I’m not going to jump directly into the fray of responses to my former professor Tom Edsall’s CJR piece about the liberal leanings of journalists, but I did want to focus on this passage:
Once, before 1965, reporters were a mix of the working stiffs leavened by ne’er-do-well college grads unfit for corporate headquarters or divinity school. Since the civil rights and women’s movements, the culture wars and Watergate, the press corps at such institutions as The Washington Post, ABC-NBC-CBS News, the NYT, The Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, etc. is composed in large part of “new” or “creative” class members of the liberal elite—well-educated men and women who tend to favor abortion rights, women’s rights, civil rights, and gay rights.
The phenomenon described here made me think of a recent British Cabinet Office report, “Unleashing Aspiration,” that documented a generational shift in the make-up of various professions in the UK. This chart comes from the study:
The upshot is that a working journalist or broadcaster born in 1958 might have had a sibling who went on to become a nurse, but by 1970 a newborn future journalist’s family background was more likely to be similar to an accountant’s—and not all too far removed from a lawyer’s or a doctor’s.
Edsall’s piece and the UK study are approaching the question from different directions, but I think they’re both describing the increasing professionalization of journalism that occurred during this period—a narrowing, refining, and standardizing of career paths, which reinforced the emphasis on elite education. The political implications of that transition are various and complex; as Edsall says, “reporters and editors tend to be social liberals, not economic liberals.” Indeed, Dana Goldstein of the (liberal) magazine The American Prospect, who first flagged the UK report, notes that this development “makes the profession whiter, wealthier (in terms of family wealth; salaries remain modest), and less concerned with public policy issues that affect the poor and even the middle class.” Those observations are just as valid as noting that journalists lean left on culture war issues, and both trends have their roots in the same place.
Mr. Marx,
What is then to be done?
And what about addressing the Navasky/Nation fundraising cruise issue? It does not help CJR's (or Journalism's) cause with both so tightly together.
#1 Posted by JSF, CJR on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 07:31 PM
Okay, but. None of this is at all relevant to the question of "liberal bias" in the media. Whether journos are "socially liberal" or stark-raving moonbats or gun-toting libertarians is irrelevant.
Show me where the "liberal bias" is IN THEIR WORK. Show me the "liberal bias" in the news section of the Washington Post. Show me "liberal bias" in the daily output of Associated Press. Show me "liberal bias" on CNN. You can't do it because it doesn't exist. Just like any other job or any other profession, a journalist's private political leanings or so-called elitism is completely irrelevant. What we are interested in is their work output. Nothing else. And nobody can demonstrate an overarching liberal bias in ANY of the mainstream media.
On the other hand, I have made the case elsewhere on the overarching conservative bias on the cable networks. It exists in Politico, in Time Magazine, Newsweek. It exists on the OpEd pages of the Washington Post. It exists on the network news shows.
You want "liberal bias"? Compare the unabashedly liberal Talking Points Memo with the Washington Post or New York Times. TPM is frankly liberal, Fox network is frankly conservative. Let's talk about actual reporting product. Show me liberal bias in the OUTPUT. There is NO comparison.
And Mr. Marx, it would be helpful if you did some introspection yourself before accepting the charge of "liberal bias" on its face. I mean, that's what you are here for, CJR, right? Quit being a brainwashed victim of the rightwing media machine cowering at their unsupported charges. You know, now the conservatives think the BIBLE has too much "liberal bias." How crazy is that?
My whole issue with the mainstream press is more about their indifference to facts, especially when they don't fit with the established media narrative. Now THAT is a big problem in the mainstream media. "Liberal bias"? Not so much.
#2 Posted by James, CJR on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 09:03 PM
James does not want an answer -- he wants the press to follow in lockstep behind the Democrats. period. He does not want the Press to investigate any Democratic memeber in ofice, be they in the Executive Branch or legislative or equivklent in the 50 states.
You recieved answers from others in the Edsell piece, you just don't like what you are being told.
My arguement is that we need a Fourth estate who is wary of ALL who are in power and that the Two party system is good.
Since 92, I have yet to see a Liberal defend the Two party system or the First Amendment Rights of others who oppose them. As a former Liberal, I am still surprised.
