't liberal media, they are enterprises whose sole purpose is to generate a profit for the corporations that own them, and if you believe that the honchos who run said corps would allow their operations to be used to purvey a lib-er-al message, then you are a fool, a plain and simple tool for the right-wing hoods who have blasted our country back to the Dark Ages.
Now, this bit about talk radio being so popular cause people just can't get enough of dat ol' time con-servative wisdom. Oh please save your bedtime fairytales for your poor unfortunate children. The fact is that the con talk format has been the only one available in so many areas simply because the product has been mass-produced and flooded into the marketplace like so much cheap toilet paper. It is undoubtedly popular because jingoism that is served up as simplistic our-country-right-or-wrong, ain't-we-blessed-by-the-Lord, us-against-them messages for the simpletons always has and always will have a certain appeal, especially to disaffected white males who are scared crapless about having one iota of their power taken away from them, and who vastly make up the audiences for these con-servo-hatefests. But I have news for you, brother: progressive broadcasting has made great inroads in the past several years, particularly on the internet, and those benighted tools like you who believe otherwise are in for a rude awakening--in more ways than one.
This "study" just confirms the hate-wing propaganda about the "librul media" (and the "librul education system"). I find it useful - and comforting - to know that the least informed (FoxLies fans) among us are the conservonuts, while the best-informed, best educated are "libruls". [ I might normally have reservations about basing my conclusion on .02% sampling of a group, but since that conclusion overall fits the facts so well, I will advance it as a working hypothesis. As soon as we can find a sufficient number of conservonuts reading at least to third-grade level, we can begin some predictive testing to verify or refute that hypothesis. Do you suppose Bungle's Administration could help me find 150 or so "reading" Repugnants? Or an acceptable testing mechanism and results interpreter? Or a grant to do the study? ]
I'm thinkin', with a 50% reliability, I could prolly construct the testing and compile the results for, oh, $13.4 million?
Its your lucky day. Here's about 200.
http://www.newsbusters.org/
you lose. i got to the part about meet the press having a "liberal" like david broder on this morning. i saw the show and he did his usual bashing of democratic senate leader harry reid.
I was reading this thread about the CAIR/Al Qaeda connection at Newsbusters (they claim there is a connection but for some reason CAIR is still allowed to operate in the United States) and there is an interesting comment by someone named lame cherry. He/She gives an interesting take on Muslims and extremists.
Yeah, Loonz, lame cherry was quite interesting. 8>O
Did you read the hot item about the governor who had the 14 year old girlfriend? And the article didn't point out that he was once Jimmy Carter's transportation secretary!
The trip to wingnutland is worth it for the cartoon alone; Al Franken saying something totally bizarre and unrelated to anyhting happening on planet Earth, in another shining example of right wing "humor".
I'll have to remember that Media Matters now throws out sample polls of only .0002. That will come in handy.
damn, can you get anything straight. it was not a "poll". these were the people they were able to find that had given donations. out of a very large number of jounalists.
And we will have to remember Leather and others sticking up for this poll the next time a significantly more reliable exit poll is proven wrong in an election. Deal?
And here's your "acceptable testing mechanism" thank me very much.
http://www.mrc.org/
That mechanism which you illustrate barely suffices to recite the same numbers found on the various threads here which have convincingly shown that .02% sampling is predictive of nothing. One knew going in that the group to be "tested" had all the markers of "libruls", just as do teachers and school administrators; and yet one fails to see any evidence that the content of reportage is influenced by these markings.
You do realize that the only definitive testing is an autopsy? Even amongst conservotrolls, that is a substantial commitment.
Gwinn- as a former KGB operative now secretely teaching polisci to Americans in LA, you must have SOME awareness that ALL TEACHERS ARE BRAIN WASHING YOUR YOUTH!! We are doinh our damnest to get an all communist/socialist country... that is why we donate our CONSIDERABLE VAST AMOUNTS of dollars we receive to *teach* that the democratic coffers are now lined with 3 Bazillion Quazillion dollars. You can not stop us- prepare to see the sickle on all your 'red' states... end sarcasm
Yep, the education system has been liberalizing our children for almost 100 years. You can totally see the results of these decades of brainwashing.
