How did American Journalism get so corrupted?
One of the evergreen issues among the political class is the role of journalism in modern society. From the conservative perspective, the Fourth Estate has become a radical left-wing propaganda machine – politically benefiting Democrats. On the other side of the philosophic divide, we have progressives bemoaning the very existence of right-wing media platforms that benefit Republicans.
Conservative media will have large Republican staffs. At FOX News, for example, the personnel are overwhelmingly Republican – specifically 93 percent according to Statistics. But that is an outlier among the so-called mainstream media.
What can be empirically established is that most of the major media is controlled and populated by Democrats who lean to the far left. A Syracuse University/Newhouse poll in December of 2023 showed that only 3.4 percent of working journalists are Republicans.
While the broadcast networks are more balanced, Democrats still dominate in numbers and especially in influential positions. At ABC the ratio is 53 percent Democrat to 44 percent Republican … CBS has 55 percent Democrats to 41 percent Republican … and at NBC it is 57 percent Democrat and 38 percent Republican. More importantly, virtually all the on-air personalities and behind-the-scenes producers and editors are Democrats.
The cable news networks, other than FOX, are overwhelming progressive Democrats – many on the radical fringe. At CNN, the ratio is 79 percent Democrat and 19 Republican. NPR tops that with 87 percent Democrat and 12 Republican. And it should come as no surprise that the granddaddy of bias in news reports is … drum roll, please … MSNBC with 95 percent Democrat and a paltry 5 percent Republican – and many of those are GOP apostates like former Republican Chairman Michael Steele.
The highly vaunted “newspaper of record,” the New York Times, has a ratio of 91 percent Democrat staffers to 7 percent Republican.
The Newhouse School of Public Communication at Syracuse University has been tracking this question for more than 50 years. During that time, Republican presence in mainstream news has dwindled from 18 percent in 2002 and 26 percent in 1971.
That latter figure is significant since it was in that era that journalism began to transform from basic reporting – with opinion clearly reserved to the editorial department. That is when many of America’s leading J-schools introduced “advocacy journalism.” Frontline reporters were empowered to abandon the “who, what, where, when, why and how” tradition of objective and balanced reporting in favor of injecting opinion in news articles. The impenetrable wall between editorial and news reporting was beginning to be disassembled – and mostly for the benefit of the left.
The trend did not go unnoticed by old-school journalism and journalism professors. One of them was Sam Archibald, professor of Journalism and the University of Missouri. I know the story because I was deeply involved.
Archibald’s concern came to the attention of Sears, Roebuck & Co. He proposed the establishment of a congressional internship program focusing on J-school students interested in political and public affairs reporting. The purpose was to give them insight into the working of government and seminar session teaching professional standards and ethics – the importance of unbiased reporting. It was a direct pushback against the growing left-wing advocacy journalism movement.
I was keenly aware of the growing problem in journalism because, at the time, I was part of a two-man communications team in the Sears’ Washington office – which had primary responsibility for working with Archibald in administering the program. Each year, we would select approximately 30 J-school students to come to Washington to intern in various House and Senate offices. Archibald selected the students, and I helped select the congressional offices based on their requests.
I mention this program to show just how far back goes the concern over institutional bias in news reporting. The current situation sadly suggests that our best-intentioned efforts were not very effective in stopping the evolutionary corruption of journalism – from a reporting function to partisan advocacy.
While the radical left is winning the war in the newsrooms, traditional conservative journalism is winning over the public. That can be seen in ratings. FOX New has been on top of the cable news profession for the past 39 months – garnering more prime time and key demographic viewers than CNN and MSNBC combined.
Unlike television, radio talk shows have been dominated by Republican content and hosts. Left-wing attempts to compete for viewers failed miserably. That was that Air America network that crashed and burned. There was a failed effort to bring back the Phil Donahue Show. Also failed was the short-lived program that brought together former New York Governor Mario Cuomo and former Texas Governor Ann Richards.
Virtually everyone agrees that a free press is essential to a free society. It is not just being free from government control (suggesting that NPR should be privatized), but also free from established political and philosophic biases.
The current imbalance in terms is party affiliation is exacerbated by the preponderance of the hard left within that demographic and the intensity of the advocacy journalism.
It took a long time for American journalism to descend into the depth of contemporary propaganda – and it will not be easy to bring back the traditional ethical standards of journalism. But it is a worthwhile and perhaps existential endeavor.
So, there ‘tis.
Easy answer. The democrats run them now with their lies and fake news
I find it funny that Horist is upset there are so many Democrats in journalism. Yesterday he was complaining the same about education. Before that it was government. I’m sort of sensing a trend here, a commonality of purpose in his disjointed thoughts. A common tread — Democrats bad, too many Democrats. When we tell him it’s because his party is a bunch of hillbilly deplorables grabbing guns, pussy, and a non-Budweiser beer made by Bud’s parent company, he told us to bugger off, they have plenty of college educated folks. Some even matriculated. But they all went to the Supreme Court and no one is left to write the news or teach our kids how to burn the books.
Horist tells us this out of one side of his face, while the other side of his face tells us how FOX has all the news viewers and no one watches leftist news, CNN is dead from lack of viewers, no one watches Morning Joe except some guy named Larry. And PBS and NPR, these guys can’t even get advertisers. So, what’s his problem with Dems wasting so much time and resources to write and air stuff no one watches. What is his win in this besides a good ole vent of his spleen?
FYI: rumor has it that the Murdoch family owns a few more things than FOX. Hmmmm,, I think I personally know the answer to that. Feels familiar in some way. And Forbes, he owns, well Forbes, well, he sold out to a Chinese investment firm owned by a CA kid entrepreneur billionaire. Uh oh, wanna bet Democrat? He’s building self-guiding cars and protecting the Oceans, oh no…. But Forbes still runs his own show, just does not own it all now, he sold out.
