Copied over from another thread this deserved its own thread . :mj21:
Los Angeles Times Survey
In 1985, the Los Angeles Times conducted one of the most extensive surveys of journalists in history. Using the same questionnaire they had used to poll the public, the Times polled 2,700 journalists at 621 newspapers across the country. The survey asked 16 questions involving foreign affairs, social and economic issues. On 15 of 16 questions, the journalists gave answers to the left of those given by the public.
KEY FINDINGS:
Self-identified liberals outnumbered conservatives in the newsroom by more than three-to-one, 55 to 17 percent. This compares to only one-fourth of the public (23 percent) that identified themselves as liberal.
84 percent of reporters and editors supported a so-called "nuclear freeze" to ban all future nuclear missile deployment; 80 percent were against increased defense spending; and 76 percent opposed aid to the Nicaraguan Contras.
82 percent of reporters and editors favored allowing women to have abortions; 81 percent backed affirmative action; and 78 percent wanted stricter gun control.
Two-thirds (67%) of journalists opposed prayer in public schools; three-fourths of the general public (74%) supported prayer in public schools.
Survey of Business Reporters
A 1988 poll by a New York-based newsletter, Journalist and Financial Reporting, surveyed 151 business reporters from over 30 publications ranging from the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, USA Today, New York Times and Chicago Tribune to Money, Fortune and Business Week. The survey found that newspaper and magazine business reporters are just as liberal as their colleagues covering politics.
KEY FINDINGS:
54 percent identified themselves as Democrats, just 9 percent as Republicans.
76 percent reported they opposed school prayer and 75 percent were against aid to the Contras, rebels fighting the Communist-backed Nicaraguan government. An overwhelming 86 percent favored abortion.
More than half, 52 percent, evaluated President Reagan?s performance in office as ?poor? or ?below average.? Only 17 percent gave him an ?excellent? or ?good,? while 19 percent considered him ?average.?
Asked who they wished to see become President, 27 percent named liberal New York Governor Mario Cuomo (D), trailed by 20 percent for Senator Bill Bradley (D-NJ) and nine percent for Senator Paul Simon (D-Ill). Senator Bob Dole was the most ?popular? Republican, garnering a piddling eight percent.
Rev. Pat Robertson, then a GOP candidate, topped the list ? at 44 percent ? of those the reporters would ?least like to see as President,? followed by 19 percent who named the eventual winner that year, George H. W. Bush.
Journalists ? Who Are They, Really?
In 1992, Professors Weaver and Wilhoit conducted another national survey of journalists, and noticed the group had moved farther to the left. Writing in the Fall 1992 Media Studies Journal, they discovered that 47 percent of journalists now said they were ?liberal,? while only 22 percent labeled themselves as ?conservative.?
KEY FINDINGS:
44 percent of journalists identified themselves as Democrats, an increase from the early 1980s, while 16 percent tagged themselves as Republican, a decline from the earlier study.
?Compared to the overall U.S. population, journalists are 3 percent to 10 percent more likely to say they are Democrats, depending on which national survey you use as a yardstick, and 10 to 17 points less likely to say they are Republicans.?
Nearly half of the journalists surveyed (47 percent) called themselves ?liberal,? compared to 22 percent who described themselves as ?conservative.? Gallup polls taken at the same time found just 18 percent of the public considered themselves liberal, while 34 percent of the public said they were conservative.
The study authors found ?minorities are much more likely to call themselves Democrats than are white journalists, especially blacks (70 percent), Asians (63 percent) and Hispanics (59 percent).?
Women journalists (58 percent) are much more likely than men (38 percent) to prefer the Democratic Party.
More than half of journalists (51%) said abortion should be ?legal under any circumstances,? compared to just 4 percent who thought abortion should be ?illegal in all circumstances.? Among the general public, 33 percent wanted abortion ?legal under any circumstances,? and 14 percent thought it should always be illegal.
