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MEDIA BIAS: FAULTY PERCEPTION OR ACCURATE ASSESSMENT?
Do the media have a liberal bias?
Diane Glass, a left-leaning columnist, writes the commentary this week and Shaunti Feldhahn, a right-leaning columnist, responds.
- DIANE GLASS:
In a 1996 University of Connecticut survey, 68 percent of Republicans felt news organizations were pro-Democratic. After the 2000 elections, a Pew Research Center study and a Gallup poll yielded similar observations, with well over half of the Republicans noting a liberal bias in the media.
But with no substantial evidence of media bias, why do Republicans think differently?
Conservatives and Republicans are more likely to conform to social rules, cites a 2005 Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media study. The more conservative you are, the more you prefer tradition and dislike change. If you're liberal, you're more likely to embrace innovation, say researchers.
Television shows that include gay characters, such as "Will & Grace," contribute to the false notion that the media have a liberal bias. But let's get real -- television is hardly a liberal bacchanalia. A Media Matters study found Sunday morning talk shows had a very strong conservative bias, from the years of the Clinton administration up to today.
As for print media, the 2005 study notes that the watchdog-type of journalism in newspaper articles -- which covers "social realities" from poverty to environmental pollution -- are perceived as inherently liberal, even though the content is not.
And radio? A 2004 Pew Research Center study confirms what we already know. Forty-one percent of talk radio listeners are Republican, and 45 percent describe themselves as conservative. Only 28 percent of talk show listeners are Democrats, with an even lower number of self-described "liberal" listeners. The remaining audience fractures into lesser-known political affiliations.
If I weren't so liberal (i.e., open to change and diverse opinions), I'd think conservatives were getting a lot more air time than we liberals.
- SHAUNTI FELDHAHN:
The truth is, it's impossible to disprove liberal bias in the media, because most independent studies show it exists. The media industry of course disagrees, but having the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media determine whether there is media bias is a bit like asking white people whether they ever show racism.
Here are the facts, primarily from Pew Research. Although most journalists (54 percent) view themselves as "moderate," the vast majority of journalists actually vote and think liberal rather than conservative. In 2004, when 51 percent of the public voted for President Bush, just 19 percent of journalists did. Five times as many national journalists say they are liberal (34 percent) as conservative (7 percent). (By contrast, 33 percent of Americans say they're conservative.)
For all practical purposes, the real ratio of liberal journalists is much higher. Even those "moderate" journalists overwhelmingly hold liberal beliefs. For example, researchers Stanley Rothman and Amy Black found that where roughly half of Americans believe women should have a right to abortion, 97 percent of national journalists do. Pew Research found that where 56 percent of Americans believe efforts to build democracy in Iraq will succeed, just 33 percent of journalists do.
I'm guessing that's why we rarely hear the good news out of Iraq. It's not some conspiracy: It's just that all people -- reporters included -- see newsworthy events through their own beliefs. The problem is that it doesn't matter so much how I view events: I don't shape the news. It does matter if a reporter, editor or producer sees three soldier killings as more newsworthy than three rebuilt schools. That does shape the news.
And unfortunately, no matter how objective media people try to be, their personal beliefs do find their way into their reporting. When UCLA researchers scored liberal or conservative media references over 10 years, 18 of 20 major news outlets consistently trended liberal. In fact, when researchers compared each outlet's score to that of well-known politicians, mainstays like the "CBS Evening News" and The New York Times scored about 75 percent liberal -- exactly the same as Democratic senator Joe Lieberman.
Diane (dglass@ajc.com) is a writer and freethinker with a B.A. and M.A. in comparative religion. Shaunti (scfeldhahn@yahoo.com) is a conservative Christian author and speaker, and married mother of two children. Both women have degrees from Harvard.