Just because you don't like the answer does not mean it isn't there.
#3 Posted by James, CJR on Sat 10 Oct 2009 at 03:39 AM
Apologies....that was my name I was supposed to write at the bottem.
It was a response to James' closed-mindedness.
#4 Posted by JSF, CJR on Sat 10 Oct 2009 at 03:44 AM
This quote seems appropriate with James' closed-mindedness with his question:
Jules: If [the] answers frighten you then you should cease asking scary questions.
That's from Pulp Fiction -- The question I have is: Is James going to stereotype all Conservatives and Republicans?
From earlier comments that he has given, I say Yes.
And I never cease asking questions.
#5 Posted by JSF, CJR on Sat 10 Oct 2009 at 04:58 AM
@JSF,
I am happy to engage with you on the subject of media bias.
You are incorrect, JSF, in your assumption that I "want the press to follow in lockstep with the Democrats" -- that's not the case at all -- and when you say
"My arguement is that we need a Fourth estate who is wary of ALL who are in power and that the Two party system is good."
and I agree with you there. So there's a place that we can start.
You perhaps have a case that I have "stereotyped" conservatives and Republicans. I have not seen conservatives make a good case for their claim of "liberal bias" in the media.
I have, to start, asked for their actual definition of bias. What I get is a long list of grievances that have nothing to do with actual bias, but what are only specific grievances about stories or opinions that conservatives don't like. See, that isn't bias. And they start reciting canned talking points that are actually not true and I have no desire to engage with people who are unable or unwilling to start with actual facts.
For example, when someone makes the assertion that Fox News does not have a conservative bias, that assertion is so far out of the realm of reality that there is simply no point in going further. I might as well argue with a brick wall. If we can start with the idea that Talking Points Memo has a liberal bias, and Fox News has a conservative bias, then we can discuss whether entities in the mainstream media are biased. But let's define the term.
My definition of "bias" is an overarching slant and preference for a specific point of view that pervades the work product and output of the news organization. What is your definition?
#6 Posted by James, CJR on Sat 10 Oct 2009 at 07:32 AM
Every single academic study undertaken to date has found a pervasive liberal slant in the MSM.
From the hard-hitting (lack) of investigation of the recency and extent of Obama's admitted cocaine and marijuana use, to the continuing near blackout on the federal investigation of John Edward's misuse of campaign funds and his marital infidelity, to the MSM's ridiculous unchallenged acceptance of each of the succesive reformulated versions of John Kerry's mythological "secret" Cambodian mission in December, 1968, examples of liberal media bias abound in acts of omission.
Contrast, if you will, the foregoing examples of journalistic apathy to CBS News' amateurish attempt to tank Bush's reelection, the pervasive investigative coverage of the Foley, Sanford and Craig sex scandals, and the extraordinary efforts the MSM imade into digging into (if not outright forging) Bush's military service and DWI records.
To claim that the MSM lacks a plain liberal bias is just silly.
#7 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sat 10 Oct 2009 at 11:47 AM
James,
Thanks for acknowledging your own Bias' regarding members of the other political party in America.
When we are discussing "Media Bias,", for me a person who studied to be a journalist before he became a full-time partisan (I've been in politics on and off since I was 15), this is what I mean:
Media Bias is either a subconscious (as described by Edsell) or conscious desire to not tell the whole story or misrepresent the players or ideas within that story.
For us on the Right, when the NYT (which last endorsed a Republican in Nov. for Eisenhauer's re-election, and before that TEDDY Roosevelt's re-election) and other platforms refused to even touch the ACORN story till after Congress acted, it became "the dog that did not bark,"
Before you go onto Maddow's talking point about ACORN, for us on the Right, it seemed that the Media (TV and Newspapers) chose not to be wary of power for Obama's first 8 months in office.
Go to Google News for Bush's treatment by the press in his first 6 months. The Bias is seen by those who have memeories.
There ae two platforms on the Right discussing media Bias. If I want to know the Left's message of the day (sometimes repeated on MSNBC, CNN and the NYT/LAT), I go to Media Matters.
Would you be willing to take a month and understand Newsbusters (on the MRC) and Accuracy in Media (AIM)?
