posted November 30, 2004 10:16 AM            

Secretary Colin Powell, the State Department and the CIA -- not Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld -- are responsible for the chaos that has grown out of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, says Richard Perle, the former chairman of Pentagon's Defense Policy Review Board.

Appearing on Fox News' O’Reilly Factor Monday night, Perle said the U.S. made a most serious mistake after Iraq was liberated and the "keys" were not handed over immediately to Iraqis to run their own country.

Thus, the U.S. military became an occupying force -- and an increasibly unpopular one.
"We didn’t hand the keys over to the Iraqis. Instead we embarked on what became an extended occupation. That was fundamentally mistaken – it was politically driven," Perle said.

Perle's remarks places significant distance between post war policies and neo-conservatives like himself who have backed the war and have been championed in the Bush administration by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, and Vice President Cheney.

Perle told O'Reilly the idea of a military occupation was not the Pentagon's original plan.

"It was not Don Rumsfeld’s decision," he said.

Asked by O’Reilly if handing the keys over to the Iraqis after deposing Saddam would have sparked a civil war between the Sunnis, Kurds and the Shiites, Perle said he didn’t think so. He noted that there were already groups of anti-Saddam Iraqis in place when the dictator fell.

"There was an umbrella group of opposition figures. It included Shia, Sunnis, Kurds and in the end of course we did turn to the Iraqis. We asked them to form a governing council, then an interim government, but we made the big mistake of not trusting the Iraqis.

"I’m not saying that everything would have worked out but everything certainly didn’t work out the way we did it. My own view is we should have supported a government in exile even before going into Iraq."

O’Reilly asked how much responsibility Rumsfeld bears for the current situation in Iraq.

"I think the conduct of the war was brilliant," Perle observed. "The campaign will go down in history as on of the greatest military campaigns ever. Saddam was removed and his regime fell within three weeks.

"The problems didn’t start immediately after Saddam’s removal. The problems started when the occupation began to wear on the people and that was predictable."

When O’Reilly cited Colin Powell as a dissenting voice who warned the President that if "you break it [Iraq], you’ll own it," Perle said "the irony is that it was Secretary Powell and some others who wanted the extended occupation. They are the ones who did not want to turn things over to the Iraqis, who feared and distrusted the Iraqis and blocked all efforts to do precisely that."

Perle then revealed that even before the war Rumsfeld’s Department of Defense had argued that we should train thousands of Iraqis "to go in with us so that we wouldn’t be the aggressor, we wouldn’t be the occupying power, and those proposals were blocked largely by the State Department and the CIA. Rumsfeld was never able to get approval for the political strategy that might well have saved us from much of the subsequent trouble."

Responding to O’Reilly’s remark that the we are now seen as the "bad guys," Perle said that the situation in Iraq can be cleaned up.

posted December 02, 2004 07:31 AM              

I've noticed how much you like Global Unity but having most of the time the same source...
What about check something new and see things around from slightly different side...it's always worth while.
I hope you enjoy those
www.antiwar.com www.informationclearinghouse.com www.Z-net

posted December 02, 2004 04:24 PM              

BTW, I don't know if you saw that I responded to your question about my Sun/Moon/Asc. I'll be that Danielle gal is a super duper cool chick

posted December 03, 2004 01:13 AM            

Perhaps you'd care to post some of what you consider propaganda from Fox News to back up your assertion.

posted December 04, 2004 02:38 AM              

And you know, jwhop, you don't have to be a leftist or a pacificist to read 'pacifist' material. I've been reading the articles you post for quite a while and they have convinced me of nothing except your own isolation from real news.

posted December 04, 2004 02:40 AM              

"The art of true diplomacy is knowing when to shut up and start shooting." -jwhop

One gets the feeling jwhop does not have much experience with real diplomacy, i.e. diplomacy that works.

posted December 04, 2004 09:52 AM            

Allegations of bias at Fox News are common on the Internet but today, I came across a comment about Fox News that, if true, would go far beyond simple bias.

