Journalism is in chaos. It is an industry where only a tiny percentage of people dare hold different political opinions and more than 60% of journalists think the news business is going in the 'wrong direction.' Don’t take my word for it. Take theirs.
More than 1,600 journalists responded to a survey from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications and the results are damning. Only 3.4% of U.S. journalists claim to be Republicans, with another 36.4% saying they’re Democrats. That’s more than 10 times more Democrats than Republicans. Or at least the ones who will admit they are on the left.
More than half (51.7%) call themselves 'independents' and another 8.5% 'other.' Journalists have been getting these survey questions for more than 50 years and they have grown savvier. Many carefully list themselves in those other categories to avoid being called biased. So, just keep that 3.4% number in mind. Out of all journalists.
Or let’s give the real number – 96.6% are not Republicans.
That’s how Russiagate and Russian collusion get rammed down the throats of the American public like the scandal really happened. (Hint: It didn’t.) That’s how they cover for a president who is barely coherent much of the time and lies constantly about his family, his accomplishments and his past. (Hey Potus, say hi to Corn Pop for me.)
Remember when the press tried to tally then-President Donald Trump’s so-called 'lies?' For President Biden, they call them misstatements or ignore them entirely. As Sgt. Muldoon explained in the John Wayne movie, 'Green Berets,' 'Well... that's newspapers for you, ma'am. You could fill volumes with what you don't read in them.'
It’s only gotten worse since actor Aldo Ray read those lines. In 1971, one-fourth of U.S. journalists were Republican. In 50 years, journalism has essentially purged any political opposition in its ranks. And we get the result.
Ninety-six-percent agreement is how the press tries to convince you that the border isn’t a problem when even Democrat mayors are screaming that it is. And their cities are only hit with a tiny portion of what red states have had to endure.
And this is how you get an elite press that pretends ordinary Americans can afford food, rent and mortgages, when those same Americans tell you they can’t and 96% are worried about the economy. It’s so bad that one-fourth of Americans are 'doom spending' money they don’t have to compensate.
The 96% make no effort to cover the many failures of the Biden administration. The administration backed Ukraine, but not well enough for it to win. Our military is under near constant attack in the Mideast, and we barely respond as trade routes are conquered by terrorists.
Because the 96% are firmly in the Democrat camp. Heck, they went out of their way to elect President Biden and are trying to do so again.
Most journalists won’t even admit the news industry’s problems. If you dig further into this enlightening study, only 21.8% think any sort of 'political orientation' diversity is needed in their newsrooms. And it’s unclear if that means they think their outlets need to even be more liberal or more conservative. To emphasize that point, only 12.7% think 'perceived bias and opinion journalism' is a problem.
Journalism has become a dad joke. What’s the difference between ignorance and indifference? They don’t know and they don’t care.
The problems with our journo elite don’t stop there. Whites make up less than 60% of the U.S. population, but 82% of the news media. That doesn’t bother them either. Only about one-fourth of those studied think racial diversity is an issue in their newsrooms.
More than eight out of 10 journalists said performing a government 'watchdog' role is important. Ironic for a field that didn’t notice when the secretary of defense went AWOL and disappeared for several days for surgery.
Nearly all journalists (96.4%) have college degrees, a huge change from the 1982 study, about the time I started my news career when it was about 70%. Journalism used to be considered a trade that you could learn. Now, it’s a field that requires expensive college indoctrination, so they are unbothered by the biases they encounter every day.
As journalism has become an elite field, it has abandoned its role in serving the public. Local journalism has dried up or has almost no resources. National journalism is dominated by a few outlets like The Washington Post and New York Times and even the Post just had buyouts. Only 7.4% of those surveyed think reaching the widest audience is 'extremely important.'
So much for the dad joke about newspapers being black and white and read all over.
It’s no wonder why Americans have lost faith in the news media. And it will get substantially worse this election. The 96% have spoken.