That offer goes to the EDitors of CJR too.
#8 Posted by JSF, CJR on Sat 10 Oct 2009 at 11:50 AM
Media Bias is either a subconscious (as described by Edsell) or conscious desire to not tell the whole story or misrepresent the players or ideas within that story.
Okay, here is where I see the first problem, which is in definition. Your definition is very interesting, and I think it is widely misunderstood outside the conservative community. You are defining "media bias" as individual acts (of writing or reporting.) Because surely you can't accuse the New York Times organization of having conscious or subconscious desires.
Are you perhaps confusing news reporters with editorial staff? Because those are two different issues. We are talking liberal bias in NEWS, right, not opinion? I want to keep focus here, because a comment stream is a very limited opportunity to engage with you, and I would hope I could learn something.
You see that my definition, provided above, refers to the general news output of the organization. For TPM, that means that just about all their reporting is slanted towards the liberal point of view. What are Republicans up to? Highlighting and following and covering those foibles and wrongdoings committed by Republicans and how it affects Democrats. Highlighting the statements of Democrats and following the more or less benign Democrat-centric stories that no one else covers. They also cover wrongdoing by Democrats, but to a much lesser degree. So they have a very distinct, very real liberal bias, and all of their reporters follow that liberal paradigm. Of course, they do this proudly and successfully, and are not embarrassed or ashamed of it, nor should they be. Everything they do can be fact-checked, they don't spread lies, but they report it from a liberal point of view.
But if you are going to just keep a list of grievances from, say, New York Times stories that you don't like, well that's fine and that is your right, but it isn't liberal bias. In fact, NYT has a number of conservative writers. But what they mostly do is cover actual events that are of interest or impact to their readers.
What would you have me do, then, to take a month and understand Newsbusters and AIM? I'm willing to do it, perhaps with your guidance, but the little I read them, I find them not factual. But maybe I am just following links to the outrageous stuff and I miss their better stuff. I'm willing to give it a go, but I reserve the privilege of calling lies and distortions. Go ahead and highlight some stuff you'd like me to consider, and I will do so.
(please note that if you put a lot of links in a comment, it goes into moderation. feel free to give me search terms.)
#9 Posted by James, CJR on Sat 10 Oct 2009 at 02:54 PM
LOL.
It depends of what the "definition" of "bias" is?
Dude, the MSM news outlets do not investigate, pursue or even acknowledge stories that work against liberals until talk radio or the blogosphere forces them to, and even then they hop into the fray kicking and screaming, spending more energy trying to explain to pissed off readers why the stories they bury aren't "real" stories than actually reporting the news people actually want.
The ACORN story is but one example.
What about Obama's admitted drug use? What MSM reporter tracked down that story to get the details? Why aren't the same "journos" who trekked up to Maine to dig up dirt on Bush's 30 year-old DUI noe doing the same with Obama's cocaine use?
What about Michelle Obama's six figure pay raise - the one she received right after her husband won the Senate race? Or her role in the patient-dumping program she helped to orchestrate? Who's beating the streets on these stories that are all over the blogosphere?
CJR sent Paul McLeary on a silly "investigative" mission to Texas to try to save Mapes and Rather from the chopping block over the forged TANG documents. Do you see any such effort expended for a story that breaks bad on a liberal politician?
John Edwards was busy procreating with and tossing donated campaign money at his Baby Mama for a YEAR, all the while dragging his dying wife out to stump for him, and the ONLY national "news" operation to stick with the story was the National Enquirer?
Obama drops a "Friday Night" news bomb, announcing that his budget projections were off by nearly TWO TRILLION DOLLARS, and we see the press up in arms... Where?
Daily war casualty body counts on the network news every night before the election - where have they been for the last seven months?
Etc., etc., etc....
Semantics aren't going to make the MSM any less biased than they are. This is just reality, speaking.
#10 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sat 10 Oct 2009 at 03:43 PM
Also, @JSF, here's a question/exercise for you. Take this pretty ordinary piece from todays New York Times:
Congressional Memo - As Republicans Predict a 2010 Surge, Democrats Dig In - NYTimes.com
Please point out the liberal bias in this piece. This is not a challenge but a sincere request. I am trying to gain more of an understanding of your view of liberal bias. Is this a biased piece? If so, tell me specifically the bias you see.