Newspaper Journalists of the ?90s
In 1996, as a follow-up to a 1988 survey, the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) surveyed 1,037 reporters at 61 newspapers of all sizes across the nation, and found that newsrooms were more ideologically unrepresentative than they had been in the late 1980s. While the percentage of journalists calling themselves ?Democrat or liberal? essentially held steady (going from 62 to 61 percent of those surveyed), the percentage saying they were ?Republican or conservative? dropped from 22 percent to just 15 percent of journalists. The ASNE report, The Newspaper Journalists of the ?90s, also revealed that bigger ? presumably more influential ? newspapers had the most liberal staffs.
KEY FINDINGS:
According to ASNE: ?In 1996 only 15 percent of the newsroom labeled itself conservative/Republican or leaning in that direction, down from 22 percent in 1988. The greatest gain is in the ?independent? column, which rose from 17 percent to 24 percent. Liberal/Democrats and those leaning that way slipped only from 62 to 61 percent.?
?Political orientation does not vary across job descriptions, except that editorial writers are more likely to be independent or conservative than staffers in the newsroom.?
?On papers of at least 50,000 circulation, 65 percent of the staffs are liberal/Democrat or leaning that way, and 12 percent are conservative/Republican or leaning that way.?
Women in the newsroom were more likely than men to identify as liberal/Democratic. Only 11 percent identified themselves as conservative or leaned that way.
Minority journalists are even more liberal/Democrat than other reporters, with a mere three percent of blacks and eight percent of Asians and Hispanics putting themselves on the right.
The Media Elite Revisited
In 1995, Stanley Rothman and Amy Black polled the news media elite ? ?reporters and editors at major national newspapers, news magazines and wire services? as part of a larger examination of nine elite groups in the U.S. The results were published in the Spring 2001 issue of The Public Interest. They found the media elite held strongly liberal views on abortion, homosexuality, and a range of economic issues. ?Despite the discrediting of centrally planned economies produced by the collapse of the Soviet Union and other Communist regimes, attitudes about government control of the economy have not changed very much since the 1980s,? the authors marveled.
KEY FINDINGS:
Nearly all of the media elite (97 percent) agreed that ?it is a woman?s right to decide whether or not to have an abortion,? and five out of six (84 percent) agreed strongly.
Three out of four journalists (73 percent) agreed that ?homosexuality is as acceptable a lifestyle as heterosexuality,? and 40 percent agreed strongly.
Seven out of ten journalists (71 percent) agreed that ?government should work to ensure that everyone has a job,? and 30 percent said they strongly agreed with that statement.
Three-fourths (75 percent) agreed that ?government should work to reduce the income gap between the rich and the poor,? and more than a third (34 percent) strongly agreed.
Relatively few journalists (39 percent) agreed that ?less government regulation of business would be good for the economy,? and just five percent strongly agreed with this sentiment.
The People and the Press: Whose Views Shape the News?
In the July/August 2001 edition of the Roper Center?s Public Perspective, Washington Post national political correspondent Thomas Edsall summarized the findings of a Kaiser Family Foundation poll of 301 ?media professionals,? 300 ?policymakers? and the 1,206 members of the public. The media professionals included ?reporters and editors from top newspapers, TV and radio networks, news services and news magazines.? The results showed that ?only a tiny fraction of the media identifies itself as either Republican (4%), or conservative (6%),? placing reporters far to the left of media consumers.
KEY FINDINGS:
Four times as many ?media professionals? told the pollsters they considered themselves ?liberal? (25%) than called themselves ?conservative? (6%). Among the general public, self-identified conservatives outnumbered liberals, 38 percent to 21 percent.
More than six times as many media professionals called themselves Democrats (27%), than said they were Republicans (just 4%). Among the general public, Democrats slightly outnumbered Republicans, 34 percent to 28 percent.
Policymakers were also found to be less liberal than journalists. According to Edsall, ?These areas of divergence between the public and the press lend themselves to conflict, both with the consumers and the makers of news, and threaten to diminish the legitimacy of American journalism.?
Edsall: ?Whether or not members of the media agree with conservative voters on any given set of questions is not at issue. The problem is the invisibility of these men and women to the national media, and, most especially, the inability of the press to represent their views in public discourse.?