I am supplying the exact wording of the allegation, which is not my allegation, and would appreciate your comments as to it's truthfulness. To paraphrase the allegation, Fox News anchors opened the news with comments like this:

Good evening, I'm _________. Today is October _____. Only _______ more days until America reelects George W. Bush.

On it's face, the allegation seems absurd and outrageous and appears to be the wild babbling of a leftist lunatic ranting against the Fox News assurance of being "fair and balanced."

I cannot imagine the news division of a major network destroying their credibility by permitting news anchors to get even close to the alleged statement, so your response would be appreciated.

jwhop

posted December 04, 2004 12:15 PM            

quote:

---

And you know, jwhop, you don't have to be a leftist or a pacificist to read 'pacifist' material. I've been reading the articles you post for quite a while and they have convinced me of nothing except your own isolation from real news.

---

Perhaps you're talking about the real news from Dan Rather who used forged documents in an attempt to bring down a President?

Or perhaps the real news which attempted in every way to throw the election to the traitor John Kerry?

Or perhaps the real news from reporters who vote over 90% for Democrats?

Or perhaps the real news from the lying bloated airhead, Michael Moore?

Or perhaps the real news from the foreign and domestic policy experts in Hollywood?

You are entirely mistaken if you think for a moment I'm trying to convert anyone. When it comes to leftists, I put them in the same category as high school seniors.

You can always tell a senior
by their smug, self satisfied smile
that they have the answers
to all life's questions
infallible in all their beliefs

Yes, you can always tell a senior
you just can't tell them much

posted December 04, 2004 06:50 PM              

"I cannot imagine the news division of a major network destroying their credibility by permitting news anchors to get even close to the alleged statement, so your response would be appreciated." -jwhop

It is entirely possible you will receive an email from Fox denying that such a thing ever happened. In that case, Fox is lying (and probably not for the first time). Statements generally similar to that which you suggested were made, and I know because I know people who watch Fox and they told me.

As usual, you cling to the idea that the moderate media are 'liberal-biased'. They are not; if they were, why would they have reported the allegations by the Swift Veterans for Truth about Kerry's Vietnam service, when it could only hurt Kerry? They wouldn't have. They would have reported only glowing stories of Kerry's bravery. Why would they have reported the Rather-gate scandal, when to leave it unreported would have hurt Bush? They wouldn't have. If the 'liberal' media were truly liberal-biased, it could have reported only bad things about Bush and good things about Kerry, and Kerry would have won the election.

People in the media are informed. They know quite a lot about everything. Being well-informed leads to intelligent voting choices. Maybe the voting habits of the media reflect not their bais, but what their perspective convinces them of.

Jwhop, you ridicule leftists for thinking they know all the answers. You do a pretty good job of 'knowing all the answers' yourself. Try an open mind and some humility.

posted December 05, 2004 12:01 AM            

Are you always as discerning about the sources you are willing to believe? If this is your usual practice, it wouldn't surprise me if most of what you know to be absolute fact isn't even true...or any more true than your assertion about Fox News.

Congratulations, seldom have I come across as much misrepresentation in one post as you've managed to cram into yours.

First the major media in America is in no way moderate. They're leftist to the core.

Second, the major media did not report the Swift Boat story. They didn't even attend the news briefing the Swift Boat Veterans held. Later, they had to report on the story because Swift Boat Veterans ads began airing on television. Instead of asking Kerry about the allegations, they attacked the Swift Boat Veterans and attempted to destroy their credibility.....even when it was proven that Kerry was never in Cambodia...on Christmas or any other day and even when Kerry's diary entries were found to be in conflict with his on the record statements. In fact, the press never asked Kerry any questions nor did they ever suggest Kerry should sign a form 180 to make his military records available. Of course the same press hounded Bush to the ends of the earth...even after he made all his military records available by signing the same form 180 that Kerry refused to sign.

