Putting Money Where Mouths Are: Media Donations Favor Dems 100-1

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Putting Money Where Mouths Are: Media Donations Favor Dems 100-1
By WILLIAM TATE | Posted Wednesday, July 23, 2008 4:20 PM PT

The New York Times' refusal to publish John McCain's rebuttal to Barack Obama's Iraq op-ed may be the most glaring example of liberal media bias this journalist has ever seen. But true proof of widespread media bias requires one to follow an old journalism maxim: Follow the money.

Even the Associated Press — no bastion of conservatism — has considered, at least superficially, the media's favoritism for Barack Obama. It's time to revisit media bias.

True to form, journalists are defending their bias by saying that one candidate, Obama, is more newsworthy than the other. In other words, there is no media bias. It is we, the hoi polloi, who reveal our bias by questioning the neutrality of these learned professionals in their ivory-towered newsrooms.

Big Media applies this rationalization to every argument used to point out bias. "It's not a result of bias," they say. "It's a matter of news judgment."

And, like the man who knows his wallet was pickpocketed but can't prove it, the public is left to futilely rage against the injustice of it all.

The "newsworthy" argument can be applied to every metric — one-sided imbalances in airtime, story placement, column inches, number of stories, etc. — save one.

An analysis of federal records shows that the amount of money journalists contributed so far this election cycle favors Democrats by a 15:1 ratio over Republicans, with $225,563 going to Democrats, only $16,298 to Republicans .

Two-hundred thirty-five journalists donated to Democrats, just 20 gave to Republicans — a margin greater than 10-to-1. An even greater disparity, 20-to-1, exists between the number of journalists who donated to Barack Obama and John McCain.

Searches for other newsroom categories (reporters, correspondents, news editors, anchors, newspaper editors and publishers) produces 311 donors to Democrats to 30 donors to Republicans, a ratio of just over 10-to-1. In terms of money, $279,266 went to Dems, $20,709 to Republicans, a 14-to-1 ratio.

And while the money totals pale in comparison to the $9-million-plus that just one union's PACs have spent to get Obama elected, they are more substantial than the amount that Obama has criticized John McCain for receiving from lobbyists: 96 lobbyists have contributed $95,850 to McCain, while Obama — who says he won't take money from PACs or federal lobbyists — has received $16,223 from 29 lobbyists.

A few journalists list their employer as an organization like MSNBC, MSNBC.com or ABC News, or report that they're freelancers for the New York Times, or are journalists for Al Jazeera, CNN Turkey, Deutsche Welle Radio or La Republica of Rome (all contributions to Obama). Most report no employer. They're mainly freelancers. That's because most major news organization have policies that forbid newsroom employees from making political donations.

As if to warn their colleagues in the media, MSNBC last summer ran a story on journalists' contributions to political candidates that drew a similar conclusion:

"Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left."

The timing of that article was rather curious. Dated June 25, 2007, it appeared during the middle of the summer news doldrums in a non-election year — timing that was sure to minimize its impact among the general public, while still warning newsrooms across the country that such political donations can be checked.

In case that was too subtle, MSNBC ran a sidebar story detailing cautionary tales of reporters who lost their jobs or were otherwise negatively impacted because their donations became public.

As if to warn their comrades-in-news against putting their money where their mouth is, the report also cautioned that, with the Internet, "it became easier for the blogging public to look up the donors."

It went on to detail the ban that most major media organizations have against newsroom employees donating to political campaigns, a ban that raises some obvious First Amendment issues. Whether it's intentional or not, the ban makes it difficult to verify the political leanings of Big Media reporters, editors and producers. There are two logical ways to extrapolate what those leanings are, though.

One is the overwhelming nature of the above statistics. Given the pack mentality among journalists and, just like any pack, the tendency to follow the leader — in this case, Big Media — and since Big Media are centered in some of the bluest of blue parts of the country, it is highly likely that the media elite reflect the same, or an even greater, liberal bias.

A second is to analyze contributions from folks in the same corporate cultures. That analysis provides some surprising results. The contributions of individuals who reported being employed by major media organizations are listed in the nearby table.

