Media Bias 101 summarizes more than 25 years of survey research showing how journalists vote, what journalists think, what the public thinks about the media, and what journalists say about media bias. The following links take you to more than 40 different surveys, with key findings and illustrative charts.
Media Bias 101
New York Times columnist John Tierney surveyed 153 campaign journalists at a press party at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, and found a huge preference for Democratic Senator John Kerry over President George W. Bush, particularly among journalists based in Washington, D.C. While journalists from outside Washington preferred Kerry by a three-to-one margin, those inside the Beltway favored Kerry's election by a 12-to-1 ratio.KEY FINDINGS:Tierney found a strong preference for…
In May 2004, the Pew Research Center for The People and The Press (in association with the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Committee of Concerned Journalists) surveyed 547 journalists and media executives, including 247 at national-level media outlets. The poll was similar to ones conducted by the same group (previously known as the Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press) in 1995 and 1999. The actual polling was done by the Princeton Survey Research Associates.KEY…
In the July/August 2001 edition of the Roper Center's Public Perspective, Washington Post national political correspondent Thomas Edsall summarized the findings of a Kaiser Family Foundation poll of 301 'media professionals,' 300 'policymakers' and the 1,206 members of the public. The media professionals included 'reporters and editors from top newspapers, TV and radio networks, news services and news magazines.' The results showed that 'only a tiny fraction of the media identifies itself as…
In January 1998, Editor & Publisher, the preeminent media trade magazine, conducted a poll of 167 newspaper editors across the country. Investor's Business Daily reporter Matthew Robinson obtained complete poll results, highlights of which were featured in the MRC's February 1998 edition of MediaWatch.KEY FINDINGS:In 1992, when just 43 percent of the public voted Democrat Bill Clinton for President, 58 percent of editors surveyed voted for him.In 1996, a minority (49 percent) of the…
In 1996, as a follow-up to a 1988 survey, the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) surveyed 1,037 reporters at 61 newspapers of all sizes across the nation, and found that newsrooms were more ideologically unrepresentative than they had been in the late 1980s. While the percentage of journalists calling themselves 'Democrat or liberal' essentially held steady (going from 62 to 61 percent of those surveyed), the percentage saying they were 'Republican or conservative' dropped from 22…
In April 1996, the Freedom Forum published a report by Chicago Tribune writer Elaine Povich titled, 'Partners and Adversaries: The Contentious Connection Between Congress and the Media.' Buried in Appendix D was the real news for those concerned about media bias: Based on the 139 Washington bureau chiefs and congressional correspondents who returned the Freedom Forum questionnaire, the Washington-based reporters — by an incredible margin of nine-to-one — overwhelmingly cast their presidential…
In 1995, Stanley Rothman and Amy E. Black 'partially replicated the earlier Rothman-Lichter' survey of the media elite. (See previous entry, The Media Elite.) 'The sample of journalists mirrors that from the earlier study, including reporters and editors at major national newspapers, news magazines and wire services,' the authors wrote in a Spring 2001 article for the journal Public Interest. (Additional data was included in a 2009 paper by Northeastern University professor William G. Mayer, "…
In 1995, Kenneth Walsh, a reporter for U.S. News & World Report, polled 28 of his fellow White House correspondents from ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post, Copley, Cox, Hearst, Knight-Ridder, plus Newsweek, Time and U.S. News & World Report, about their presidential voting patterns for his 1996 book Feeding the Beast: The White House versus the Press. Walsh found that his colleagues strongly preferred Democrats, with the White House…
In 1992, Indiana University journalism professors David H. Weaver and G. Cleveland Wilhoit surveyed 1,410 journalists who 'work for a wide variety of daily and weekly newspapers, radio and television stations, news services and magazines throughout the United States.' Presenting the results in the Fall 1992 Media Studies Journal, they found journalists were more liberal, more Democratic, more in favor of legalized abortion and less religious than the public at large.KEY FINDINGS:44 percent of…
A 1988 poll by a New York-based newsletter, Journalist and Financial Reporting, surveyed 151 business reporters from over 30 publications ranging from the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, USA Today, New York Times and Chicago Tribune to Money, Fortune and Business Week. The survey found that newspaper and magazine business reporters are just as liberal as their colleagues covering politics.KEY FINDINGS:54 percent identified themselves as Democrats, just nine percent as Republicans.76 percent…