#11 Posted by James, CJR on Sat 10 Oct 2009 at 06:32 PM
Journalism is not tit for tat, and I agree with James on the fact that you cannot take individual stories to label a media organization with a "liberal bias". Otherwise we would be here for weeks talking about WMD's. Election fraud, war profiteering, attorney firings with belated articles about such felonies, etc...
The larger story for me is the chart above showing the money that goes into MSM.
It just makes me feel that much better for the internet and smaller media organizations that have opened up many more dialogs.
#12 Posted by itsthemedia, CJR on Sat 10 Oct 2009 at 10:53 PM
JSF --
It's a good question, but not one I'll attempt to answer here. For purposes of this blog post, I was just trying to look at the situation from a slightly different angle.
James --
I don't think I am either "accepting the charge of 'liberal bias' on its face" or "cowering" before right-wing media. (See my piece on the ACORN story from a few weeks ago.) I do think that the demographic changes within journalism are noteworthy, and it's implausible to me that they wouldn't have some effect. What that effect has actually been, as you and others point out, is open to debate.
#13 Posted by Greg Marx, CJR on Mon 12 Oct 2009 at 10:34 AM
@Greg,
I probably was a little too harsh in my comment addressed to you. I respect the work you do here at CJR and it wasn't meant personally. It's my frustration with the mainstream that accepts and cowers before this bogus "liberal bias" meme when it doesn't exist.
What the right does is keep a long list of bile-filled grievances that they use as a bludgeon. The bludgeon works well for them, has worked well for them, and will continue to work well for them as long as the mainstream goes along with this silly idea that someone's voting patterns, or schooling, or "elitist" whatever, rather than their actual work output, is evidence of bias. It isn't.
One asks these irrational lunatics to define bias or to demonstrate bias, and they won't and can't do it, because it doesn't exist in the mainstream. It's all just a political tactic, and so far it has been very effective. They are never going to be assuaged, no matter how compliant journalists are, because this tactic is extremely effective for them. In that way, Edsall's piece has been extremely damaging to mainstream journalism. His ignorance on this issue is breathtaking.
It would maybe be a start to actually find agreement on what IS bias. If we can't do that, then those lists of rightwing grievances are just that: a list of stories they didn't like. I can list a lot of pieces I don't like as well. So what?
#14 Posted by James, CJR on Mon 12 Oct 2009 at 11:08 AM
James,
I had a busy weekend (moving a family member from the Valley to the Westside), so let me get back answering your questions:
First, stop with the name calling ("irrational lunatics"), it does not endear to me to any future answer you give. I haven't called you or your beliefs or your party members names, I expect the same in return.
1) With regards to Newsbusters, read the Blog like you would Media Matters and CJR. They do express what they find is Bias, but in a more Micro level. I hope the Editors of CJR do the same. See how many News outlets repeat NB stories compared to MMA.
2) I question the Editorial Staff because it is the Editors who determine what story goes through and what stories make it the Front page, above the fold. You question ownership for Conservative Bias; I question the Editorial bias.
3) I will read the story and see if I can find bias in the NYT story. Fair is fair.
Just do not insult my (political) Tribe or people when my back is turned. I don't do it, and if you guys do crave civility -- show it.
#15 Posted by JSF, CJR on Mon 12 Oct 2009 at 11:35 AM
@JSF
Okay okay. Sorry. Is it alright if I say that padikiller is irrational and impossible to communicate with? Just trying to lay out the boundaries.
1) I'll start reading Newsbuster's blog. We'll compare notes on the factual basis of their points versus MM, though I confess I don't read MM very much and I don't find them to be the authority on mainstream journalism. They have a frankly and unabashedly liberal bias, and that's fine. I do read a lot of CJR every day. Of course, it covers a range of subjects and we are talking specifically of media bias, yes?
2) I think you have me confused with other commenters. I have not made the case that Conservative bias comes from media ownership. Now again, we are talking NEWS output and not editorial, right? Those are two completely separate animals, and it doesn't help the conversation to conflate them.