Third, the Rather forged documents story was in the press and on the record because Rather himself started it. Almost immediately, the story was taken up on the Internet and it couldn't be ignored. Too many experts were coming forward saying the documents were forged. You would have us believe the story was driven by the press...which is not at all true. They had no choice.

Fourth, there was a daily barrage of stories coming out of Iraq...all of them bad and ignoring the good being done by coalition forces and contractors there.

Fifth, the ratio of positive Kerry stories was about 71% to 29% negative with almost the exact reverse ratios being reported about Bush. Remarkable bias wouldn't you agree?

Sixth, the press sat on story after story and didn't report them at all. So much for what they know, which I don't give a damn about. I'm only interested in what they reported. You may think them all rocket scientists but in my opinion, they couldn't find their collective $sses with both hands.

Seventh, the job of the press is to accurately report the news, not their opinions. Opinions are for the op-ed pages and has no place in straight news stories.

Eighth, leftists are the most misinformed people in America. Mainly because of where they choose to get their news and that's always from sources that agree with their own bias.

To prove my point QS, name one single positive thing John Kerry did in his 20 years of Senate tenure that benefited America. I can reel off at least 30 things he did that was aimed directly against the interests of America and mine are easily proved because they're all on the public record.

posted December 06, 2004 02:22 AM              

"So QS, you didn't actually see or hear Fox News anchors say what you said they said. You heard it through the grapevine. How nice." -jwhop

jwhop, everything you read- everything- is hearsay. Your news sources are no more objective than my friend who tells me what he saw on TV last night. You believe what a reporter working for the widely respected NewsMax organization writes, though you do not know him and have no idea of his credibility. My friend had no reason to lie about what he saw and I know he is credible. He did see it, and it a perfectly reliable account.

"Are you always as discerning about the sources you are willing to believe? If this is your usual practice, it wouldn't surprise me if most of what you know to be absolute fact isn't even true...or any more true than your assertion about Fox News." -jwhop

I consider myself to be a discerning chooser of sources. I would never go near any of the crap you patronize.

"Congratulations, seldom have I come across as much misrepresentation in one post as you've managed to cram into yours." -jwhop

Why thank you, I take you to mean then that all of it is true.

"First the major media in America is in no way moderate. They're leftist to the core." -jwhop

Haha, bs. I just proved they weren't and I will again.

"Second, the major media did not report the Swift Boat story. They didn't even attend the news briefing the Swift Boat Veterans held. Later, they had to report on the story because Swift Boat Veterans ads began airing on television. Instead of asking Kerry about the allegations, they attacked the Swift Boat Veterans and attempted to destroy their credibility.....even when it was proven that Kerry was never in Cambodia...on Christmas or any other day and even when Kerry's diary entries were found to be in conflict with his on the record statements. In fact, the press never asked Kerry any questions nor did they ever suggest Kerry should sign a form 180 to make his military records available. Of course the same press hounded Bush to the ends of the earth...even after he made all his military records available by signing the same form 180 that Kerry refused to sign."

That paragraph has at least five lies in it. First, the press did report the Swift Boat story. How do I know? Because I read it in the press. Apparently, you don't go near enough a good newspaper to know what's being reported. Second, the press didn't have to report the Swift Boat story. They never have to report anything. They reported it because it was news, and news is their job. Third, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth never had any credibility. They were funded by Bush's friends and, only a few years before, many of them had gone on the record stating what a hero Kerry was [source: Sacramento Bee]. What hypocrites. Fourth, it was not proven that Kerry was not in Cambodia. It was proven only that it could not be proven that he was [source: SacBee]. Fifth, journalists did ask Kerry to release his military records- his failure to was widely noted and commented on. Most hilariously, you assert

"In fact, the press never asked Kerry any questions..."

when clearly they did. The press asked Kerry questions. It is completely undeniable. Whoopsies.

