The Last Word In Liberal Media Bias

Editor,

Since Mr. Finz chose to attack both my intelligence and honesty concerning the media’s leftist bias, I would like to rub his nose in the following surveys by the American Association of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) in 1988 and 1997. The most recent ASNE study surveyed 1,037 newspaper reporters found 61 percent identified themselves as/leaning "liberal/Democratic" compared to only 15 percent who identified themselves as/leaning "conservative/Republican."
Also, a 2001 Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that members of the media were four times as likely to identify themselves as "liberal" than as "conservative."

Over a 16-year period, the Republican presidential candidate always received less than 20 percent of the media’s vote.

There are many more polls and surveys on this issue, but a good starting point is www.mediaresearch.org/biasbasics , which gives cites and links to each study.

There are also many quotes from news professionals admitting or pointing out the liberal bias in the news, but as always CBS News' Andy Rooney gets the last word. When discussing Bernard Goldberg's book Bias, which argues that the dominant media are biased in the liberal direction, on CNN's "Larry King Live" in June 2002: "There is just no question that I, among others [in the media], have a liberal bias. I mean, I'm consistently liberal in my opinions. And I think...Dan [Rather] is transparently liberal. Now, he may not like to hear me say that....But I think he should be more careful."

A postscript: This week we celebrated a man who made cutting taxes a defining moment of his presidency and boosted the U.S. economy to record heights. He also launched preemptive attacks against two brutal dictatorships. Today JFK would not be welcomed in his own party.

My oldest son, Sgt Bruce Combs, left Iraq for Kuwait and may be home in Las Vegas for Thanksgiving, we pray.