Los Angeles Times Survey
In 1985, the Los Angeles Times conducted one of the most extensive surveys of journalists in history. Using the same questionnaire they had used to poll the public, the Times polled 2,700 journalists at 621 newspapers across the country. The survey asked 16 questions involving foreign affairs, social and economic issues. On 15 of 16 questions, the journalists gave answers to the left of those given by the public.
KEY FINDINGS:
Self-identified liberals outnumbered conservatives in the newsroom by more than three-to-one, 55 to 17 percent. This compares to only one-fourth of the public (23 percent) that identified themselves as liberal.
84 percent of reporters and editors supported a so-called "nuclear freeze" to ban all future nuclear missile deployment; 80 percent were against increased defense spending; and 76 percent opposed aid to the Nicaraguan Contras.
82 percent of reporters and editors favored allowing women to have abortions; 81 percent backed affirmative action; and 78 percent wanted stricter gun control.
Two-thirds (67%) of journalists opposed prayer in public schools; three-fourths of the general public (74%) supported prayer in public schools.
Survey of Business Reporters
A 1988 poll by a New York-based newsletter, Journalist and Financial Reporting, surveyed 151 business reporters from over 30 publications ranging from the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, USA Today, New York Times and Chicago Tribune to Money, Fortune and Business Week. The survey found that newspaper and magazine business reporters are just as liberal as their colleagues covering politics.
KEY FINDINGS:
54 percent identified themselves as Democrats, just 9 percent as Republicans.
76 percent reported they opposed school prayer and 75 percent were against aid to the Contras, rebels fighting the Communist-backed Nicaraguan government. An overwhelming 86 percent favored abortion.
More than half, 52 percent, evaluated President Reagan?s performance in office as ?poor? or ?below average.? Only 17 percent gave him an ?excellent? or ?good,? while 19 percent considered him ?average.?
Asked who they wished to see become President, 27 percent named liberal New York Governor Mario Cuomo (D), trailed by 20 percent for Senator Bill Bradley (D-NJ) and nine percent for Senator Paul Simon (D-Ill). Senator Bob Dole was the most ?popular? Republican, garnering a piddling eight percent.
Rev. Pat Robertson, then a GOP candidate, topped the list ? at 44 percent ? of those the reporters would ?least like to see as President,? followed by 19 percent who named the eventual winner that year, George H. W. Bush.
Journalists ? Who Are They, Really?
In 1992, Professors Weaver and Wilhoit conducted another national survey of journalists, and noticed the group had moved farther to the left. Writing in the Fall 1992 Media Studies Journal, they discovered that 47 percent of journalists now said they were ?liberal,? while only 22 percent labeled themselves as ?conservative.?
KEY FINDINGS:
44 percent of journalists identified themselves as Democrats, an increase from the early 1980s, while 16 percent tagged themselves as Republican, a decline from the earlier study.
?Compared to the overall U.S. population, journalists are 3 percent to 10 percent more likely to say they are Democrats, depending on which national survey you use as a yardstick, and 10 to 17 points less likely to say they are Republicans.?
Nearly half of the journalists surveyed (47 percent) called themselves ?liberal,? compared to 22 percent who described themselves as ?conservative.? Gallup polls taken at the same time found just 18 percent of the public considered themselves liberal, while 34 percent of the public said they were conservative.
The study authors found ?minorities are much more likely to call themselves Democrats than are white journalists, especially blacks (70 percent), Asians (63 percent) and Hispanics (59 percent).?
Women journalists (58 percent) are much more likely than men (38 percent) to prefer the Democratic Party.
More than half of journalists (51%) said abortion should be ?legal under any circumstances,? compared to just 4 percent who thought abortion should be ?illegal in all circumstances.? Among the general public, 33 percent wanted abortion ?legal under any circumstances,? and 14 percent thought it should always be illegal.
