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The leftwing bias of the American mass media is pervasive and quantifiable. Since the 1980s, studies have consistently shown that the professionals who constitute America’s mainstream news media – reporters, editors, anchors, publishers, correspondents, bureau chiefs, and executives at the nation’s major newspapers, magazines, and broadcast networks – are preponderantly left-oriented and Democrat. These studies have excluded commentators, editorialists, and opinion columnists – all of whom make it clear that they are giving their opinions and analyses of the news as they view it. Rather, the focus of the research has been on those individuals whose ostensible duty is to impartially and comprehensively present the relevant facts to the readers, listeners, and viewers.
A useful way of gauging the news media’s political and ideological makeup is to examine what the professionals in that industry believe about a wide array of social, ethical, and political issues. For example, research shows that:
It is equally illuminating to examine the degree to which members of the news media have supported Democrat or liberal/left candidates and causes, both at the ballot box and with their checkbooks:
It is exceedingly rare to find, even in the most heavily partisan voting districts in the United States, such pronounced imbalances in terms of votes cast or dollars earmarked for one party or the other.
The figures cited above are entirely consistent with how news-media professionals identify themselves in terms of their political party affiliations and ideological leanings:
We see similar ratios in studies where news people are asked to rate themselves on the left-to-right political spectrum:
Bias in the news media manifests itself most powerfully not in the form of outright, intentional lies, but is most often a function of what reporters choose not to tell their audience; i.e., the facts they purposely omit so as to avoid contradicting the political narrative they wish to advance. As media researchers Tim Groseclose and Jeffrey Milyo put it: “[F]or every sin of commission…we believe that there are hundreds, and maybe thousands, of sins of omission – cases where a journalist chose facts or stories that only one side of the political spectrum is likely to mention.”
By no means is such activity the result of an organized campaign or conspiracy. Media expert Bernard Goldberg says: “No, we don’t sit around in dark corners and plan strategies on how we’re going to slant the news. We don’t have to. It comes naturally to most reporters.” Goldberg explains that “a lot of newspeople … got into journalism in the first place” so they could: (a) “change the world and make it a better place,” and (b) use their positions as platforms from which to “sho[w] compassion,” which “makes us feel good about ourselves.” Expanding further upon this point, Goldberg quotes researcher Robert Lichter of the nonpartisan Center for Media and Public Affairs, who said that journalists increasingly “see themselves as society’s designated saviors,” striving to “awaken the national conscience and force public action.” Or as ABC News anchor Peter Jennings admitted to the Boston Globe in July 2001: “Those of us who went into journalism in the ’50s or ’60s, it was sort of a liberal thing to do: Save the world.”
In March 2021, D.C. Circuit Court Judge Laurence Silberman noted the media’s extreme bias against Republicans, and stated that the Democratic Party was close to having a monopolistic control of the press. Some excerpts from his remarks:
Silberman also noted the very few notable exceptions to the otherwise blanket leftism of the press: Fox News, the New York Post, and The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. “It should be sobering for those concerned about news bias that these institutions are controlled by a single man and his son,” he wrote. “Will a lone holdout remain in what is otherwise a frighteningly orthodox media culture? After all, there are serious efforts to muzzle Fox News. And although upstart (mainly online) conservative networks have emerged in recent years, their visibility has been decidedly curtailed by Social Media, either by direct bans or content-based censorship.”