"Third, the Rather forged documents story was in the press and on the record because Rather himself started it. Almost immediately, the story was taken up on the Internet and it couldn't be ignored. Too many experts were coming forward saying the documents were forged. You would have us believe the story was driven by the press...which is not at all true. They had no choice." -jwhop

Again, the press never has to report anything. Are you aware of some of the stories that have never been reported? There are many of them, and you're about to mention them below. The press never has to report anything. But they did report this story, to Bush's benefit. So much for their 'bias'.

"Fourth, there was a daily barrage of stories coming out of Iraq...all of them bad and ignoring the good being done by coalition forces and contractors there." -jwhop

There are plenty of stories about the good being done in Iraq, jwhop. I'm sure we've all read about the new sewers and schools and hospitals, etcetera and et al. Yawn.

"Fifth, the ratio of positive Kerry stories was about 71% to 29% negative with almost the exact reverse ratios being reported about Bush. Remarkable bias wouldn't you agree?" -jwhop

Actually, I wouldn't. What is your source for this? I have a feeling some Republican pulled it out of his rectum.

"Sixth, the press sat on story after story and didn't report them at all. So much for what they know, which I don't give a damn about. I'm only interested in what they reported. You may think them all rocket scientists but in my opinion, they couldn't find their collective $sses with both hands." -jwhop

The press sits on dozens of stories, as I pointed out above. Do you think they can report everything that happens in the world? Well, maybe, if the world consists of your backyard and the White House. But it's actually a lot bigger than that.

"Seventh, the job of the press is to accurately report the news, not their opinions. Opinions are for the op-ed pages and has no place in straight news stories." -jwhop

The press does not report opinion. That's what your favorite news sources do.

"Eighth, leftists are the most misinformed people in America. Mainly because of where they choose to get their news and that's always from sources that agree with their own bias." -jwhop

Well, see, basically that's the problem. Your news sources are tremendously insular and biased, yet you think they and you aren't. Jesus, it's hypocritical. Do you own any mirrors?

"To prove my point QS, name one single positive thing John Kerry did in his 20 years of Senate tenure that benefited America. I can reel off at least 30 things he did that was aimed directly against the interests of America and mine are easily proved because they're all on the public record." -jwhop

He went to Vietnam and put to rest the question of POWs/MIAs there left over from the war. It was a huge service to the widows and families of the servicemen who had never come back, giving them closure. There, I've named one thing. Now, prove to us all how much you hate Kerry and enumerate those 30 others.

"So QS, you're a junior. Would it interest you to know that there was a time in America when students had to actually prove they knew the subject matter of the grade they were in before advancing to the next grade? That required them to have some reasoning ability and judgment. Something sadly lacking in the school system now. For instance QS, using your friends as a source for your "facts" about Fox News wouldn't cut the mustard.....it still doesn't " -jwhop

I doubt you ever had to prove anything in school. If you had, you wouldn't be such a miserable debater. You condescend to me, even though I've discredited every argument you put forward. I would suspect that condescension is a cover for your own inadequacy. Being old doesn't make you right, and it's hardly an excuse when you're wrong.

posted December 06, 2004 10:09 AM            

Further, if you think you've been demeaned by comments questioning your source...friends for your allegation about Fox News, then you might want to question your friends more closely.

Alternatively, you can post...and I sincerely hope you will, stories from the NY Times, Washington Times, LA Times, or any other major news media outlet which specifically report that Fox News anchors ever said the following: only _____ days until George Bush is reelected. If it ever happened, you should not have any problem finding the stories since the major media despise Fox News...which has been eroding their viewer and reader bases and wouldn't miss an opportunity to give Fox News a black eye.

Nor are you going to get away with assertions that everything we see and hear are hearsay. It is not hearsay when eyewitnesses or actual listeners report what they saw or heard or when public figures make public statements which are reported in the News...or elsewhere.

