Putting Money Where Mouths Are: Media Donations Favor Dems 100-1

PARTICIPATION IN GOVERNMENT R FINAL PROJECT

PAPER 3 READINGS: Is the News Media Biased?

By WILLIAM TATE | Investor’s Business Daily, July 23, 2008

The New York Times' refusal to publish John McCain's rebuttal to Barack Obama's Iraq op-ed may be the most glaring example of liberal media bias this journalist has ever seen. But true proof of widespread media bias requires one to follow an old journalism maxim: Follow the money.

Even the Associated Press — no bastion of conservatism — has considered, at least superficially, the media's favoritism for Barack Obama. It's time to revisit media bias.

True to form, journalists are defending their bias by saying that one candidate, Obama, is more newsworthy than the other. In other words, there is no media bias. It is we, the hoi polloi, who reveal our bias by questioning the neutrality of these learned professionals in their ivory-towered newsrooms.

Big Media applies this rationalization to every argument used to point out bias. "It's not a result of bias," they say. "It's a matter of news judgment."

And, like the man who knows his wallet was pickpocketed but can't prove it, the public is left to futilely rage against the injustice of it all.

The "newsworthy" argument can be applied to every metric — one-sided imbalances in airtime, story placement, column inches, number of stories, etc. — save one.

An analysis of federal records shows that the amount of money journalists contributed so far this election cycle favors Democrats by a 15:1 ratio over Republicans, with $225,563 going to Democrats, only $16,298 to Republicans .

Two-hundred thirty-five journalists donated to Democrats, just 20 gave to Republicans — a margin greater than 10-to-1. An even greater disparity, 20-to-1, exists between the number of journalists who donated to Barack Obama and John McCain. Searches for other newsroom categories (reporters, correspondents, news editors, anchors, newspaper editors and publishers) produces 311 donors to Democrats to 30 donors to Republicans, a ratio of just over 10-to-1. In terms of money, $279,266 went to Dems, $20,709 to Republicans, a 14-to-1 ratio.

And while the money totals pale in comparison to the $9-million-plus that just one union's PACs have spent to get Obama elected, they are more substantial than the amount that Obama has criticized John McCain for receiving from lobbyists: 96 lobbyists have contributed $95,850 to McCain, while Obama — who says he won't take money from PACs or federal lobbyists — has received $16,223 from 29 lobbyists.

A few journalists list their employer as an organization like MSNBC, MSNBC.com or ABC News, or report that they're freelancers for the New York Times, or are journalists for Al Jazeera, CNN Turkey, Deutsche Welle Radio or La Republica of Rome (all contributions to Obama). Most report no employer. They're mainly freelancers. That's because most major news organization have policies that forbid newsroom employees from making political donations.

As if to warn their colleagues in the media, MSNBC last summer ran a story on journalists' contributions to political candidates that drew a similar conclusion:

"Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left."

The timing of that article was rather curious. Dated June 25, 2007, it appeared during the middle of the summer news doldrums in a non-election year — timing that was sure to minimize its impact among the general public, while still warning newsrooms across the country that such political donations can be checked.

In case that was too subtle, MSNBC ran a sidebar story detailing cautionary tales of reporters who lost their jobs or were otherwise negatively impacted because their donations became public.

As if to warn their comrades-in-news against putting their money where their mouth is, the report also cautioned that, with the Internet, "it became easier for the blogging public to look up the donors."

It went on to detail the ban that most major media organizations have against newsroom employees donating to political campaigns, a ban that raises some obvious First Amendment issues. Whether it's intentional or not, the ban makes it difficult to verify the political leanings of Big Media reporters, editors and producers. There are two logical ways to extrapolate what those leanings are, though.

One is the overwhelming nature of the above statistics. Given the pack mentality among journalists and, just like any pack, the tendency to follow the leader — in this case, Big Media — and since Big Media are centered in some of the bluest of blue parts of the country, it is highly likely that the media elite reflect the same, or an even greater, liberal bias.

A second is to analyze contributions from folks in the same corporate cultures. That analysis provides some surprising results. The contributions of individuals who reported being employed by major media organizations are listed in the nearby table.

