Author: Everette E. Dennis
Published: January 01, 1997
Last Updated: May 26, 1999
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The liberal press?

Liberal reporters, yes;
liberal slant no!

How professionalism and the profit motive inoculate the news from blatant political bias, critics notwithstanding

By Everette E. Dennis

Whether in the heat of political campaigns, the daily provocations of talk radio or the crisp statistical reports of pollsters, Americans are continuously told that the news media are politically tainted by a liberal, left-wing bias.

Even though that’s the journalistic equivalent of saying a restaurant serves rancid food, this charge is rarely answered by the media establishment or for that matter by average reporters and editors.

To some, the evidence of liberal bias seems incontrovertible as study after study finds reporters and editors more likely to identify with liberal politics and the Democratic Party by margins ranging from 55 or 60 percent to as high as 85 percent. While some of the more lopsided results come from unabashedly political sources, others are from foundations, industry groups and academics who have no particular ax to grind.

From studies of the elite national press to those focused on medium- and small-town newspapers, working journalists consistently register positive on the liberal litmus test and have since the 1930s when Leo Rosten first examined the character, background and practices of the Washington press corps.

To many critics, these studies offer definitive evidence of a pervasive liberal bias among the nation’s journalists. But this is far too simplistic. Among other things, these critics ignore the political predilections of publishers and media owners, which are and have always been overwhelmingly conservative. They ignore the tilt of newspaper editorial endorsements, which frequently favor Republican candidates, often in the face of popular sentiment. They ignore the influence of market forces, which serve as a natural check on journalistic partisanship. They ignore the professional principles to which credible journalists subscribe. They ignore the astonishing diversity of the American press. And, perhaps most importantly, they ignore the conspicuous paucity of research demonstrating a pervasive bias in news content.

A history of accusations

Accusations of political bias are as old as political reporting itself and they have been leveled by every conceivable candidate, from every imaginable political party against every identifiable group in the journalistic chain — reporters, editors, editorial writers, publishers and owners.

Just looking at 20th century presidents and presidential candidates, one finds an almost universal complaint against a supposedly opposition press. The Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt, for example, argued that the press was "about 200 percent Republican," and Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson decried the "one-party press," by which he meant the Republicans. From the late 1960s forward, however, the press has most often been scored for its "liberal" leanings, most recently by Bob Dole who spoke of a "dangerously liberal bias," and George Bush whose bumper stickers and placards urged voters to, "Annoy the Media, Vote for Bush."

Evidence of bias in coverage is lacking

While the political affiliations and leanings of journalists hardly seem in doubt, there is no convincing evidence that journalists infect their stories — intentionally or otherwise — with their own political prejudices. While a few studies suggest such a link, most are the handiwork of right-leaning groups and critics whose research methods can’t withstand scrutiny.

Of course, this lack of credible evidence doesn’t inhibit conservative critics who see the "liberal" contamination of news as self-evident. It is "only logical," radio talkmeister Rush Limbaugh opines, that "liberal" media folks produce "liberal" content. Pure and simple. Case closed. Or is it?

Bias is bad for business

Flying in the face of this conservative critique, is the equally pervasive and timeless charge that the news media are driven by the financial preoccupations of their own conservative owners who push entertainment over information and who are increasingly reluctant to invest in expensive investigative reporting. As one critic put it, "anyone who thinks the media are liberal hasn’t attended meetings of the Newspaper Association of America or the National Association of Broadcasters." Both industry groups, made up of owners, emphasize economic issues and increasing market share.

Media organizations, as a profit-making businesses, naturally seek economies of scale, are responsive to the largest possible audience and are leery of upsetting any substantial segment of their potential audience. At the same time, however, analysts tell us that the country is more politically conservative than it was two decades ago. If all of this is true, news organizations would be shooting themselves in the foot by producing a politically-charged, left-leaning product certain to offend more than half their audience. Politically tainted journalism is simply bad business.

Professionalism rules

Not only can the conservative critique not be reconciled with the financial imperatives of the marketplace, it discounts entirely any element of integrity or professionalism among the American press. The fact is that accuracy, impartiality and fairness are at the very core of the journalistic craft. These principles are embedded in the rhetoric of American journalism, they are a fundamental part of the journalist’s training and virtually all working journalists aspire to these goals, at least as an ideal. Indeed, the role model for many political journalists is the Washington Post’s David Broder, who is universally respected as an impartial professional.

In addition to these basic principles, most journalists are also driven by their curiosity and their vigilance of the actions and excesses of government and other powerful institutions. This "checking" function often gets the press in trouble with critics who frequently confuse tough or critical stories with biased stories. Jerry Nachman, broadcast executive and one-time editor of the New York Post, once asked, "When will people realize that the common theme in journalism is stories that prove again and again that government doesn’t work?" Nachman makes the point that if liberalism means advocating greater government involvement, the press is hardly pro-liberal. If anything, it’s simply anti-establishment, which to some extent it needs to be.

‘The best and blandest’

The conservative critique — which characterizes the news media based largely on studies of reporters’ personal politics — also fails to acknowledge the vast scope and diversity of the American media. It suggests a monolithic media that is uniformly committed to undermining conservatives and edifying liberals. But the American news media are neither as politically charged as the conservative critique suggests, nor as uniform in purpose or approach.

I’m always amused by the reaction of foreign visitors to this country when told that many Americans consider their press to be politically biased. In most countries of the world the press is openly political and often strongly linked to political parties or movements. By contrast, the American news media — from newspapers to news magazines to broadcast news to the wire services — are what New York Magazine once labeled "the best and the blandest," for their relatively prosaic approach to politics. By any international standard, the American media are tame — almost balanced to a fault — but not tainted.

As for the supposed uniformity of voices in the American media, any comprehensive examination would indicate otherwise. For example:

• Among the Big Five national newspapers — and in this group, I would include the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and USA Today — left-of-center, centrist and right-leaning voices all appear regularly, and none of these major papers could be accused of offering daily valentines to Bill Clinton or to any of his predecessors.
• The news magazines also have left, center and right editorial perspectives.
• The highly scrutinized television network newscasts are called liberal by conservative critics and slavishly establishment-oriented by those on the left.
• Talk radio’s most vocal and listened-to programs are conservative.
• Cable’s growing news and public affairs offerings are varied with something of a tilt toward conservatives in some high-profile programs and combative pro-and-con formats in others.
• The most successful opinion magazines today are on the right with liberals like The Nation’s Victor Navasky lamenting that "there is no left left in America."
• And go to the op-ed pages of America’s newspapers. Conservative columnists dominate and apparently have the highest readership. Some editorial page editors even regard left-of-center columnists as an endangered species (note, for example, the Washington Post’s recent dropping of its liberal stalwart Coleman McCarthy due to declining reader interest).