Wednesday, April 23, 2008

The democratic party controls the media

While conservatives keep chanting that the media is bias, many liberals continue to chant that conservatives are full of crap; that the media is not bias whatsoever.

Better yet, liberals chant that liberals do not control the media. However evidence going all the way back to 1964 says they do.

According to a survey done at George Washington University in 1981 of 240 journalist on their political attitudes and voting patterns, "The data demonstrated that journalists and broadcasters held liberal positions on a wide range of social and political issues."

As you can see from the chart to the right, on a year by year basis, greater than 80% of journalists supported the democratic party, as compared with fewer than 20% in any given year supporting republican social and political issues.

To view other key findings of this study and other similar studies click here.

A similar study done in 1995 by U.S. News and World Report of White House Correspondents found that of the 57 members of the White House Press core, 50 of them would vote for a democrat, while only seven would vote for a republican.

Studies have shown that in successive presidential elections, a whopping majority of journalists voted for the democratic candidate. For example, 81% of journalists surveyed said they voted for the democratic candidate in every election from 1964 and 1976. And later, 76% of journalists said they voted for Dukakas, and 91% for Bill Clinton in 1992.

Likewise, while 43% of the public voted for Clinton in 1992, 58% of editors voted for him. And, in 1996, 49% of the public supported Clinton, and 57% of editors voted for him. And, as you might have guessed these are only a few of the statistics.

Here are some of the trends from the last election based on a University of Connecticut survey of 200 journalists:
  1. More than half of the journalists surveyed (52%) said they voted for Democrat John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election, while fewer than one-fifth (19%) said they voted for Republican George W. Bush. The public chose Bush, 51 to 48 percent.
  2. When asked “generally speaking, do you consider yourself a Democrat, Republican, an Independent, or something else?” more than three times as many journalists (33%) said they were Democrats than said they were Republicans (10%).
  3. While about half of the journalists said they were “moderate,” 28 percent said they thought of themselves as liberals, compared to just 10 percent who said they were conservative.
  4. One out of eight journalists (13%) said they considered themselves “strongly liberal,” compared to just three percent who reported being “strongly conservative,” a four-to-one disparity.
  5. When asked about the Bill of Rights, nearly all journalists deemed “essential” the right of a fair trial (97%), a free press (96%), freedom of religion (95%) and free speech (92%), and 80 percent called “essential” the judicially-derived “right to privacy.” But only 25 percent of the journalists termed the “right to own firearms” essential, while 42 percent called that right “important but not essential,” and 31 percent of journalists rejected the Second Amendment as “not important.”
A June 25, 2007 post on MSNBC.com titled, "Journalists dole out cash to politicians (quietly)," reported that "MSNBC.com identified 143 journalists who made political contributions from 2004 through the start of the 2008 campaign, according to the public records of the Federal Election Commission. Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left: 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes. Only 16 gave to Republicans. Two gave to both parties."

And, overall, according to the same article, 9 out of 10 times a political contribution is made by those in the news media, it is given to democratic or liberal causes.
Technically speaking, it should not matter that a majority of reporters are liberal, as per the rules of journalism 101, they should be fair and balanced in their reporting, giving an open ear to both sides of the story.

Yet, as is proven on a daily basis, that is not always the case. One prime example is how, even in my local newspaper, I read stories by the Associated Press about global warming where they talk about global warming as though it were a fact not to be disproved.
However, the theory that man is the cause of global warming is disputed, and it is disputed not just by 50% of Americans, but 50% of scientists as well.

Again, I don't care what reporters believe in, all I want from them to report the news as it happens, not try to inculcate their liberal views on my children, and not to twist the views of people they disagree with, which is what they tend to do to conservative thought.

And this is not just my opinion that the media tends to twist conservative thought, as there is a growing number of Americans who are losing faith in the media to report the news fairly and accurately, according to the MSNBC report listed above.

Now, it can be argued that just because most journalists identify themselves with the democratic party doesn't necessarily mean they are all liberals. However, a majority of liberals tend to align themselves with the democratic party. To be fair, some liberals do align with the republican party.

Still, the fact that a majority of journalists align with the democratic party is scary, considering the fear is that they do not represent the other half of the country who do not align with the democratic party.

A 1996 poll by Rassmussenreports.com has noted that 34.5% of Americans align themselves with the republican party, and those who align themselves with the democratic party is 37.3%. Yet at least 80% of journalists align themselves with the democratic party.

I'm confident there are fair journalists out there, but if the news is going to be spun, chances are it will be spun to the left for obvious reasons.

Either way, I've proven here that the democratic party and liberals control the media.

To be continued...

5 comments:

Khaki Elephant said...

Fantastic post! Though, good lord, who could doubt it in the first place??? Stevie wonder could see it . . . primarily because his remaining senses are heightened so he would hear, smell and feel the liberal bias.

Righty64 said...

This is a great analysis! What is truly amazing is that the same Dinosaur, Drive-By, Mainstream Media really thinks that they play it down the middle. Too bad their middle is on the left side of the road!

Nikki said...

where are the lefties who disagree? show yourselves! chickens. :)N

Khaki Elephant said...

BTW, I just had a conversation about this with a friend of mine. I couldn't remember the stats, so I'm going to link your post on my blog. Nice to have you as a resource.

Rick Frea said...

We are all resources for one another. Nothing speaks more for the truth than good old fashioned statistics.