That's why America has elected flaming pinkos like Ron Reagan and GW Bush to its highest office, right?
I mean, that proves it right there...
Right?
Wow troll, two completely worthless sources in the same thread.
You're really stickin' it to us libs here at ol' MMFA.
PS: I've read Bozo's MRC extensively over the last couple of years. There is almost nothing there of substance. It's a lot of bellyaching and pissing and moaning, but no hard data. Just another wingnut site where they don't actually know anything, but they believe...
and that's almost as good, right?
I guess "125 journalists out of roughly 100,000 gave donations to Democrats" wouldn't be as interesting to discuss.
Maybe the more interesting question would be: how many journalists RECEIVE contributions from political organizations, and what side of the political spectrum are they getting money from?
I think we already have seen examples of that, and remember who paid them?
You have indeed spied the crux of the matter! Thanks to your reminder, I, too, now recall those "paid" instances of " journalism ". (It is a shame that even the quote-marks move to distance themselves from that, as journalism.) Thanks for memory lane!
No lie... and if this stupid *ss story goes ANY further, the dems should launch on all out offensive on finding who, and how many, are/were paid monies by the republican't party...
and among the usual suspects who were paid by this administration, don't forget the half dozen or so miami journalists who were paid to bash castro. [not that anyone really needed to paid to do that in miami.]
be paid.
This "Story" is yet another example of how one media outlet creates something that does not amount to a hill of beans, and the other outlets jump on it like a "Fill in your favorite saying".
Roughly 89% of the political contributions found in the MSNBC story were to Democrats or Democratic causes. That's about the same percentage of journalists who self-identify as liberal (or progressive). Just another bit of evidence contradicting MMFA's incredible claim of conservative bias in the news media.
amazingly tone deaf. People spend a great deal of time laying out the facts, why those statistics are irrelevant, how figures lie and liars figure, and you still refuse to listen or learn.
The main stream media have a vested interest in pandering to purient interest; to corporate profits, and to conventional wisdom. Very few truly progressive ideas get through that filter.
I find by watching all the talk/news shows, one FACT that stands out way above all others. That FACT is simply the top stories do not contain much more than speculation and what and how the pundits spin them to suit their own cause.
Percentage of journalists versus percentage of journalists that contribute. Please. The second group is a miniscule, unrepresentative sub-sample. That's the point.
You believe the MSNBC story? Didn't you get Bill's talking points memo that anything that comes from MSNBC is "bad, evil, not true and all with the target of "making the President look bad"? I would check my e-mail cause I think you didn't get the latest talking points.
"Just another bit of evidence contradicting MMFA's incredible claim of conservative bias in the news media."- edrossinoelwein9669
You could be excused for not seeing the meaninglessness of this report on your own- Blame it on a malfunctioning BS detector.
But to still not get it after several days of the flaws being pointed out here, that's just working really hard at being thick.
His conservative operative wife should be so proud:
http://www.fourthestatestrategies.com/html/biography.html
Mary59;
Facts are stubborn things aren't they? The facts are, no matter how it is spun, that the nearly all the MSM's sympathy lies with the liberals and their reporting reflects their values.
By reading my reply to a previous comment, you will find the real answer and not what you may not want to hear or believe.
So, what do you think of exit polls in political elections that survey a significantly larger group/demographic and are much more reliable? Please don't stick up for a poll of such a small percentage and try to refute another method that has been significantly accurate over time.
It wasn't a poll.
Sure that is why the liberal media bias made them run lockstep with the administration in the runup to the war, that was a liberal position. Oh wait no it wasnt. Then there was the liberal all Monica all the time two years. Wait that doesnt work either. Oh well keep saying it over and over like the mantra it is and I am sure one day it will magically become true.