The contributions add up to $315,533 to Democrats and $22,656 to Republicans — most of that to Ron Paul, who was supported by many liberals as a stalking horse to John McCain, a la Rush Limbaugh's Operation Chaos with Hillary and Obama.

What is truly remarkable about the list is that, discounting contributions to Paul and Rudy Giuliani, who was a favorite son for many folks in the media, the totals look like this: $315,533 to Democrats, $3,150 to Republicans (four individuals who donated to McCain).

Let me repeat: $315,533 to Democrats, $3,150 to Republicans — a ratio of 100-to-1. No bias there.

Tate is a former journalist, now a novelist and the author of "A Time Like This: 2001-2008." This article first appeared on the American Thinker Web site.

[AtlCB]

The saddest thing about reporters is that reports had an unwritten code to report the stories and not allow their personal feelings to affect how the story was reported. They wanted to give their audience the facts to allow their audience to come up with their own conclusions.

Today, reporters feel that they need to mold their audience to think as they do. Reporter now feel that their opinion is the only correct conclusion, and their audience needs to conform to it.

[jrumann59]

Originally Posted by AtlCB

The saddest thing about reporters is that reports had an unwritten code to report the stories and not allow their personal feelings to affect how the story was reported. They wanted to give their audience the facts to allow their audience to come up with their own conclusions.

Today, reporters feel that they need to mold their audience to think as they do. Reporter now feel that their opinion is the only correct conclusion, and their audience needs to conform to it.

[burmafrd]

I am waiting for the screaming denials from Benny and other Liberals.

[hairic]

Oh my, Fox is more liberal than MSNBC!

Fox: 100% to Democrats
MSNBC: 42.6% to Democrats

That is, if you think donations are a representation of the way they do their jobs.

[lewpac]

And the "news" here is....................what?
This year, 2008, will officially be known as the year that the Uber-Lib media FINALLY became irrelevant. They used to at least try to hide and obfuscate and deny their obvious left-leaning psychotic bent. No longer.
When we have to listen to guys like Chris Matthews getting "chills running up and down his legs" over an Obama speech................C'mon! NBC News is really the "National Barack Chanel". CBS is now the "Cheer Barack Show", and ABC is in fact the "Assist Barack Club". That other clown on MSNBC is so useless, spiteful and ignorant, that even mentioning his NAME on this forum gives him any semblance of credit that he is not deserving of.
Obama just visited overseas, and took his "press secretaries" along. Those being the Anchors for the big three "news" channels.
Nah, sorry, this horse has "left the barn" years ago. They're just finally getting around to, in their arrogance, saying "Ok, you got us, we're just hippie-lib cheerleaders for whoever the Democrat candidate is". And all of you are just a bunch of idiots if you don't agree that we're "main stream" and "normal".

[burmafrd]

They no longer fear people finding out because it seems no one cares anymore. Which ought to tip them off that no one cares what they do anymore. I have read several articles about how now most people think the media is about as honest as used car salesmen.

[SA_Gunslinger]

don't worry.

you can always turn on fox news and feel better about the so called media bias towards the left.

[CanadianCowboysFan]

Originally Posted by AtlCB

The saddest thing about reporters is that reports had an unwritten code to report the stories and not allow their personal feelings to affect how the story was reported. They wanted to give their audience the facts to allow their audience to come up with their own conclusions.

Today, reporters feel that they need to mold their audience to think as they do. Reporter now feel that their opinion is the only correct conclusion, and their audience needs to conform to it.

There is a distinction though between reporting and columnists/op/ed and talk show hosts.

No one expects to get fair and balanced from Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly anymore than you expected it from Phil Donahue.

A reporter should be fair and report what happened factually, a columnist can be as one sided as bumfard.

[AbeBeta]

Seems the media's donation patterns are pretty much consistent with the donation patterns of the American public.

[bbgun]

In other news, dog bites man. Seriously, I have no idea how Republicans overcome this and win elections.

[burmafrd]

Or as out to lunch as canadian.

[bbgun]

[tyke1doe]

This really isn't shocking. Most (I generalize of course) mainstream journalists are liberal so it stands to reason that their support would go to the more liberal of the two political parties.

[burmafrd]

Of course its not shocking- anyone with a BRAIN knew this years ago.