HOW FAR LEFT ARE JOURNALISTS?
Everyone knows that journalists tilt to the left, but this paper makes an interesting effort to quantify journalists’ biases. This chart shows the political self-identification of journalists (those, that is, who don’t claim to be scrupulously neutral):
This one is based on original research; the authors counted whom journalists follow on Twitter. Their conclusion is that the average journalist falls somewhere between Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:
Twitter is relevant in another way too, I think. An amazing number of journalists have outed themselves as crazed “resisters” on Twitter. It is a totally self-inflicted wound, but they apparently can’t help themselves. Gone are the days when journalists pulled thoughtfully on their chins and purported to analyze events objectively so the rest of us wouldn’t have to.
The funny thing about this study is that it purports to show that even though journalists are overwhelmingly liberal, their political bias doesn’t affect the stories they choose to cover or not cover. Which is why the press paid a hundred times as much attention to the biggest political scandal in US history, the coordinated effort by the CIA, the FBI and the Department of Justice to swing the 2016 election to Hillary Clinton, or, failing that, to disable the Trump presidency, as to the entirely fabricated, implausible and politically paid-for fantasy that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians. Right?
The authors’ claim can only be viewed as ludicrous by anyone who follows the news. If I get around to it, I may deconstruct that part of the paper, but I am not sure it would be worth the time.
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