Kurtz piece confirmed what I've long suspected: that... thanks to Henry Riemer... sports statistics in the Boston Globe are liberally biased.
I'll never trust the "reported" batting average of any Red Sox player again.
I agree that 143 out of 100,000 staffers is a very small sample. But if 90% of them had contributed to Republican campaigns it would be all "see, see, see!!!" around here. Posters should remember this example when drawing conclusions about "the media" based on the postings of 5 to 10 media personalities that MMFA concentrates on. But they won't.
that's just an assumption on your part as to who would be saying what. and it does not translate into what you are claiming.
There are only 144 journalists?
I'm sure the same knuckledraggers could find 143 journalists in which the vast majority have given to Republican candidates (FOX News corporate headquarters). Then again, Murdouche may "force" his employees to donate to Republican candidates.
Perhaps the more interesting question would be hiow do the owners of news organizations give and to whom.
Gee I wonder why I dont see THAT statistic?
Liberal media? Man do the gated community right wingers love to beat that old drum. News divisions used to be considered a necessary evil by the counters of the holy beans. The non-profit generating maintenance costs of a free and well informed democracy. Another fleeting gift from the post WWII "Greatest Generation" perhaps. Many news divisions, if not all major ones, are now required to show a profit, laying people off, shutting down foreign bureaus, and generally turning more and more towards cheap and easy ratings driven sensationalism instead of investing into more broad in-depth reporting. One has to wonder if the current owner’s delight in the painting of their now castrated divisions and cast offs as liberals to sooth their greedy conscience. Oh how they must hate shows like Frontline, Now etc. that don’t answer to a dictatorial corporate mission statement. After all truth has a liberal bias as the joke goes.
Here it is again, the same tired old theme of "that darn liberal media." And who trots out this chestnut from time to time? Why, it's those brave talking heads, the shapers of American opinion, the right-wing media pundits, protecting our right to be misinformed and dumbed down with neo-con propaganda talking points (for example, the MSM now refers to all Iraqi insurgents as Al Qaeda operatives). That a total of 143 journalists out of roughly 100,000 contributed to political candidates is of course not newsworthy. The clincher is the discovery that the VAST majority ("a lot") of these 143 contributing journalists is made up of Democrats. And this now magically becomes: a "lot of" journalists contributing to the Democrat party. Shattering and devastating, this "news" proves, without a doubt, that the mainstream media is indeed....lame brained, worthless, and largely a mouthpiece of the fascist right-wing Republican party.
So Prof;
If it's all right to paint the GOP as a "facist" organization, I suppose then that it's OK to call Democrats Maoists or Stalinists?
Don't you think that there might be more light emitted by reasoned argument than by name-calling? Of course, one would need a point besides hatred of the United States....
Yeah, just because the audience at the Republican presidential debates goes wild when the candidates call for more torture doesn't mean we should call them fascists. I mean, that would involve us leaving our dark little cocoon of denial.
"If it's all right to paint the GOP as a "facist" organization, I suppose then that it's OK to call Democrats Maoists or Stalinists?
Don't you think that there might be more light emitted by reasoned argument than by name-calling? Of course, one would need a point besides hatred of the United States...."
- edrossinoelwein9669
---------
By all means, feel free to call Democrats Maoists or Stalinists. However, if you do, I suspect most intelligent people would likely call you a lame brain.
I use the term fascist in speaking of the current neo-con Republican Party because it fits--fascism is what they aspire to. As the saying goes, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...
Your remark about hating America is absolutely precious. So jingoistic. So pathetic and lame.
When they perform another study identifying amounts given by media owners as well as the executives running those organizations I'll pay attention, otherwise they got to be kidding. In the meanwhile I'll take a wild guess and speculate owners and executives donate higher then 2 tenths of a percent to republican causes.
So basically, for every thousand times a pundit paid by the MSM slanders Democrats on national television, some associate producer gives Howard Dean a dollar.
Wow, with that kind of deal, how can Democrats lose?