To sustain your position, you can post stories showing the major media interviewed John Kerry and asked Kerry:

to release his military records by signing a form 180.

directly questioned Kerry about his assertion he was in Cambodia on Christmas Day.

directly questioned Kerry about his assertion that Nixon sent him into Cambodia...when Nixon wasn't even President at the time Kerry asserted Nixon sent him.

directly questioned Kerry about the conflicts between his public statements and his diary entries written when he was in Vietnam.

These should be simple tasks for you to back up your assertions. Please don't come back and say the dog ate your homework. BTW, I'm talking about actual interviews where reporters actually asked Kerry the questions I've listed or similar questions. There was a press contingent with Kerry every step of his campaign. Any one of those questions would have blown John Kerry completely out of the water but were never asked by the major media in any interview with Kerry but certainly should have been, given Kerry was running for President on his Vietnam war record.

Hello, I'm John Kerry. Did I mention I'm a decorated Vietnam War vet?

The posts which follow are reports on the political leanings of the American Press. The reports are summaries of reports done by the Times Mirror organization which later became the Pew organization. The Pew people are themselves liberal to the bone so please don't even suggest their reports have a conservative bias.

posted December 06, 2004 10:20 AM            

By Rich Noyes
Director of Research
June 30, 2004
Section 1 of 4

Over the next four months, the media establishment will play a central role in informing the public about the candidates and the issues. As the countdown to Election Day begins, it is important to remember the journalists who will help establish the campaign agenda are not an all-American mix of Democrats, Republicans and independents, but an elite group whose views veer sharply to the left.

Most journalists deny that their profession is stacked with liberals. “I’ve worked around reporters all my life,” CBS anchor Dan Rather declared in an appearance on The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder back on February 8, 1995. “Most reporters, when you get to know them, would fall in the general category of kind of common sense moderates.”

ABC’s Peter Jennings echoed Rather. “We are largely in the center without particular axes to grind, without ideologies which are represented in our daily coverage — at least certainly not on purpose,” Jennings told CNN’s Larry King on May 15, 2001.

“The idea that we would set out, consciously or unconsciously, to put some kind of ideological framework over what we’re doing is nonsense,” NBC’s Tom Brokaw similarly declared on C-SPAN just a few days later, on May 24, 2001.

But study after study shows that Rather, Jennings and Brokaw are wrong: the newsrooms of major media outlets are not filled with non-ideological “common sense moderates,” nor do they reflect a diverse range of ideological viewpoints. Surveys over the past 25 years have consistently found journalists are much more liberal than rest of America. Their voting habits are disproportionately Democratic, their views on issues such as abortion and gay rights are well to the left of most Americans and they are less likely to attend church or synagogue. When it comes to the free market, journalists have become increasingly pro-regulation over the past 20 years, with majorities endorsing activist government efforts to guarantee everyone a job and to reduce the income gap between rich and poor Americans.

This MRC Special Report summarizes the relevant data on journalists’ attitudes, as well as polling showing how the American public’s recognition of the media’s liberal bias has grown over the years.

Journalists on Election Day: Pulling the Democratic Lever

Between 1964 and 1992, Republicans won the White House five times compared with three Democratic victories. But if only journalists’ ballots were counted, the Democrats would have won every single election.

In their 1986 book, The Media Elite, political scientists S. Robert Lichter, Stanley Rothman and Linda S. Lichter reported the results of their survey of 240 journalists at the nation’s top media outlets: ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report. When asked about their voting patterns, journalists admitted their preference for Democrats:

Of those who say they voted for major party candidates, the proportion of leading journalists who supported the Democratic candidate never drops below 80 percent. In 1972, when more than 60 percent of all voters chose Nixon, over 80 percent among the media elite voted for McGovern. This does not appear to reflect any unique aversion to Nixon. Despite the well-publicized tensions between the press and his administration, leading journalists in 1976 preferred Carter over Ford by the same margin. In fact, in the Democratic landslide of 1964, journalists picked Johnson over Goldwater by a sixteen-to-one margin, or 94 to 6 percent.

