October 2, 2002 -- Matthew T. Joe: The newspapers' dangerous political agenda

He felt so passionately about it, and spoke of it so often, that it seemed like a pathetic attempt to convince himself that his profession didn't lean leftward.

"I've worked in half-a-dozen newspapers in my time," he'd say, "and nobody ever asked me to join the conservative-hater club."

When you can't dispute an argument, resort to name-calling. You can undermine heaps of evidence when you paint your opponents as wacko conspiracy theorists.

Of course, no one is saying that media bias is organized, intentional, or even universal. All that we're saying is that, other things being equal, a journalist is more likely to be liberal than conservative, and that this colors the way he tackles issues.

One day my professor decided to prove, once and for all, that media bias doesn't exist. In a highly-scientific survey, he asked our class's stance on political issues to demonstrate how moderate aspiring journalists are.

"All right, everyone. Raise your hand if you are pro-choice," he said.

Almost 90 percent of the hands shot up. He looked around in amazement, and asked his TA to do a quick count to confirm the numbers.

"Anti-abortionists, raise your hands."

Though offended that he refused to call us pro-life, I lifted my hand. There were less than 35, including me.

Having clearly expected a 50-50 breakdown, the professor was surprised by the results. He sputtered some nonsense about our class being a non-representative sample of the population. We continued our lecture and he didn't mention the survey again.

Now, I'll grant that university campuses aren't exactly strongholds of conservatism. But 90 percent, come on! What we find is that, even among professional journalists, the statistics remain the same.

Poll after poll shows that, on nearly every issue, journalists take the liberal stance. 86 percent are pro-choice. 76 percent are opposed to voluntary school prayer. 81 percent back affirmative action. 78 percent want stricter gun control.

Similarly, the lack of conservatives in the field is disturbing. Surveys indicate that only 6 percent of journalists attend religious services on a regular basis. Only 16 percent of reporters identify themselves as Republicans, and only 6 percent identify themselves as conservative. A mere 9 percent of journalists strongly agree that homosexuality is wrong.

Compare these results with the breakdown of the American public: only 23 percent of Americans consider themselves liberal. Only 50 percent believe that abortion should be legal. And more than 50 percent attend worship services weekly. The statistics are clear: journalists are not a fair slice from the American pie.

The point is that journalists don't represent the mainstream population in any way. The typical journalist is anti-capitalism, anti-development, anti-life, anti-religion, and anti-US. (Note my clever use of anti-'s, similar to the way reporters label me as 'anti-abortion.')

This lack of diverse perspective colors the way news is covered and issues are handled. Increasingly, we find journalists engaging in so-called "civic reporting." That is, they deliberately advocate pet social issues to further their own agendas.

Whatever happened to good old objectivity? It's a myth, and it always has been. Liberal journalists dominate the profession, and continue to shape public opinion and policy through their slanted writing.

The proof is in the news: conservatives are four times more likely than liberals to be identified by political affiliation. The terms "far-right" and "religious-right" are much more common than their leftist counterparts. The conservative editorials printed in newspapers are routinely less convincing, more emotional, and more poorly written than liberal editorials.

There is no conspiracy, but the media culture is responsible for its bias. Journalists see themselves as centrists because they associate solely with other people who think and believe the same way they do.

Well, since they believe so strongly in affirmative action (81 percent!), why aren't they taking steps to meet quotas of conservative writers? Apparently only racial diversity is worth striving for.

Truthfully, I don't know how the whole mess is going to pan out, but I'm getting sick of waiting. My guess is that the media will continue to ignore assertions of bias and the public will become increasingly inflamed by their obviously slanted reporting. There's a reason CNN's viewership has waned significantly while FOX News' ratings have skyrocketed.

But when you have a social agenda to push, who cares about ratings anyway? Wishful thinking has been permanently etched in the brain synapses and relays of the journalist's (or, for that matter, any liberal's) mind.

As for my professor, I've heard that this semester he not taking any more polls.

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Matthew T. Joe
Athens, Georgia
mjoe615@hotmail.com

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