Via MPR’s Bob Collins, shocking news; most journalists don’t call themselves Republicans:
The research, from two professors at Indiana University, contains mostly “duh” conclusions. Journalists think journalism is going in the wrong direction, newsrooms are shrinking, there aren’t many minority journalists, journalists are most likely to be college graduates, men make more than women, and journalists aren’t very satisfied with their jobs.
The Post’s Chris Cillizza headlines that fewer journalists are Republicans now. Just 7 percent acknowledge that.
You knew it, right? Those Democrats in trench coats.
But here comes the whammy you just knew was coming:
And now, the rest of the story. They’re less likely to be Democrats, too, the study says:
Compared with 2002, the percentage of full-time U.S. journalists who claim to be Democrats has dropped 8 percentage points in 2013 to about 28 percent, moving this figure closer to the overall population percentage of 30 percent, according to a December 12-15, 2013, ABC News/Washington Post national poll of 1,005 adults. This is the lowest percentage of journalists saying they are Democrats since 1971.
MPR included a graphic.
But I’m going to suggest that the study buries the truth in plain sight.
Party affiliation is just one symptom of political belief – and it is an indicator that one can turn on and off and change and re-cast at will. I could call myself a Democrat – a “Sam Nunn Democrat”, what the heck – if I wanted to.
But it wouldn’t explain much about me, or how I cover the news around me. Not accurately, anyway.
But I’d suspect giving journalists a survey like this would be a lot more illuminating:
“For each of the following, assign a number from 1-5, where 1 = “disagree strongly”, 5 = “agree strongly”, and 3 = “I’m ambivalent.
1. I believe that “progressive” ideas are usually wrong, and that new ideas should prove themselves before being adopted.
2. Life begins at conception.
3. Education should be localized, if not privatized.
4. Social security should move into the private equity market.
5. The Second Amendment is a right of the people, and does not refer primarily to the police or military.
6. Marriage is primarily about having and raising children.
7. The Federal Government is too powerful; more power should be devolved down to the states, counties, municipalities, and to The People.
8. The nation has need for Natioanal Heath Insurance; Obamacare is a fiasco and should be repealed as quickly and completely as possible.
9. Any government function that can be performed by three or more people in your local Yellow Pages should be eliminated from the public payroll.
10. The state has no business subsidizing businesses (including public media).
Note that none of those ten questions ask anyone’s party affiliation – but they measure the the extent to which someone believes in the free market or statism.
And while the number of “Democrats” may have shrunk (they outnumber Republicans in the media 4:1), I’m going to guess the number of people with scores in the twenties on my test outnumber those with scores in the forties by a solid 5:1.
ADDITION: A comment below reminded me – while a large number of journalists refer to themselves as “independents” and always have, surveys (especially the seminalLATimessurveys in the eighties and nineties) showed the vast majority of journos who call themselves “independent” but vote Democrat is almost as large as the proportion of stated Democrats versus Republicans.
Affiliation isn’t the issue; belief, underlying belief and expressed bias are.
Or terms. Do you call gay marriage, “homosexual marriage”, “changing the definition of marriage”, or “marriage equity”.
Silly Berg! Less democrats means more republicans. Can’t you read a simple bar graph?
Of course I am independent! Just because the Independent party never has a candidate and I always end up pulling the lever, punching the chad, filling the dot for the Democratic candidate means nothing… ,(/sarc)
I agree with Loren. “Independent” is a cop-out in this case.
1. Most journalists will tell you they are “independent thinkers.”
2. Journalists lie like rugs.
3. Most journalists will tell you they are “nuanced.”
4. Most journalists have no clue what “nuanced” means.
5. Most journalists believe ‘the 5 W’s’ begin with WTF.
#8 seems a little bit confusing. Do we libertarians believe in a need for national health insurance? Otherwise, 45/45, and I’d guess most journalists score below 15.
Here is the study the NPR/ WaPo stories were based on:
http://news.indiana.edu/releases/iu/2014/05/2013-american-journalist-key-findings.pdf
The dem/independent/GOP finding isn’t remarkable. Other finding are:
In 1971, 58.2% of working journalists had college degrees. In 2013 92.1% of working journalists had college degrees. Assuming that journalists with college degrees started there careers immediately after graduating, this means that far fewer journalists have “real world” experience than they had four decades ago. Another interpretation could be that as small-town, independent newspapers have gone away, the remaining professional journalists tend to be concentrated in the large metropolitan areas. In any case, journalists are less representative of the nation’s population as a whole than they used to be.
Also, consider these two findings as complimentary: “More journalists value ‘analyzing complex problems'” (68%, up 20% since 1992), while the importance of “Getting information to the public quickly” has dropped from 68% to 47% in the same time period.
The implication is that journalists in 2013 are much more likely to consider themselves policy analysts and advisers than they were twenty years ago.
Most journalist independents are somewhere around Independent Bernie Sanders in political ideology.
I just saw something–made the mistake of visiting the Huffington Post–and quite frankly it appalls me. They have an article out today talking about how unfair it is that a man is having trouble paying for groceries after paying for rent, electric, gas, water, and…..cable TV.
In other words, we have reporters out there who have absolutely no clue that cable TV is not a necessity. (better not tell my kids, ’cause I don’t have it)