The contributions add up to $315,533 to Democrats and $22,656 to Republicans — most of that to Ron Paul, who was supported by many liberals as a stalking horse to John McCain, a la Rush Limbaugh's Operation Chaos with Hillary and Obama. What is truly remarkable about the list is that, discounting contributions to Paul and Rudy Giuliani, who was a favorite son for many folks in the media, the totals look like this: $315,533 to Democrats, $3,150 to Republicans (four individuals who donated to McCain).

Let me repeat: $315,533 to Democrats, $3,150 to Republicans — a ratio of 100-to-1. No bias there.

Tate is a former journalist, now a novelist and the author of "A Time Like This: 2001-2008." This article first appeared on the American Thinker Web site. http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=301702713742569

Opinion: Conservative Media Bias Exposed?

Dec 23, 2010 www.aolnews.com opinion John Merline Opinion Editor

Almost exactly a year ago, liberal talk show host Keith Olbermann went on a rant about the right- wing bias in the media. "There is no liberal media," he said. "The media which is, after all, owned by corporations naturally leans to the right. Corporations, by definition, lean to the right, towards the status quo."

Conservatives scoffed at the notion. But maybe Olbermann has a point.

After all, when it comes to conservatives, reporters can't seem to get enough of them.

Indeed, a Pew Research Center survey found that of the top 10 most-covered candidates in the midterm elections, conservatives held the top three spots.

Here's more evidence. I asked AOL's Relegence team, which tracks more than 30,000 news sites on the Web, to compare coverage of comparable liberals and conservatives over the past 12 months.

The results are stark. Conservatives were featured in vastly more stories.

Here are three illustrative examples.

Palin vs. Biden

On the conservative side is Sarah Palin, the gaffe-prone politician who occasionally lapses into blue language and lost her bid for vice president in the 2008 election. On the other side is Joe Biden, the winning 2008 vice presidential candidate, who's also prone to misspeak and use blue language.

While Palin is a publicity hound, Biden actually has a hold on the reins of power. Presumably, what he thinks and does matters in the real world, unlike Palin.

So who got more coverage? There's no contest. There were, according to Relegence, almost 62,000 stories in which Palin figured prominently -- almost three times the number that featured Biden. There wasn't a single month in 2010 where Biden got more coverage than Palin…

O'Donnell vs. Greene Conservative Christine O'Donnell was an unqualified, kooky candidate who took everyone by surprise when she beat a far better known, established candidate for the Republican Senate nomination in Delaware. Liberal Alvin Greene was a completely unqualified, kooky candidate who also shocked everyone by getting the Democratic nomination for Senate over four-term South Carolina state lawmaker Vic Rawl. Both went on to decisively lose their elections.

Now it's true that O'Donnell was a character, but so too was Greene, who had a felony charge on his record and had never campaigned for the nomination. Plus there was concern that the electronic voting systems might have failed in South Carolina, causing Greene's win. But while the media went gaga over O'Donnell, by comparison they ignored Greene. ..

Beck vs. Olbermann

As everyone with a pulse knows, Glenn Beck is the sometimes controversial host of the No. 4 rated show on Fox News. And Olbermann is the sometimes controversial host of the No. 1 show on MSNBC.

On which gum-flapper did the press shower more coverage? You guessed it. Beck crushed Olbermann. Month after month, Beck racked up hundreds, if not thousands, of stories. In contrast, Olbermann typically only got a few dozen stories a month in which he was featured prominently -- except for the month when he was temporarily suspended.

This is, admittedly, a small sample, and there are no doubt some counterexamples. Plus, the data don't capture tone or message of this coverage. But my guess is that if you looked at other newsmakers on the right you'd find a similar pattern.

Are these conservatives really that much more newsworthy than their liberal counterparts?

That seems highly unlikely.

So what is the reason? Is it a right-wing tilt, along the lines Olbermann complained about? Or is it that liberal reporters just find conservatives and their ideas more unfamiliar, odd or just plain worrisome, making their utterances appear more worthy of coverage?

I'll leave it to the media watchdogs on both sides to battle over what bias is at work here.

But whatever the motivation, one this is clear: The news media tend to give conservatives a very big megaphone. http://www.aolnews.com/2010/12/23/opinion-conservative-media-bias-exposed/