Lichter’s team focused on journalists at the very top national news organizations. Other surveys of journalists have discovered that the whole profession shares the same liberal bent, although the media elite’s liberalism is the most extreme:

Journalists Picked Carter over Reagan:

In 1982, scholars at California State University at Los Angeles asked reporters from the fifty largest newspapers for whom they voted in 1980. The breakdown: 51 percent cast a ballot for President Jimmy Carter and another 24 percent chose independent candidate (and liberal Republican Congressman) John Anderson. Only 25 percent picked conservative Ronald Reagan, who won 51 percent of the public’s vote that year.

Journalists Picked Mondale over Reagan:

In 1985, the Los Angeles Times polled news and editorial staffers at newspapers around the country, weighting the sample so that newspapers with large circulations were more heavily represented. Once again, pollsters discovered a heavy Democratic skew. When asked how they voted in the 1984 election, more than twice as many chose liberal Walter Mondale (58 percent) over the conservative incumbent Ronald Reagan (26 percent), even as the country picked Reagan in a 59 to 41 percent landslide.

The White House Press Corps Voted for Democrats:

In early 1995, Ken Walsh of U.S. News & World Report asked his fellow White House reporters to fill out a survey for a book he was writing; 28 returned his questionnaire. He concluded that “the White House press corps is overwhelmingly Democratic, confirming a stereotype often promoted by Republicans.” Interestingly, he also learned how much reporters dislike being on the receiving end of personal inquiries: “Even though the survey was anonymous, many journalists declined to reveal their party affiliations, whom they voted for in recent presidential elections, and other data they regarded as too personal — even though they regularly pressure Presidents and other officials to make such disclosures,” Walsh related in his 1996 book, Feeding the Beast: The White House Versus the Press.

So what did the few forthright scribes reveal? As with larger, more scientific surveys, Walsh discovered “evidence of an overwhelming preference for Democrats in presidential elections. In 1992, nine respondents voted for Clinton, two for George Bush, and one for independent Ross Perot....In 1988, twelve voted for Democrat Michael Dukakis, only one for Bush....In 1984, ten voted for Democrat Walter Mondale, [and] no one admitted voting for Ronald Reagan....In 1980, eight voted for Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter, two voted for Ronald Reagan, four voted for independent candidate John Anderson....In 1976, eleven voted for Carter and two for Republican incumbent Gerald Ford.” That adds up to 50 votes for Democrats and just seven for Republicans, a seven-to-one ratio in favor of the Democrats.

Huge Majorities for Dukakis and Clinton:
In 2001, Stanley Rothman and Amy E. Black updated the Media Elite’s survey of journalists, and learned that reporters continued to select Democrats. “Three-quarters of elite journalists (76.1 percent)...voted for Michael Dukakis in 1988, and even larger percentages (91.3 percent)...cast ballots for Bill Clinton in 1992,” they reported in the Spring 2001 edition of The Public Interest. Voters were far less exuberant about those liberal candidates, as just 46 percent chose Dukakis and only 43 percent picked Clinton, who nevertheless won a three-way race.

Nine Out of Ten Reporters Voted for Clinton:

Rothman and Black’s survey closely matched a Freedom Forum poll of Washington bureau chiefs and congressional correspondents, which found 89 percent had voted for Clinton in the 1992 election, compared with seven percent for President Bush and two percent for Ross Perot. “In no state or region, among no race or class, did support for Clinton predominate more lopsidedly than among this sample of 139 journalists who either cover Congress or head a Washington bureau,” summarized Minneapolis Star-Tribune media writer Eric Black in an August 18, 1996 article.

