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Does TV Have A Liberal Bias?
He points out, for example, that a 1996 study showed that most journalists were Democrats. Eighty-nine percent of them voted for a Democrat for President (generally considered liberal) compared to 43 percent of the general population. From the standpoint of many conservatives TV news tends to be liberal because it features stories on gay rights, civil rights abuses, antiwar demonstrations, women's rights, environmental issues, etc. -- all seen as being liberal causes. But, from the standpoint of some liberals television is conservative because it's seen as being pro-business, without giving adequate time to alternative, non-mainstream views. These arguments primarily surface in how news is covered.
People in the hard sciences also tend to be more conservative than people in the social sciences. The latter group includes many news people and actors, and some writers and artists — people whose ideas often surface in the media. Their views also tend to "push the envelope" of social change.
Given the fact that the heads of the media conglomerates tend to be conservative, how do the two factions coexist; after all isn't it management that ultimately "calls the shots?"
We've already noted that most media consumers like ideas that a slightly ahead of the status quo, as shown by the green area in the normal curve represented below. (This diagram is discussed in some detail elsewhere.)
One of the best known media moguls--a person widely considered to be quite conservative--regularly features photos of attractive, bare-breasted women in one of his most popular (non-U.S.) daily newspapers. The feature is clearly linked to increased readership and profits.
In late 2004, the FOX network, considered the most conservative in news, faced the largest fines ever levied by the Federal Communications Commission up to that point for sexually indecent programming. Clearly, there is a frequently a conflict between profits and what many people see as traditional values -- with profits typically winning the contest. Other opinions on this topic can be found in this Business, Sex, and Morality Forum posting.
College and Political Views
As liberal views sharply increased among college freshmen there was a corresponding drop in "middle of the road" views. Why are professors moving to the right? They are now being drawn from the era when there was a conservative move in the country (the left third of the graph). In 2008, college freshmen appeared to be reacting largely to the wars, and economic and employment problems that started during the second Bush administration. Note that the liberal-conservative disparity was even greater for college freshmen during the Vietnam war era (on the left side of the graph).
News Bias
Thus, there has been a recent emphasis on moving to a more selective, conservative tone in newscasts.
Both programs featured Republican guests (generally considered conservative) more often than Democratic guests (generally considered to be more liberal). But, as shown here, the FOX news channel favored Republicans by a margin of about 8:1. The same survey showed that FOX news featured white guests 93 percent of the time and male guests 91 percent of the time. According to the Nielsen Company, more than 95 percent of Fox news viewers are white.
Although some people feel that balance could brought back to radio programming by reinstating the Fairness Doctrine, most talk radio personalities are understandably opposed.
Possibly not unrelated, to entice viewers and raise ratings TV programming regularly "pushes the envelope" with new and often risqué ideas. Sexual themes are predominately featured along with ever-more-explicit forms of violence. Although viewers complain, they also regularly tune in -- and keep ratings high.
* In February,
2003, Eric Alterman's book, A What Liberal Media? The Truth About
Bias and the News, was published. This exceptionally well documented
book credits the shift to the right in the recent decade to efforts
by well funded conservative think tanks and their financial backers.
Other books on these topics include -
To Home Page
** According to data, during the Iraq war Americans turned to foreign news sources in great numbers, especially at the beginning of the war, to get a more balanced and realistic perspective. *** In the well-reviewed and thought-provoking book, The Sound Bite Society: Television and the American Mind, Jeffrey Scheuer argues that television relentlessly simplifies, and simplicity is the core principle of conservatism. TV likewise punishes complex ideas and messages, which are the core of liberalism. Scheuer notes, for example, that the causes of poverty, unemployment, the crime rate, gangs, etc. are complex and cannot be effectively addressed with quick sound bites and political slogans -- even though the latter come across best on TV and appeal to voters. Thus, rather than being a "liberal medium," according to Scheuer, television strongly promotes an appealing, conservative, oversimplified, direct-solution approach to the complex social and political issues of our times. For example, rather than address the real causes of crime, the solution that's easiest to understand is: get tougher on crime and build more prisons. Although this simplistic good-evil view is attractive to voters, it doesn't confront the causes of the problem. © 2008, All Rights Reserved
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A
recent book, Bias, by a CBS insider Bernard Goldberg, sets
out to document how the media regularly distorts the news with a liberal
bias. Goldberg makes some persuasive arguments for his point of view.
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According
to Elaine Povich of the Freedom Foundation as reported by the conservative
newspaper, the Washington Times -
More people who are of a liberal
persuasion go into reporting because they believe in the ethics
and the ideals. A lot of conservatives go into the private sector,
go into Wall Street, [or] go into banking. You find that people
who are
idealistic tending toward the reporting end.
FAIR, 
