There’s lots of good stuff to chew over in the latest study by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, which polled a healthy sample of journalists (673) and members of the public (1,500) on the sticky issues of bias, partisanship and accuracy.
But one finding in particular struck us as flying directly in the face of conventional wisdom. Mainstream journalists exert much energy and angst — not to mention gnashing of teeth, rending of garments and wringing of hands — trying to keep their copy both resolutely non-partisan on the one hand, while nonetheless exposing charlatans, fakes, knaves and churls wherever they find them on the other. It’s a balancing act that has given more than one editor ulcers.
Turns out maybe they should loosen up a little.
The Annenberg poll found that the public is far more sympathetic to the idea of a partisan press than journalists are. Whereas only 16 percent of the journalists polled said it was “a good thing if some news organizations have a decidedly political point of view in their coverage of the news,” 43 percent of the public thought it sounded like a swell idea.
Among the journalists, 80 percent thought a partisan press was a “bad thing,” but only 53 percent of the public thought so. Four percent of each group had no opinion.
So the boys and girls at The Nation and at the National Review have been, in their own charming way, right all along.
Well, make that half-right.
–Steve Lovelady
Steve Lovelady was editor of CJR Daily.