Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Oh. That liberal media.
American Thinker (bold emphasis added):
An analysis of federal election records shows that the amount of money journalists contributed so far this election cycle favors Democrats by a 15:1 margin over Republicans, with $225,563 going to Democrats, only $16,298 to Republicans .
235 journalists donated to Democrats, just 20 gave to Republicans -- a margin greater than 10:1. An even greater disparity, 20:1, 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 10:1. In terms of money, $279,266 went to Dems, $20,709 to Republicans, a 14:1 ratio.
And while the money totals pale in comparison to the $9 million+ that just one union's PACs have spent to get Barack 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 a freelancer 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 free-lancers. That's because most major news organization have policies that forbid newsroom employees from making political donations.
Of course, there is nothing surprising or wrong about this. Journalists are, on average, well to the left of the American center on most issues. We do not need a study to know this or to argue about their various sins of commission or omission; anybody who knows a reasonable number of reporters, editors, and free-lance writers understands that most of them would be on the left in Massachusetts, never mind middle America. Nor should we object if journalists participate in politics by voting for, contributing to, or even working on behalf of particular candidates. The aforementioned Big Media conflict of interest rules are asinine, a policy intended to erect a legalistic defense against the charge of hypocrisy. These rules against financial conflicts reflect the press's own interest in accusing others of trivial conflicts of interest rather than a belief that a reporter or editor might skew an article to favor a particular candidate because he had contributed money to that candidate.
There are, however, several things that may be said about the hugely disproportionate tendency of journalists to contribute to Democrats. First, it suggests a homogeneity of political opinion that simply cannot be healthy for Big Media as a business or journalism as a "profession." How can Big Media sustain or grow its audience if its leading lights all agree? Second, it requires us to ask not only whether journalists as individuals can be objective -- probably not -- but also whether media organizations as institutions can be. Third, it poses an interesting conflict for those journalists who purport to be objective in their work product regardless of their political views. They are usually unwilling to cut similar slack to others in positions of trust and power.
CWCID: Maggie's Farm.
9 Comments:
By 
, at
Tue Jul 22, 10:14:00 PM:
1) If the free market did it, it must be right. Right? Right.
2) No one is truly objective. Ever. Period. So the burden is not to identify lack of objectivity, but to illustrate undue bias.
3) Fair enough.
By 
TigerHawk, at
Tue Jul 22, 10:22:00 PM:
1) If the free market did it, it must be right. Right? Right.
Even I, a rabid believer in free markets, do not believe that. Plenty of individuals, businesses, and industries make mistakes that result in their own destruction in the market. This fact is neither "right" nor wrong, but it does mean that the free market does not guarantee that the best decision will be made in every case. Only that it provides the best chance to make the best decision.
By , at
Tue Jul 22, 10:47:00 PM:
"I would hate to live in a world where all the people of power agreed on everything all the time. That's the way of shackles and armed tyranny. And if ye'd like to win a bet, wager that ye'd be at the bottom of any such order."
-Elminster of Shadowdale
See? D&D CAN be applied in real life! Without murder!
P.S I should probably change my moniker, as you are now the proud father of TWO teenagers.
By , at
Tue Jul 22, 11:39:00 PM:
@Teenager:
I have found D&D to apply quite readily in real life. Compelling character acting is a great way to get people to do what you need them to do/want them to do. Rolling 20s is also useful.
@TH: Doesn't that philosophy hit a major snag whenever a collective action problem is considered? The Dark Knight has several good ones, though the outcomes are (I think) probably different when Hollywood glitz is stripped away. (I highly recommend the movie, but be warned: it's got some very disturbing bits.)
A more classical one: assume that the idea corporate taxation rate is X, where X>0. Setting this on a state level and employing the (I think flawed) assumptions that market theory gives you, each state should race to the bottom to attract corporate revenues until the actual tax rate X' approaches zero, defying our optimality criterion. Ergo, markets are only optimal when they operate within the parameters that curtail collective action problems. (The fixing of these problems across international boundaries is a common theoretical justification of the UN, to draw in another topic.)
By , at
Tue Jul 22, 11:41:00 PM:
If the donations represent the true bias of the media, then I have to give them extreme credit for the relative balance of their work.
By TigerHawk, at
Wed Jul 23, 06:43:00 AM:
Anon 11:39 - I think that your model of the "race to the bottom" is directionally true, but you never get too close to zero because in the end states can tax you if you do business in their jurisdiction at any level of involvement above shipping products into the state. So, if your business requires retail establishments, a local repair and service operation, physically present sales representatives, and so forth, you cannot avoid the taxes of that state. This dynamic probably prevents certain small states from imposing very high taxes combined with tough apportionment rules (you could get by with one without the other), but many states have so much market leverage that they can have their way up to a point. No medical device business, for example, can simply avoid to do business in New Jersey, New York, California, and Massachusetts, so you are sort of stuck with the high taxes in those states, even if, say, Pennsylvania were to offer a really sweet deal on locating there.
By TigerHawk, at
Wed Jul 23, 06:43:00 AM:
Anon 11:39 - I think that your model of the "race to the bottom" is directionally true, but you never get too close to zero because in the end states can tax you if you do business in their jurisdiction at any level of involvement above shipping products into the state. So, if your business requires retail establishments, a local repair and service operation, physically present sales representatives, and so forth, you cannot avoid the taxes of that state. This dynamic probably prevents certain small states from imposing very high taxes combined with tough apportionment rules (you could get by with one without the other), but many states have so much market leverage that they can have their way up to a point. No medical device business, for example, can simply avoid to do business in New Jersey, New York, California, and Massachusetts, so you are sort of stuck with the high taxes in those states, even if, say, Pennsylvania were to offer a really sweet deal on locating there.
By , at
Wed Jul 23, 07:41:00 AM:
we can already see the effects of different states having different taxation policies and rates. the socialistic states like ohio and michigan are dying because they have driven businesses and people out of their area. california is well alonng that path but has compensatory factors that slow the process. all serious new investment is in business friendly states.
By Dawnfire82, at
Wed Jul 23, 10:28:00 AM:
That is exactly why Texas is, and has been for years, booming. (though not as fast as Nevada) Everyone appreciates a hands-off government, especially the free market.
I believe that Texas, along with some other Western states, also recently (like 4 years ago?) capped 'pain and suffering' medical malpractice lawsuit awards. Insurance prices fell, and we got lots of new doctors. I've seen like 5 new medical centers open in north Austin since I've been back.
Trivia: Most constitutions determine what the government is not allowed to do. Witness our own Bill of Rights. But the Texas Constitution specifies what the government IS allowed to do. As all Constitutional changes must be ratified by referendum, egregious increases in governmental power are often blocked by, if not in the legislature, by the population itself.
Can be ponderous, but it seems to work.
