From: dsvoss@isr.harvard.edu (Steve Voss)
Newsgroups: alt.news-media
Subject: Re: Bias? What Bias?
Date: 25 Aug 92 20:50:28 GMT
Organization: Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

I have been following the debate over media bias for several dozen letters
at least.  As a former (and possibly future) reporter, most of the letters
caused me some amusement.  Currently, I am working toward a doctorate in
government, and one of my focus fields is the mass media and American
politics.  Again, this perspective in conjunction with many of your
letters caused me some amusement.

Since I have been a reporter as well as a student of these topics, I
thought I might offer a few comments.

First, the conservatives who claim that polls show a left-leaning press
are correct.  Repeated polls of reporters with the major news sources
find that they consistently vote Democratic.  Also, they report themselves
as "liberal" close to 50% of the time, compared to about 30% (I think)
in the general public.  Also, very few identify themselves as
conservatives, unlike a LARGE proportion of the U.S. public.  However,
the conservatives aren't telling you a few things.  For example, this
isn't the press as a whole; it's the top rung of reporters with the top
rung of media outlets.  It doesn't apply to local reporters or, in the case
of most polls, to Associated Press reporters (who supply most of the print
news for your local paper).  It also doesn't apply to the editors who have
final say over what goes into the newspaper.  Robert Lichtman, a
conservative who criticizes the press for liberal bias, has found these
editors to be far more conservative.  But, again, I would have to say
that in general they are correct.

Note that the above comments apply to the partisan leanings of reporters.
It doesn't reflect their ideological leanings at all.  In fact, both the
polls and my own experience suggests that reporters would best be described
as libertarian -- they generally oppose higher taxes, government spending,
guaranteed employment, etc.  So the question becomes, why do libertarian
reporters consistently vote Democratic.  May have something to do with
their demographics.  The press is not notably liberal in relation to
other professionals with similar backgrounds who work in fields involving
communication or self-expression (e.g. acting, teaching, art, etc.).
Also, many women are journalists -- working women tend to be hostile to
the Republican "family values" agenda.

Second, the nation's newspapers on average have endorsed the Republican
presidential candidate every year except for 1964 (Goldwater vs. Johnson).
This is interesting, considering one person used the New Republic's
endorsement rate as evidence of its liberality.  Whither the Democratic
bias?  Well, it's on television, of course.  So the message is: don't
trust TV, right?   :-)

Finally, since I was a political reporter in Louisiana during the abortion
fight, I had to make a decision regarding what to call the two sides of
the abortion debate.  I chose to use what has been called either the
"liberal" or the "moderate" side, depending upon your point-of-view.
That is, for the anti-abortion side I used "anti-abortion" as opposed
to "pro-life" or "anti-choice."  This made perfect sense to me, since
I've never met a pro-life person who denied that (s)he was also
"anti-abortion," whereas very few pro-abortion folk would describe
themselves as "anti-life" and the alternate term implies that they are.
I can think of no argument justifying "pro-life" except
the preference of its advocates -- which is to say, it is blatant
propaganda.  The other choice was more difficult.  "Pro-choice" clearly
favors that side, since it has good connotations.  Yet the other main
alternative, "pro-abortion," is inaccurate.  This was especially true in
Louisiana, where many of the people saying in polls that they thought
abortion should be legal also expressed strong opposition to abortion
itself.  So I ended up using "pro-choice" and "anti-abortion."  I admit
that "pro-abortion-rights" and "anti-abortion-rights" are preferable to
this, but they also are unwieldy and never would get an editor's approval
regardless of his or her position on the issue.  (Probably why Star Wars
won over Strategic Defense Initiative as well, I might mention.)  And
to the person who argued "Well, anti-abortion people are for choice in
some issues too, and pro-choice people oppose choice on breast implants"
or something to that effect, I think that was a particularly knee-jerk
response.  I don't think anyone who uses or hears "pro-choice" really
thinks it means anything beyond the abortion issue -- it is implied and
understood to mean pro-abortion-choice.  This isn't the same as pro-life,
which is intended to imply that the other side is made up of a bunch of
killers.

Well, this has been rather long, but I hope it helps...
Steve