Pew Study: Most Journalists Call Themselves Liberal

From LifeSiteNews comes an article on a recent Pew Research Center which found that vastly more journalists consider themselves liberal than conservative (and that's not even taking into consideration the "moderates" who are in actuality liberal in their philosophy):

"As was the case in 2004," reads the commentary on the study by the Pew Research Center, "majorities of the national and local journalists surveyed describe themselves as political moderates; 53% of national journalists and 58% of local journalists say they are moderates. About a third of national journalists (32%), and 23% of local journalists, describe themselves as liberals. Relatively small minorities of national and local journalists call themselves conservatives (8% national, 14% local)."

Commentary by the popular Newsbusters website suggested that the statistics do not even fully describe the imbalance in the media, pointing out, "It's not much of a leap to presume many of the 53 percent who describe themselves as 'moderate' are really quite liberal."

It's perfectly natural that everyone, even journalists, would have a political philosophy. I don't think we should ask them to give it up, either. In fact, no matter how one tries, you can't completely divorce your worldview from your work.

Journalists should strive to separate that worldview as much as possible in their reporting, though. They should make a liberal politician work just as hard to justify their policy positions as they do conservatives. They should also cover problems and scandals in the liberal community with just as much vigor as they do in the conservative community. And they should use political labels with as much frequency and definition for liberals as they do conservatives. If they cover something that conservatives do, they should cover similar stories when the characters are liberal--and they should cover it in a similarly critical fashion.

Unfortunately, this kind of objective-minded reporting is all too rare in national journalism, and even local print journalism. Many may not even realize their own bias, but it is nevertheless there.

This blatant liberal bias in the media is why so many people have so little confidence in the accuracy of what's being reported. It leads to skepticism and cynicism toward current events and the participation of the public in their own government. Such disengagement fosters an environment where so much of the corruption and abuse of power we see is possible.

The media would do the public a great service, as well as confidence in their own profession, if they would police themselves and their attitudes better.