The Freedom Forum was not aiming to embarrass journalists by quantifying their liberalism. The report, on relations between Capitol Hill staffers and Washington, D.C. reporters, was released in April 1996, and the data on journalists’ voting pattern was buried in an appendix. The study’s director, former Chicago Tribune reporter Elaine Povich, gamely asserted that reporters’ heavy preference for Bill Clinton did not mean that journalists’ were incapable of being objective. “One of the things about being a professional is that you attempt to leave your personal feelings aside as you do your work,” Povich told the Washington Times on April 18, 1996.

Taken as a whole, these polls firmly establish the press’s pattern of preferring Democrats at the voting booth. During the eight presidential elections for which data on the media’s preferences are available, each Democrat won landslide support from journalists, sometimes by four-to-one or five-to-one margins. The percentage of reporters selecting the GOP candidate never exceeded 26 percent, even as the public chose Republicans in five of the eight elections, with margins of support ranging from a low of 38 percent (Bush in 1992) to a high of 61 percent (Nixon in 1972).

At a minimum, these statistics portray a media elite whose political thinking is to the left of most Americans. Hosting CNN’s Reliable Sources on April 21, 1996, Washington Post media writer Howard Kurtz reacted to the Freedom Forum’s poll: “Clearly anybody looking at those numbers, if they’re even close to accurate, would conclude that there is a diversity problem in the news business, and it’s not just the kind of diversity we usually talk about, which is not getting enough minorities in the news business, but political diversity, as well. Anybody who doesn’t see that is just in denial.”

http://www.mediaresearch.org/SpecialReports/2004/report063004_p1.asp

posted December 06, 2004 10:30 AM            

By Rich Noyes
Director of Research
June 30, 2004
Section 2 of 4

Few Reporters Describe Themselves as Conservatives

It’s not just on Election Day: many of these same surveys and others have asked journalists to describe their political attitudes, and each time the researchers detected the same liberal skew:

• Washington Reporters, 2-to-1 Liberal: The Brookings Institution’s Stephen Hess surveyed the Washington press corps in 1978 for his aptly-titled book, The Washington Reporters. More than twice as many journalists told Hess they were liberal (42 percent) as said they were conservative (19 percent). As for the public, even back in 1978 self-identified conservatives outnumbered liberals by a 31 to 26 percent margin, according to the General Social Survey taken annually by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC).

• The Media Elite, 3-to-1 Liberal: Lichter and Rothman’s Media Elite surveys were conducted shortly after Hess’s; they, too, showed top reporters disproportionately described themselves as liberals. According to the authors, “a majority [of leading journalists] see themselves as liberals. Fifty-four percent place themselves to the left of center, compared to only 17 percent who choose the right side of the spectrum....When they rate their fellow workers, an even greater difference emerges. Fifty-six percent say the people they work with are mostly on the Left, and only eight percent place their co-workers on the Right — a margin of seven to one.”

• Prominent News Organizations Are the Most Liberal: A pair of Indiana University journalism professors, David H. Weaver and G. Cleveland Wilhoit, surveyed more than 1,000 journalists for their 1986 book, The American Journalist. Their poll included more than just top reporters, and, overall, they detected only a modest skew towards the liberal side of the spectrum — 22 percent of those interviewed called themselves liberal, compared with 19 percent who said they were conservative.

But among 136 executives and staffers at “prominent news organizations” — the three weekly newsmagazines, the AP and UPI wire services and the Boston Globe — the tilt was much more pronounced, with liberals outnumbering conservatives by a more than two-to-one margin (32 to 12 percent). Only six percent of this group identified themselves as Republican, compared with seven times as many (43 percent) who said they were Democrats.

• Nationwide, a 3-to-1 Liberal Advantage: When the Los Angeles Times polled journalists around the country in 1985, 55 percent were willing to call themselves liberal, far outstripping the 17 percent who said they were conservative.

• Becoming Even More Liberal: In 1992, Weaver and Wilhoit conducted another national survey of journalists, and noticed the group had moved farther to the left. Writing in the Fall 1992 Media Studies Journal, they pointed out that 47 percent of journalists now said they were “liberal,” while only 22 percent labeled themselves as “conservative.”

