In the US, at least, the media swings left as well, according to a new academic survey on coverage of the current presidential contest. Investor’s Business Daily reports that:
a joint survey by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and Harvard’s Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy — hardly a bastion of conservative orthodoxy — found that in covering the current presidential race, the media are sympathetic to Democrats and hostile to Republicans.
Democrats are not only favored in the tone of the coverage. They get more coverage period. This is particularly evident on morning news shows, which “produced almost twice as many stories (51% to 27%) focused on Democratic candidates than on Republicans.”
The most flagrant bias, however, was found in newspapers. In reviewing front-page coverage in 11 newspapers, the study found the tone positive in nearly six times as many stories about Democrats as it was negative.
Breaking it down by candidates, the survey found that Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were the favorites. “Obama’s front page coverage was 70% positive and 9% negative, and Clinton’s was similarly 61% positive and 13% negative.”
In stories about Republicans, on the other hand, the tone was positive in only a quarter of the stories; in four in 10 it was negative.
I have tracked down the survey, which can be found here
(Anyone who wants to explain away these findings will find plenty of excuses offered in here — for example, ‘Oh, but the front-runners got coverage that was equal in tone”. The silliest must be that if you take away the most-praised Democrat candidate (Obama) and the most-criticized Republican candidate (McCain) then the coverage is more equal in tone! Yes, and although 15 and 9 are unequal numbers, if you take some numbers away from 15, and add some numbers to 9, you’ll find they come closer to being equal).
Thanks to a commentator (who I can’t now find) who posted this link a while back.
The dead tree press may have to change its ways, as it is (apart from the gruniad subsidised by Auto Trader !), faced with the commercial imperative to appeal to readers or loose them. Thus when the Telegraph hires hacks who support brown, bloggers on Conservative sites simply say they have stopped buying the Telegraph.
Thee bbc however, thanks to the absurdity of the licence fee, is able to exist in its own little wooly liberal, detatched from reality, world. That is why the current position of allowing it to produce a subtle stream of anti business, anti Conservative propaganda , can’t be allowed to continue.
It’s “lose them”, not “loose them”.
On this and other forums I’ve never seen anyone address the question of *why* media outlets tend to adopt a left-of-centre view. I’ve been told that even at the Daily Mail, the hacks often churn out the typical DM stories through gritted teeth (can anyone confirm/deny this?)
I work in the media myself, in my own small way, and am surrounded by people with vaguely leftish views (inasmuch as they have any) – even though we’re a company owned and run by an arch-capitalist. So I don’t think the BBC’s bias has much to do with, as you lot say, “The unique way it’s funded”.
Do media careers, perhaps like academic careers, simply appeal more to leftish types? They are rarely well-paid, so I suspect it’s something to do with being motivated by things other than money. But I’d be interested to hear others’ views.
“They are rarely well-paid, so I suspect it’s something to do with being motivated by things other than money. But I’d be interested to hear others’ views.
Yaffle | Homepage | 08.11.07 – 10:28 am”
You think? I think there are many who would disagree with you.
In 2006 the payroll was a staggering 1,392,300,000 for 25,377 employees thats an average of 54,865 per employee, and it ignores benefits, hardly shoddy poverty.
If you are an accountant (like me) and feel like looking up more
Click to access 16.financialstatements.pdf
BaggieJonathan,
You’ll see I was speaking of the media in general. According to this site, the average salary for journalists is £22,500 – slightly below the national average, even though they work disproportionately in London. Hardly the path to riches.
(that link in full: http://www.prospects.ac.uk/cms/ShowPage/Home_page/Explore_types_of_jobs/Types_of_Job/p!eipaL?state=showocc&idno=436&pageno=2 )
I think it’s way too simplistic. It means nothing unless you do the same sums on the last election. Bush got a very easy ride, if I remember correctly.
The republican party is out of fashion at the moment. This isn’t long-standing bias like exists at the Guardian or the Telegraph. It’s more like how The Sun goes with the flow.
I say the media swings left due to the laziness, and the imposition of censorship, by the centre right political parties. The media swings left because it has been allowed to swing left. This state of being is most acute in public media (i.e. State financed). The centre-right political parties, in their stupidity, seem to prefer that one person (the leader) does all the talking and are therfore happy to have their own followers (the voters and party affiliates) censored or otherwise shut out. The political left (including their voters/followers and party affiliates) are never censored – just so long as they generally follow the same lines of blather. Accordingly, that is all we see and hear – the same tedious, and largely unchallenged, left-slanted blather.
There have been some decent studies of American journalists by a number of academics. I referenced one of them here. You’ll notice that American journalists desire power, and fear it. I’ll let those who are more familiar than I with the BBC decide whether that may help explain how that organization operates.
Tim Almond thinks that “Bush got a very easy ride, if I remember correctly”.
Professor Robert Lichter found that Bush has had a terrible press almost all through his presidency, and that Kerry had received the most favorable coverage of any candidate, for either major party, since they started measuring the coverage in 1980.
Evan Thomas (executive editor(?) of Newsweek magazine) said, early in 2004, that the media would shift 15 percent of the vote to Kerry. He later amended that to 5 percent. I think that last estimate was about right.
Incidentally, I find your comment so interesting that I would appreciate it if you would email me and tell me where you got that idea.
Tim Almond has a very strange memory. The last US election was a spectacular example of the media swinging to Kerry and against Bush.
Yaffle,
You make my point for me.
It would appear despite their protestations BBC employees get more than other general media types.
Perhaps the unique way its funded has something to it after all.
Jim,
The impression comes from reading quite a lot of the US press filtered via sites like fark.com, as well as discussions.
