Depends on what the meaning of “journalist” is
Written by Eric Boehlert
Published
There's a new study out that has hearts beating faster at Newsbusters today. It's from OpenSecrets.org and purports to show how “journalists” donated way more money to Democratic politicians in the recent campaign cycle than they did to Republicans.
Biased!
But this study strikes me as an almost useless tool in terms of trying to decipher the politics of newsrooms, mostly because many of the “journalists” dug up in FEC filings aren't really journalists who report the news. Meaning, they're not people anybody should care about in terms of their political giving.
Take a look at how OpenSecrets presents its findings [emphasis added]:
Last year, Christopher Hayes gave $250 to the congressional campaign of a good friend, Alabama Democrat Josh Segall.
That's hardly noteworthy, but for one factor: Hayes is the Washington, D.C., editor of The Nation, a left-leaning news magazine that covers U.S. politics. And his political donation is not an anomaly in journalism, where donating to or otherwise advocating for politicians is often taboo – if not prohibited outright by some news companies.
Hayes is one of 235 people who identified themselves on government documents as journalists, or as working for news organizations, who together have donated more than $469,900 to federal political candidates, committees and parties during the 2010 election cycle, a Center for Responsive Politics analysis indicates.
First of all, Christopher Hayes works for an openly liberal opinion magazine. So why would it be considered newsworthy that he gave $250 to a Democratic candidate? And why would OpenSecrets point to Hayes as the first, best example to highlight from its study? (Seems to me Hayes is among the least newsworthy examples here.)
But again, I go back to the idea of how many of these 235 people presented in the study are “journalists” in the typical news sense. For instance, does somebody who works in the Washington Post's marketing department qualify as a journalist? How about someone who works for the Association of American Publishers? Or the Magazines Publishers Association? All three of those examples are found within the OpenSecrets study.
And what about people who work for Family Life, Vogue, Fox Sports, ESPN, Sirius Satellite Radio, and MTV? Who would possibly care which candidates employees at those companies support? Yet all of those outlets are included in the OpenSecrets report about campaign contributions; a report Newsbusters is waving around as the latest proof that Americans newsroom lean left.
UPDATED: I should stress that it's Newsbusters, not OpenSecrets, that's pushing the line that the new campaign study highlights the alleged bias among “journalists.”