The Center For Media Research has completed an exhaustive statistical history  revealing the “confessed” political persuasions of the media.  You just have to read it for yourself.  It’s ALL there from 1986 till now:

■ For their 1986 book, The Media Elite, political scientists S. Robert Lichter, Stanley Rothman and Linda S. Lichter surveyed journalists at top media outlets. They found 94% reported voting for Lyndon Johnson in 1964; 86% for Hubert Humphrey in 1968; 81% for George McGovern in 1972 and 81% for Jimmy Carter in 1976. (More)

■ In 1982, scholars at California State University at Los Angeles asked reporters from the fifty largest newspapers for whom they voted in 1980. The breakdown: 51% cast a ballot for Jimmy Carter and another 24% chose the liberal independent candidate John Anderson. Only 25% picked conservative Ronald Reagan, who won 51% of the public’s vote that year. (More)

■ In 1985, the Los Angeles Times polled news and editorial staffers at newspapers around the country. When asked how they voted in the 1984 election, more than twice as many chose liberal Walter Mondale (58%) over the conservative incumbent Ronald Reagan (26%), even as the country picked Reagan in a 59 to 41% landslide. (More)

■ In 2001, Stanley Rothman and Amy E. Black updated the Media Elite’s survey of journalists, and found 76% of elite journalists voted for Michael Dukakis in 1988, while 91% voted for Bill Clinton. (More)

■ In 2005, the University of Connecticut surveyed 300 journalists nationwide, and found the media preferred Democratic challenger John Kerry over incumbent Republican President George W. Bush by a wide margin, 52% to 19%. (More)

■ Prior to the 2000, 2004 and 2008 presidential elections, the online Slate magazine surveyed its staff to find out how they intended to vote. As a case study, the Slate surveys match scientific polls of the media elite: More than three-fourths (76%) picked Al Gore as their top choice in 2000; 87% said they planned to vote for John Kerry in 2004; while virtually every staffer polled (96%) said they were supporting Barack Obama in 2008. (More)

Numerous polls also show far more journalists describe themselves as “liberal” compared to the general public. In 1996, the American Society of Newspaper Editors surveyed 1,037 journalists at 61 newspapers, and found those calling themselves “liberal/Democrat” outnumbered “conservative/Republican” by a four-to-one margin (61% to 15%).

And there’s LOTS more here:

http://www.mrc.org/biasalerts/updated-2012-mrcs-media-bias-101

 

Is it any wonder we can’t trust ANYTHING we watch on the Nightly News?

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Filed under: Economy, Featured, Inside The KC, Politics by Sonja Eddings Brown, Apr 23, 2012