Newspaper Journalists of the ?90s
In 1996, as a follow-up to a 1988 survey, the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) surveyed 1,037 reporters at 61 newspapers of all sizes across the nation, and found that newsrooms were more ideologically unrepresentative than they had been in the late 1980s. While the percentage of journalists calling themselves ?Democrat or liberal? essentially held steady (going from 62 to 61 percent of those surveyed), the percentage saying they were ?Republican or conservative? dropped from 22 percent to just 15 percent of journalists. The ASNE report, The Newspaper Journalists of the ?90s, also revealed that bigger ? presumably more influential ? newspapers had the most liberal staffs.
KEY FINDINGS:
According to ASNE: ?In 1996 only 15 percent of the newsroom labeled itself conservative/Republican or leaning in that direction, down from 22 percent in 1988. The greatest gain is in the ?independent? column, which rose from 17 percent to 24 percent. Liberal/Democrats and those leaning that way slipped only from 62 to 61 percent.?
?Political orientation does not vary across job descriptions, except that editorial writers are more likely to be independent or conservative than staffers in the newsroom.?
?On papers of at least 50,000 circulation, 65 percent of the staffs are liberal/Democrat or leaning that way, and 12 percent are conservative/Republican or leaning that way.?
Women in the newsroom were more likely than men to identify as liberal/Democratic. Only 11 percent identified themselves as conservative or leaned that way.
Minority journalists are even more liberal/Democrat than other reporters, with a mere three percent of blacks and eight percent of Asians and Hispanics putting themselves on the right.
The Media Elite Revisited
In 1995, Stanley Rothman and Amy Black polled the news media elite ? ?reporters and editors at major national newspapers, news magazines and wire services? as part of a larger examination of nine elite groups in the U.S. The results were published in the Spring 2001 issue of The Public Interest. They found the media elite held strongly liberal views on abortion, homosexuality, and a range of economic issues. ?Despite the discrediting of centrally planned economies produced by the collapse of the Soviet Union and other Communist regimes, attitudes about government control of the economy have not changed very much since the 1980s,? the authors marveled.
KEY FINDINGS:
Nearly all of the media elite (97 percent) agreed that ?it is a woman?s right to decide whether or not to have an abortion,? and five out of six (84 percent) agreed strongly.
Three out of four journalists (73 percent) agreed that ?homosexuality is as acceptable a lifestyle as heterosexuality,? and 40 percent agreed strongly.
Seven out of ten journalists (71 percent) agreed that ?government should work to ensure that everyone has a job,? and 30 percent said they strongly agreed with that statement.
Three-fourths (75 percent) agreed that ?government should work to reduce the income gap between the rich and the poor,? and more than a third (34 percent) strongly agreed.
Relatively few journalists (39 percent) agreed that ?less government regulation of business would be good for the economy,? and just five percent strongly agreed with this sentiment.
The People and the Press: Whose Views Shape the News?
In the July/August 2001 edition of the Roper Center?s Public Perspective, Washington Post national political correspondent Thomas Edsall summarized the findings of a Kaiser Family Foundation poll of 301 ?media professionals,? 300 ?policymakers? and the 1,206 members of the public. The media professionals included ?reporters and editors from top newspapers, TV and radio networks, news services and news magazines.? The results showed that ?only a tiny fraction of the media identifies itself as either Republican (4%), or conservative (6%),? placing reporters far to the left of media consumers.
KEY FINDINGS:
Four times as many ?media professionals? told the pollsters they considered themselves ?liberal? (25%) than called themselves ?conservative? (6%). Among the general public, self-identified conservatives outnumbered liberals, 38 percent to 21 percent.
More than six times as many media professionals called themselves Democrats (27%), than said they were Republicans (just 4%). Among the general public, Democrats slightly outnumbered Republicans, 34 percent to 28 percent.
Policymakers were also found to be less liberal than journalists. According to Edsall, ?These areas of divergence between the public and the press lend themselves to conflict, both with the consumers and the makers of news, and threaten to diminish the legitimacy of American journalism.?
Edsall: ?Whether or not members of the media agree with conservative voters on any given set of questions is not at issue. The problem is the invisibility of these men and women to the national media, and, most especially, the inability of the press to represent their views in public discourse.?
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