• Six Times as Many Liberals as Conservatives: The Freedom Forum’s 1996 poll of Washington bureau chiefs and congressional correspondents found 61 percent labeled themselves as “liberal” or “liberal to moderate,” compared with only nine percent who chose either “conservative” or “moderate to conservative.”

• Business Reporters Are Liberal, Too: As for the notion that business reporters might be more conservative than their brethren on the political beat, that possibility was put to rest by a 1988 poll by a New-York based newsletter, The Journalist and Financial Reporting. The survey of 151 business reporters from newspapers such as the New York Times and USA Today, and business-focused magazines such as Money, Fortune and BusinessWeek, discovered six times as many self-identified Democrats as Republicans — 54 percent versus nine percent.

• Editors Group Noted the Growing Imbalance: In 1996, the American Society of Newspaper Editors surveyed 1,037 journalists at 61 newspapers. They learned that newsrooms were more ideologically unrepresentative than they had been in the late 1980s: “In 1996 only 15 percent of the newsroom labeled itself conservative/Republican or leaning in that direction, down from 22 percent in 1988,” when the ASNE last conducted a comprehensive survey. Those identifying themselves as independent jumped from 17 to 24 percent while the percent calling themselves “liberal/Democrat” or leaning left held steady, down one point to 61 percent.

The ASNE report, The Newspaper Journalists of the ‘90s, also revealed that bigger — presumably more influential — newspapers had the most liberal staffs: “On papers of at least 50,000 circulation, 65 percent of the staffs are liberal/Democrat or lean that way. The split at papers of less than 50,000 is less pronounced: still predominantly liberal, but 51-23 percent.”

In a sign that the media’s desire for demographic diversity might result in even more solidly liberal newsrooms, ASNE also found that “women are more likely than men to fall into one of the liberal/Democrat categories,” as just 11 percent said they were conservative or leaned that way. Minorities also “tend to be more liberal/Democrat,” with a piddling 3 percent of blacks and 8 percent of Asians and Hispanics putting themselves on the right.

• Public Far More Conservative: In the July/August 2001 edition of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research’s journal Public Perspective, Washington Post national political reporter Thomas Edsall summarized the results of a poll of 301 media professionals taken earlier that year by Princeton Survey Research Associates (PRSA) and sponsored by the Kaiser Family Foundation. “The media diverge from both the public and from the policymaking community in terms of partisanship and ideology,” Edsall reported. “Only a tiny fraction of the media identifies itself as either Republican (4 percent) or conservative (6 percent). This is in direct contrast to the public, which identifies itself as 28 percent Republican and 35 percent conservative.”

• The Liberal Advantage Has Grown: In May 2004, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press released a survey of 547 journalists and news media executives, including 247 who worked for national news organizations. The poll reprised many of the questions asked by the same group (then called the Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press) back in 1995.

Pew found that the proportion of liberals in the national media had actually grown over the previous nine years, from 22 percent in 1995 to 34 percent in 2004. Meanwhile, the percentage of conservatives remained minuscule: just four percent in 1995, seven percent in 2004. As for local reporters, liberals outnumbered conservatives by a nearly two-to-one margin (23 to 12 percent).

Pew also asked journalists to name a news organization that seemed to cover the news from an especially liberal or especially conservative angle. When it came to a liberal new outlet, most of the national journalists were stumped. A fifth suggested the New York Times was liberal; ABC, CBS, CNN and NPR were each named by two percent. One percent of reporters said NBC was liberal.

But journalists did see ideology at one outlet: “The single news outlet that strikes most journalists as taking a particular ideological stance — either liberal or conservative — is Fox News Channel,” Pew reported. More than two-thirds of national journalists (69 percent) tagged FNC as a conservative news organization, followed by the Washington Times (9 percent) and the Wall Street Journal (8 percent).
http://www.mediaresearch.org/SpecialReports/2004/report063004_p2.asp