Left on the dial

Fred Barnes at The Daily Standard decided to weigh in on the recent report from the Pew Research Center regarding the state of the news media today.

Now, the new study by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found the national media to be 34 percent liberal and 7 percent conservative.

Over 40-plus years, the only thing that's changed in the media's politics is that many national journalists have now cleverly decided to call themselves moderates. But their actual views haven't changed, the Pew survey showed. Their political beliefs are close to those of self-identified liberals and nowhere near those of conservatives.

Now, I'm new to all this, but I thought the best thing to do would be to head on over to the Pew Research Center and read the report. Here are the references I find to a moderates point of view in the media:

Roughly two-thirds of liberal journalists (68%) express that view, compared with 28% who say coverage has been fair and 3% who believe the press has been too critical of the administration.

Self-described moderates offer a mixed judgment of the Bush coverage ­ about the same percentages say it has not been critical enough (44%) and fair (43%). But most conservatives (53%) think the press has been too critical of the administration, compared with 30% who view it as fair and 17% who think it has been too critical.

So it seems that these "so called moderates" seem to fall firmly in the middle of the conservative and the liberals in the newsroom, rather than "nowhere near" as Fred Barnes claims.

Maybe here:

Roughly two-thirds of self-described conservatives (68%) could identify a specific news organization that is especially liberal, and the same number (68%) could name a news organization that is "especially conservative." But moderates and liberals could identify conservative news organizations far more often than liberal ones. Roughly three-quarters of liberals (74%) and a majority of moderates (56%) say they couldn't think of any news organization that is especially liberal.

So to put these numbers in the same terms, 68% of conservative, 44% of moderates, and 26% of liberals could identify an especially liberal media outlet. The moderates fall where you would expect, right in the middle.

Researchers asked also if it was necessary to believe in God to be moral. Moderates(12%) hit right in between liberals(3%) and conservatives(26%) Only the issue of accepting homosexuality do moderates (84%) lean closer to liberals(95%) than conservatives (49%), but still are situated in a middle ground. Where Fred Barnes makes this assertion from is beyond me and the Pew Reasearch Poll, as far as I can tell.

What else have you got?

Does this affect coverage? Is there really liberal bias? The answers are, of course, yes and yes. It couldn't be any other way. Think for a moment if the numbers were reversed and conservatives had outnumbered liberals in the media for the past four decades. Would President Bush be getting kinder coverage? For sure,
and I'll bet any liberal would agree with that. Would President Reagan have been treated with less hostility if the national press was conservative-dominated? Yes, again. And I could go on.

How about these instances, from an era oddly left out of Barnes research:
From the Hess Report on Campaign Coverage on the Nightly News(9/11/00):

Last month, however, the Center for Media and Public Affairs reported that Bush had received more favorable coverage than Gore throughout the 2000 campaign.

Darned liberal media.
From the Center for Media and Public Affairs(CMPA)(10/18/00):

Since [September] a majority of Gore’s horse race assessments have been negative, while a majority (59%) of comments on Bush’s prospects have been positive

Also the CMPA (10/30/00):

The two major party candidates have received almost the same amounts of on-air speaking time this fall - 23 minutes for Gore and 22 minutes for Bush. In addition, Joe Lieberman has spoken for a total of 2 minutes, Dick Cheney 1.5 minutes and Ralph Nader 1 minute.

CMPA again (02/09/04):

From Jan. 1 through the New Hampshire primary in 2000... only 42 percent of the evaluations of Al Gore and Bill Bradley were positive.

Or maybe this report from Journalism.org will help:

If presidential elections are a battle for control of message through the media, George W. Bush has had the better of it on the question of character than Albert Gore Jr., according to a new study of media coverage leading up to the Republican convention.

Darned liberal media, supporting George W. Bush and not Fred Barnes.

Barnes continues:

The Pew poll also found that 55 percent of national journalists believe that Bush should be treated more critically by the press than he has been. They think he's gotten off too easy, despite empirical evidence of media Bush bashing. The Center for Media and Public Affairs has examined the coverage of Bush by the broadcast network evening news shows and found only two periods of favorable coverage: in the weeks after September 11 and during the actual war in Iraq. This year, roughly 75 percent of the stories about the Democratic presidential candidates were positive. For Bush, they've been 60-plus percent negative.

This figure would mean that 55% of the media have been treating Bush better than they think he should be. This means that, despite their leanings, they have been giving Bush the longer end of the stick. The Center for Media and Public Affairs examines only the three major news networks, leaving out conservative leaning cable outlets such as FoxNews, and more conservative oriented newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times or even the Weekly Standard, which employs Mr. Barnes. Also ignored would be talk radio. To say Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have been overly critical of the president would be like saying that the prision abuses in Iraq were just frat boys pranks and kids letting off steam.

Apparently it's the minorities fault:

... the effort to hire more minorities and women has had the effect of making the media more liberal. Both these groups tend to have liberal politics, and this is accentuated by the fact that many of the women recruited into journalism are young and single, precisely those with the most liberal views.

I know, that was a cheap jab. Let's just move on:

Those who still doubt the press needs fresh, preferably conservative, blood, should consider these numbers: In 1999, 12 percent of journalists said fairness and balance were a big problem for the media. Now, in the Pew survey, only 5 percent say so--this, after further proof of liberal dominance and noisy debates about liberal bias.

Two points here. Journalist were asked what the top problem facing journalism was. They could not pick more than one answer, or else it would not be their top concern. Overall quality of coverage did indeed drop from 44% in 1999 to 41% in 2004 (Fairness and Balance is a subcategory). Why? Because more in the media are concerned with business and finance then they were in 1999. And what number jumped the most from the previous year? Lack of resources/cutbacks. People are concerned with losing their jobs! It's the Bush eceonmy in action!

Back to the 41% who chose overall quality of coverage. These 41% could choose then from five subchoices, one more than last year. Can you see why numbers would tend to drop? There is a whole other choice! And anyone who chose from the othr main categories was not offered fairness and balance as a choice. See the chart here.

Aside from all that, it seems Mr. Barnes is saying that conservatives would be more concerned with fairness and balance then their liberal counterparts, a claim that seems rather spurious. The goal should be to teach the media to report without slants, rather than encourage the hiring of more conservative slanted reporters. It is common knowledge that the media tends to be harder onan incumbent president than his challenger. And we are still, believe it or not, in the early stages of the election. Already the media has run with Kerry's criticism of Vietnam and his protests in his return. They have given the RNC line about how Kerry waffles and flip-flops while portraying Bush as a man who stands his ground. They have even let Tom Ridge and CNN's Kelli Arena hint that Al Qaeda would prefer a Kerry victory.

Whichever side loses, they will blame the media. Perhaps Mr. Barnes mantra should be think for yourself, do your own research, and start your own blog. Just like me.