For example, I'm not going to deny that NYT's editorial page leans liberal. Editorial page meaning the staff who write the unsigned editorials. The stable of columnists only have one real liberal, Paul Krugman. The rest of the non-conservatives are mainly calcified purveyors of standard beltway myopia. On the other hand, WSJ editorial page and Washington Post editorial page have sharply conservative slant. Surely you won't deny that? But that is all irrelevant to the actual news reporting output, which is what we are discussing.
And then, the other difficulty is distinguishing print journalism from television "journalism." Much different animals, print being ACTUAL journalism and teevee being ratings-humping info-tainment mainly and teevee "reporters" being blow-dried hucksters and prima donna gossip-mongers.
#16 Posted by James, CJR on Mon 12 Oct 2009 at 12:22 PM
To Greg Marx,
Your piece accepted Edsall's contention that journalists lean to the Left - very far to the Left, I believe - on social issues. But it also suggests that conventional journalism slights the left side of economic policies because of the 'leisure class' profession (Daniel Moynihan's term) that urban journalism has become. A kid from a less-advantaged background majors in business or engineering because he wants to make money. Journalism students appear to have the luxury of choosing an 'interesting' major. A generalization, but one not contradicted by the charts.
I would agree about the slighting of economic concerns to the extent that the class issue in American political journalism means - in today's New York Times, for example, and 'Morning Edition' on NPR - that sideshows like gay-rights issues and marches, and the fixations of the entertainment industry, crowd out economic issues. But I don't think what coverage there is leans in favor of 'business' or capitalism per se; business people are rivals with 'word people' (journalists, academics, lawyers, etc.) for status and influence in the culture. Journalists still love a simple 'greedy bad people' vs. 'noble crusaders for The People against The Interests' tale. But they love even more to write about their neighbors in urban America who are college-educated, reasonably well-off, and pop-culture sophisticated.
#17 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Mon 12 Oct 2009 at 03:38 PM
James --
Thanks for the reply. I agree that charges of "liberal bias" are used to beat the mainstream press around the head, and I am uncomfortable with some of the responses we've seen lately from major national newspapers on this front. But while I am not speaking for Edsall, I read his piece as seeking a way to get the media past its hyper-sensitivity to these allegations -- which, in his words, produces reporting that "ends up either neutered or leaning to the right."
I also think there is also a place -- outside the perennial controversy over whether the press is "liberal" or "conservative" -- to reflect on where journalists come from, and how that background shapes their perspective.
Mark Richard --
I disagree with parts of your comment, especially the idea that gay rights is a "sideshow." But other parts sound right to me. "Neighbors in urban America who are college-educated, reasonably well-off, and pop-culture sophisticated" -- that describes the subject of about 90 percent of "trend" stories in the NYT, I think.
#18 Posted by greg marx, CJR on Mon 12 Oct 2009 at 08:34 PM
@ Greg,
I agree with you about what Edsall was trying to do, but in doing it so poorly he has done great damage to journalism. A few minutes' research or a consultation with a research or biostats person would have saved him from using that widely discredited UCLA study. The methodology of that study is completely out of the realm of acceptable research. Don't take my word for it, ask any nonpartisan research scientist whether the author's measurement of "bias" is anything but preposterous. And so what Edsall has done is give fuel to the right that even left-wing editor Edsall blah blah blah. They will be using this column for years and years to bolster their case for "leftwing bias" in the media. You can see what that has wrought in the comment stream of that piece right now. Think another 20 years of the same. It goes right to the top of the list of grievances.
I don't disagree with you about "reflecting" where journalists might "come from" and how that might shape their perspective. Something like the professionalization of journalism having evolved from the hard-shoe working-class crime reporter with a pencil and notebook and Royal typewriter to the j-school professional wielding a Blackberry and a laptop. It is interesting and worth discussing. I contend, however, that the evolution of the journo has resulted in more conservative journalists, and I think I could make my case pretty well, with real evidence rather than speculation. "Elitist" does not equal "liberal." Not even close.
Thanks for responding. It is appreciated.
#19 Posted by James, CJR on Mon 12 Oct 2009 at 10:19 PM