Media Bias Basics
By The Media Research Center
Media Bias 101 (PDF format) (What Journalists Really Think, What the Public Thinks About the Media, & What Journalists Say About Media Bias)
By The Media Research Center
May 2014
A Measure of Media Bias
By Tim Groseclose and Jeff Milyo
November 2005
The Source and Nature of the Media’s Biases: The Lichter-Rothman Study on Media Attitudes
By the American Life League
1992
These Three Charts Confirm Conservatives’ Worst Fears About American Culture
By Andy Kiersz and Hunter Walker
November 3, 2014
The Media Assault on American Values
By The Culture and Media Institute
June 6, 2007
Four Times More Journalists Identify as Liberal Than Conservative
By Media Research Center
March 19, 2008
In the Tank: A Statistical Analysis of Media Bias
By John Perazzo
October 31, 2008
Republicans’ Media Bias Claims Boosted by Scarcity of Right-Leaning Journalists
By Kelly Riddell
November 8, 2015
Media Biased against Conservative Think Tanks
By Danny Huizinga
January 8, 2014
WHAT JOURNALISTS SAY ABOUT MEDIA BIAS:
Media Bias 101 (PDF format) (What Journalists Really Think, What the Public Thinks About the Media, & What Journalists Say About Media Bias)
By The Media Research Center
May 2014
Admissions of Liberal Bias
By The Media Research Center
Denials of Liberal Bias
By The Media Research Center
MEDIA PROFESSIONALS’ ELECTORAL & FINANCIAL SUPPORT OF LEFTIST POLITICAL CANDIDATES:
How the Media Vote
By The Media Research Center
Journalists’ Political Views
By The Media Research Center
Journalists Shower Hillary Clinton with Campaign Cash
By Dave Levinthal and Michael Beckel
October 17, 2016
Big Media Puts Its Money Where Its Mouth Is
By William Tate
July 22, 2008
Obama, Democrats Got 88 Percent of 2008 Contributions by TV Network Execs, Writers, Reporters
By Mark Tapscott
August 28, 2010
125 Reporters Gave Money to Dems/Liberal Causes vs. 17 Reporters Who Gave to GOP Proves News Media’s Leftist Slant
By Media Research Center
June 21, 2007
DC Journalists Favor Kerry 12 to 1
By WorldNetDaily
August 3, 2004
PUBLIC PERCEPTIONS OF MEDIA BIAS:
How the Public Views the Media
By The Media Research Center
Rasmussen Reports: Voters See Media as Liberal, Biased, Too Powerful
By Rich Noyes
January 15, 2010
Gallup Poll: Media Seen as ‘Too Liberal,’ Untrustworthy
By Rich Noyes
October 5, 2009
Poll: Big Majorities Say Objective Journalism Is Dead and that Media Back Obama
By Fred Lucas
September 25, 2009
New Evidence of Liberal Media Bias
By Andrew G. Selepak
November 6, 2006
MEDIA COVERAGE OF SEXUAL ASSAULT ALLEGATIONS
Who Cares if Joe Biden Sexually Assaulted Tara Reade?
By John Perazzo
May 5, 2020
MEDIA COVERAGE OF THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN:
Documenting TV’s Twelve Weeks of Trump Bashing
By NewsBusters.org
October 25, 2016
Hillary Clinton’s Media Fan Club
By NewsBusters.org
June 29, 2016
Journalists Cast Hillary as a Feminist Champion, Battling Sexist America
By NewsBusters.org
July 1, 2016
WikiLeaks Reveals Long List of Media Canoodling with Hillary Clinton
By Lee Stranahan
October 14, 2016
MEDIA COVERAGE OF PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:
News Coverage of Donald Trump’s First 100 Days
By Thomas E. Patterson
May 18, 2017
Even As Media Whine About Trump, Their Hostile Coverage Shows No Let Up
By Rich Noyes
December 12, 2017
Pew Study: Media Bias against Trump Is Real – and Extreme
By Rusty Weiss
October 9, 2017
Numbers Don’t Lie: Media Bias against Trump Is Entrenched, Vicious, Persistent
By Jennifer Harper
June 29, 2017
2017: The Year the News Media Went to War Against a President
By Rich Noyes and Mike Ciandella
January 16, 2018
Pew: Trump Media Three Times More Negative Than for Obama, Just 5 Percent Positive
By Paul Bedard
December 27,
MEDIA COVERAGE OF THE 2008 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN:
Rise and Shine on Democrats: How the ABC, CBS and NBC Morning Shows Are Promoting Democrats on the Road to the White House
By The Media Research Center
August 2007
Omitting for Obama: How the Old Media Deliberately Censored New Media Scoops in 2009
By The Media Research Center
2010
Obama’s Margin of Victory: The Media
By The Media Research Center
2008
Obama’s Media Landslide
By Brent Bozell
October 28, 2008
Major Media Decide — Vote Obama
By Larry Elder
August 28, 2008
Obama’s Edge in the Coverage Race
By Deborah Howell
August 17, 2008
Editing Reverend Wright’s Wrongs: How the Networks Censored and Manipulated Jeremiah Wright Soundbites and Glorified Barack Obama’s Race Speech
By The Media Research Center
2008
Media Elite’s Campaign News More Biased than Talk Radio
By Media Research Center
October 31, 2007
OBSERVATIONS OF EXTREME MEDIA BIAS IN ACTION:
Federal Judge Claims Democrats Are Close to Controlling All Major News Outlets
By Zachary Stieber
March 20, 2021
BOOK:
Unfreedom of the Press
By Mark Levin
2019
Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind
By Tim Groseclose
2012