The US press was largely unquestioning of Bush’s strategy in the war on terror and the war in Iraq until they realised it was going to take a lot longer.
I just think it’s too easy to suggest that a free press automatically supports the left candidate. The papers here in the UK don’t, so why should those in the USA?
I just think it’s too easy to suggest that a free press automatically supports the left candidate. The papers here in the UK don’t, so why should those in the USA?
The NY Times – Bush or Kerry?
The LA Times – Bush or Kerry?
Boston Globe – Bush or Kerry?
Chicago Sun-Times – Bush or Kerry?
Philadelphia Inquirer – Bush or Kerry?
San Francisco Chronicle – Bush or Kerry?
Miami Herald – Bush or Kerry?
Answer – all Kerry.
Editor & Publisher tabulated newspaper endorsements for Kerry and Bush: Kerry = 208, Bush 189.
However, with the exception of the New York Post, the New York Daily News and several Texan papers the big circulation rags went for Kerry.
Anonymous | 09.11.07 – 10:43 pm |
indeed. i remember having read somewhere that the NYT never fails to endorse a democrat for president
I was working in the States during the Gore-Bush presidency in Oregon and my memory is that the TV media were markedly pro-Gore. So much so that they assumed that he would be a shoe-in for President.
Opportunity to retell old joke:
During the election both candidates were asked to comment on the state of television.
George: “There’s too much violence in the movies”
Al: “Well no, there’s too much pornography”
Summary: Bush wants less gore and Gore wants less Bush.
Do media careers, perhaps like academic careers, simply appeal more to leftish types? They are rarely well-paid, so I suspect it’s something to do with being motivated by things other than money. But I’d be interested to hear others’ views.
Forgive me for sounding a bit classist in this, but it strikes me, from a majority of the accents one hears on television from the media brigade that perhaps those of the upper orders are disproportionately represented in the media and can afford to take the lower salaries because they may be of other means.
Being from the upper orders, they are also sheltered from the more baleful results of socialist social engineering. There is very little cost to being of the left for many of them.
And judging from most stories about the business world in such “right-wing” rags as the Daily Mail and the Financial Times, the metacontext is almost always on the left, and, perhaps, a bit disdainful of those who make their money in this new-fangled free market way.
“perhaps those of the upper orders are disproportionately represented in the media and can afford to take the lower salaries because they may be of other means.”
I don’t know about that. I think it’s more likely that there is some romantic notion about journalism that makes up for the lesser pay. (But note that it isn’t less pay for someone from a poor working-class background).
But most journalists don’t stay in journalism for more than a few years, as they get sick of having less money then their other Uni friends, and they realize how unglamorous life is for the average hack who doesn’t get to do interviews on Newsnight. So they make use of the many contacts acquired through journalism to do something else.
The fact is that it doesn’t take much smarts to be a journalist, advertising coordinator, marketing collateral designer or any other of those low-paid, artsy-fartsy jobs that attract leftoids like bees to a honeypot.
A job requiring real smarts would be something in the hard sciences: math professor, engineer, biochemist, metallurgist, architect, astrophysicist. And those jobs tend to attract righties — or at least libertarians.
Is it a coincidence that hard professions attract righties while basket-weaving 101-type professions attract leftoids? 🙂
Susan, what a ridiculous generalisation. Do you know any journalists? Nearly every journalist on TV or in the national newspapers will have a university degree and a fair proportion of them will have attended a post-graduate journalism training course too.
Obviously engineers, architects and astrophysicists have to be highly qualified, but please let not allow our disgruntlement with the BBC descend into unfounded ad hominem arguments that do us no favours.
Rob Clark: I used to be a journalist myself. Granted, it wasn’t for anything nearly as grand and prestigious as al-Beeb, but I spent quite a lot of time around other journalists, thanks v. much. Superficially journalists seem to be smart but OTOH, journalism isn’t a job that takes a lot of intelligence. My colleagues would go to PR junkets and get totally wasted, falling down drunk, and also work while drunk. In what other profession can you show up for work drunk and still be able to do the job? Ergo, it is obviously not a very difficult or intellectually taxing job.
Journalism is one of those professions that attract people who are into “feeling” instead of “thinking.” In other words, leftoids.
Maybe things were different in the salad days of Alistair Cooke, but not today.
Fair enough, you obviously do have experience of what you were talking about.
Personally, I’d say the drinking thing was true 10-15 years ago, but not any more, at least not anywhere I’ve worked.
There is a difference, I think, between intelligence and application. In my day only about 3-5% of the population attended university so anyone with a degree was, by definition, going to be in at least the top 10% academically (I quite agree that isn’t the case these days).
Those people may choose to waste their ability but that isn’t quite the same thing as saying they didn’t have any in the first place.
Personally, I’d say the drinking thing was true 10-15 years ago, but not any more, at least not anywhere I’ve worked.
Hell, we had an example on this very blog of a BBC journalist working under the influence. I don’t recall all the details, but there was an accusation here of left-wing BBC bias in an article relating to Margaret Thatcher. Then this guy triumphantly commented that he had written the article, that he is extremely right wing and that there was no bias involved but he had simply made a mistake in the article after spending some time at the BBC bar.
Makes one wonder exactly how much of the crap the BBC produces is written under the influence. Might explain the drop in standards of grammar, amongst other things.
Perhaps it is the path to journalism that is the problem, university tends to be left wing because few there have to work to exist and therefore seem to be detached from the real world, they also tend to have time ti burn whereas someone in the “real” world will have a family and motgage and less time for idealism. I dont read newspapers or listen to the news as it is all slanted, sites like eureferendum back up their reports and are often right (want to claim that BBC?) with the internet IF you are carefull you can get unbiassed news, you can also find a lot of total nutters.