A national survey conducted recently by a respected pollster revealed more ugly truths about journalism. The poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press repeats what other surveys have reported: Journalists across the nation have frittered away their most valuable asset, their credibility. Further, the poll confirms what critics of the media have charged for years: An increasing proportion of those who shape news coverage are political liberals.
The survey of 547 national and local reporters, producers, editors, and executives across the United States addresses current issues facing journalism and updates trends from earlier surveys conducted in 1995 and 1999. The greatest differences between journalists and the public are philosophical. Many more journalists identify themselves as liberals than as conservatives, while for the population as a whole the reverse is true.
The survey’s findings show the percentage of national journalists who say they were political liberals increased from 22 percent in 1995 to 34 percent today. The trend among local journalists has been similar; 23 percent say they are liberals, compared with 14 percent in 1995. Only 7 percent of national journalists, and 12 percent of local journalists, think of themselves as politically conservative. Majorities of national (54 percent) and local (61 percent) journalists continue to describe themselves as moderate.
Survey results of the public, on the other hand, show that self-identified moderates are a plurality but not a majority. Twenty percent of the public see themselves as liberal, while 33 percent consider themselves conservative.
The survey also revealed differences in moral values. About 60 percent of the public believes it is necessary to believe in God to be a truly moral person. But fewer than 15 percent of journalists believe that. About half of the public thinks society should accept homosexuality, while 80 percent of news people think so.
While it used to be taboo for journalists to allow personal bias to influence their news judgment, today’s journalists admit that a greater number of their decisions are not objective. Some editors not only acknowledge prejudice, they actually encourage it and insist that their reporters be advocates for “public” causes.
By more than three-to-one, journalists in the survey said they believe it is a bad thing if some news organizations have a “decidedly ideological point of view.” Yet, more than four in ten of them say they too often let their ideological views show in their reporting. A confessional rate of 40 percent indicates an epidemic afflicts journalism today. It shows that rather than being merely reporters of fact, many journalists have become purveyors of propaganda.
Not only have journalists come to think it is OK to allow bias to color news coverage, they actually have dropped all pretenses of objectivity. Newsroom managers openly encourage discrimination by embracing a hiring policy of racial “diversity.” Discrimination inevitably influences news coverage and frequently comes at the expense of ability, knowledge, and experience.
Neither are the media kind to the public. Since 1999, the percentage of journalists saying they had a great deal of confidence in the public’s election choices has fallen from 52 percent to 31 percent.
Journalists themselves have a cynical view of their business. About half of them think that journalism is going in the wrong direction. But, strangely, rather than citing their slanted news coverage, as many as two out of three of them blame the decline of the quality of journalism on “bottom-line pressures” exerted by the publisher or other top management.
These findings, and others by the American Society of Newspaper Editors a few years ago, spell big trouble for journalism. They show that Americans don’t believe much of what they read in newspapers or what they see and hear on television or radio. Continually declining readership and Nielsen ratings also tell the tragic story. Too many journalists, today, though, refuse to heed the warning signs.
Reporters and editors who give more than lip service to ethics, rather than obedience to “progressive” political agendas, might be able to reverse some of the damage to their organizations’ credibility. But it will take years. They can start by abandoning racial “diversity” as their mantra and returning to time-honored competence and objectivity as their buzzwords.