Media Bias

According to a recent Zogby Poll conducted for the Independent Film Channel, some 73% of the adults surveyed believe the news media is biased.    Moreover, some 75% of those surveyed think the media through their coverage influenced the outcome of the Presidential election.  Nearly 80% of the respondents in the survey said they consider the national television news to be unreliable and 84% said they consider news on the radio to be unreliable.  Of those surveyed for the poll, 53% said they voted for Barak Obama and 46% said they voted for John McCain, which closely parallels the actual results of the election. 

The results of the Zogby Poll are consistent with the results of a poll conducted prior to the election by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.    The Pew Research Center’s poll found that voters by a margin of nearly 8-to-1 thought the media wanted Obama to win the election.   A separate study conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism found that McCain received significantly more negative than positive press coverage and that the negative coverage of McCain increased over time.   By comparison, the study found that the media’s coverage of Obama was more positive than negative. 

In still another study, the Center for Media and Public Affairs conducted an analysis of 979 election news stories that aired from August 23 through October 24 on ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, and Fox News Channel’s Special Report.   The study concluded that comments on the network evening news shows about Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden, were almost twice as favorable as those about McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin.    Obama and Biden received 65% positive and 35% negative comments.   By comparison, McCain and Palin received 31% positive and 69% negative comments.   The study concluded that Fox News Channel’s Special Report was both the most balanced and the most negative of all the broadcast news shows.    On Fox, McCain and Palin combined received 39% favorable and 61% unfavorable comments compared to 28% favorable and 72% unfavorable comments for Obama and Biden.   

For me, the results of these polls and studies merely confirm the obvious.  The only thing that surprises me is that a small percentage of those surveyed apparently do not think the media is biased.    My question is this:  who are these people, where have they been, and where have they been getting their news?    It seems to me that those who do not recognize bias in the media are completely out of touch with reality. 

I majored in journalism in college and worked for several newspapers during my early years before I entered law school.    I have always had a strong interest in the news media, and I still have a fair amount of ink in my blood, which is probably the reason I keep writing for this blog.   In my opinion, the news media in this country has lost its soul.   The results of the polls and studies referred to above reflect the well-earned disrespect the media has earned for itself.    

As you might expect, many members of the media deny they are biased.   Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, they will go to their graves claiming their reporting was always fair, balanced, and objective.   The evidence of media bias is so strong, however, that even some members of the media are beginning to acknowledge it.   I think this is a good sign, just as it is a good sign with an alcoholic first admits he or she has a problem.  The media cannot address the problem of media bias as long as it continues to deny the problem exists.   

On October 24, 2008, about ten days before the recent election, Michael Malone, a columnist for ABC News, wrote a column on the subject of media bias.   Here are a few excerpts from Malone’s column: 

“The sheer bias in the print and television coverage of this election campaign is not just bewildering, but appalling.  And over the last few months I’ve found myself slowly moving from shaking my head at the obvious one-sided reporting, to actually shouting at the screen of my television and laptop computer. 

“But worst of all, for the last couple weeks, I’ve begun—for the first time in my adult life—to be embarrassed to admit what I do for a living.  A few days ago, when asked by a new acquaintance what I did for a living, I replied that I was ‘a writer,’ because I couldn’t bring myself to admit to a stranger that I’m a journalist.”      

In his column, Malone said he has been observing an increase in media bias for some time.   He commented that he has “watched with disbelief as the nation’s leading newspapers, many of whom I’d written for in the past, slowly let opinion pieces creep into the news section, and from there onto the front page.  Personal opinions and comments that, had they appeared in my stories in 1979, would have gotten my butt kicked by the nearest copy editor, were now standard operating procedure at the New York Times, the Washington Post, and soon after in almost every small town paper in the U.S.” 

With respect to the media’s coverage of the Presidential election, Malone said,  “Republicans are justifiably foaming at the mouth over the sheer one-sidedness of the press coverage of the two candidates and their running mates.  But in the last few days, even Democrats, who have been gloating over the pass—no, make that shameless support—they’ve gotten from the press, are starting to get uncomfortable as they realize that no one wins in the long run when we don’t have a free and fair press.” 

Deborah Howell, the Ombudsman for The Washington Post, is another example of a member of the media who recognizes the media’s bias.  Ms. Howell wrote a column on November 9, 2008, five days after the election, that began with the following paragraph:  “The Post provided a lot of good campaign coverage, but readers have been consistently critical of the lack of probing issues coverage and what they saw as a tilt toward Democrat Barak Obama.  My surveys, which ended on Election Day, show that they are right on both counts.”   Ms. Howell commented on the lack of scrutiny into Obama’s background.   She wrote, “But Obama deserved tougher scrutiny than he got, especially of his undergraduate years, his start in Chicago and his relationship with Antoin ‘Tony’ Rezko, who was convicted this year of influence-peddling in Chicago.   The Post did nothing on Obama’s acknowledged drug use as a teenager.” 

In a previous column published on August 17, 2008, Ms. Howell said:   “Democrat Barak Obama has had about a 3 to 1 advantage over Republican John McCain in Post Page 1 stories since Obama became his party’s presumptive nominee June 4.  Obama has generated a lot of news by being the first African American nominee, and he is less well known than McCain—and therefore there’s more to report on.   But the disparity is so wide that it doesn’t look good.” 

Among other things, virtually all of the news media gave Obama a pass over his breach of his promise to take public financing.    The political cost to Obama for breaking his promise was zero.   I don’t think anyone can reasonably argue that the media would have given a similar pass to McCain or another Republican for breaking the same promise and for spending the amount of money Obama was able to spend to win the election. 

Why did The Washington Post continue its biased coverage of the election even after its own Ombudsman acknowledged the bias?   Why does the rest of the media continue its biased coverage of the news in the face of polls and studies showing the public’s recognition and distrust of the media’s bias?     My answer to these questions is that the media is biased because it wants to be biased.    Reporters and editors are not stupid people.   Even though they have their own individual biases, they are capable of providing more objective and balanced coverage of the news if they wanted to do so.   Their failure to do so can only mean this is not one of their goals.   Regrettably, I believe many of today’s reporters and editors became journalists because they are political activists who want to promote a political agenda.   Their goal is to indoctrinate rather than report.   The professional journalist who wants to report the news in an objective and balanced manner seems to be a dying breed.