And what about X? Isn’t that where everyone gets their news. Did he factor that in. NOOOOO.. Or Facebook, lots of Republicans there. Aren’t they big enough to me Main Stream.
Methinks the Hoirst kvetches too much. What does he want: affirmative action? Quotas? Where does it stop — the newsroom, the boardroom, the bedroom, McDonalds, Walmart? Level the playing field through force of arms? Where does it end? OK, that’s over the top.
But perhaps Horist should stick to helping young Republicans actually complete requisite college courses and then apply for requisite jobs in these fields. Or get more Republican investors to buy news outlets. Because if you can’t compete, go home. There is no need to provide affirmative action in the news. You have your outlets, your free speech is protected. If you know how to write the news, deliver the news, I am sure you can find a job in the new. Perhaps they are just not looking, or capable, or both.
They started favoring the democrats. And it’s been downhill from there
Archie: maybe it’s because to be a journalist, you have to know how to read and write……. It’s not a demand issue, it’s not a ban or boycott, it’s a supply issue. heh, heh
Horist. the data you show is from an online survey in 2022. By a leftist college types. Online — really, do you trust?
More important, I see their results with the overall percentages. But where did you get the results for individual newsrooms? Hard to imagine folks willingly giving that up, but also did not see it in the report you sourced. Is it in there or is this some sort of data-mind-meld-merge of two distinctly different reports. Can’t be, that would be a analytical no, no; especially if not noted.
Is Horist suggesting that since party politics control our lives, our thoughts, our biases, our actions, that we need affirmative action in the newsroom? Civil rights for party affiliations? Does Horist wants a quota system for the news? Where does it stop — McDonalds must hire by political party? Can there be no independent news anymore? What is the Horist ask for in all this?
It’s like watching the Terminator series before Skynet as people are begging for the antiseptic egalitarian protection the machines can provide. To make humanity better, to get rid of politics in the news, we must get rid of any human attachment to party —– WELCOME TO THE NEWS MACHINE: BRING ON AI.
That’s right folks, we can get rid of all those Democrats, all those Republicans, and the worse yet — those skeevy Indy’s who can’t divulge their party when we all know who they are…. Get rid of them all and welcome, welcome…..to the machine. And I don’t mean Jacob.
Remember Horist, you gotta open the door to let the vampire in. Are you suggesting we should open the door to a non-partisan AI news creator? Personally, if I am at work and you ask my my politics or political party —- I will tell you to take a hike. And take your PAC with you.
This is because Most young people Rebel against something in their town, Government , Country.
They do not have all the rights as an older individual even if it is only 1 or 2 years away.
They feel as though they are being oppressed and the ” Status Quo ” does not hear them.
What they fail to see is the Media telling them that they are on their side just to further oppress them
after they gain power using their vote!
But with age does come wisdom.
Unfortunately some young people never learn, older ones as well.
History will repeat itself as this likens to human nature.
It’s all about the MONEY!!!!!!
“HOW DID AMERICAN JOURNALISM GET SO CORRUPTED?”
Horist presupposes his corrupt conclusion here without presenting undeniable facts proving that conclusion. He does not show any corruption beyond whose writing and presenting the news. He relies on his readers tacit agreement to this conclusion that all American journalism is SO corrupted even without presenting any facts in evidence that corruption even exists.
His entire career is as a one-trick pony easily summarized by his lifelong screed: Democrats bad.
His only evidence is that there are too many Democrats in the news and therefore it is corrupt. As is adding a few Republicans and a smattering of Indy’s and voila — all better.
There is no evidence presented that an overabundance of one party or the other corrupts the news. None. Based on recent court cases, one might assume the corruption worm wiggles the other way as Jones and FOX from the right go down for lying about the left. Sound familiar? He just leans into the Trumpian lament of fake news from the Lame Stream Media aimed to falsely persecute Trump the liar.
All humans bias anything and everything they communicate. Fact of life. There is no absolute truth that this makes all journalism corrupt just because someone said it. The fact that more Democrats are communicating than Republicans does not make it corrupt either. I may think FOX is really bad, inferior, inadequate, and biased at telling the news —– that does not make them a corrupt organization.
News is news, supposedly an objective telling of the facts. Cable or Cable News is not news; it’s opinion, reality programming, but not news. I think that is wrong and that we should designate the type of presentation provided.
I have long thought there should be a label, lower screen corner, stating whether it’s NEWS or OPINION.
Bear in mind, on top of all this, it is very hard to face penalties, legal or otherwise, by lying either in opinion or in the news. Horist, myself, and many others have said it’s not illegal to lie on the new or in the news UNLESS you can be proven liable for harm which, even with Jones, Bannon, and FOX itself, is very hard to prove in court. You have to really lie BIG to face legal jeopardy.
So, love to see those sources on specific newsroom but not sure Horist has proven corruption just because one party or the other is prevalent in any given newsroom. And while I cannot bust this one, I certainly don’t see anything Horist provided to prove his corruption beyond: Democrats bad.
The downfall of journalism is because of the narcissism and ignorance, they have delusions of grandeur thinking that they are the story! And they read the script given them by the alphabet soup agencies, project mockingbird on steroids!
project mockingbird was the govt against journalists. it deals with warrantless taps. Besides indicating your advanced age, it has nothing to do with what you are discussing which, for you, seems normall
So, about Ghouliani being indicted, again, for the same ole lie, again, but this time in AZ. Big news is there’s a new game called WHERE”S RUDY where contestants try to find where Rudy will be indicted next. NTW worry, Don has billions to save you, ask Cohen.
By the end of the 15th century, 35
The US administration and President Biden bear full responsibility for the continuation of Zionist war crimes in the Gaza Strip, after their absolute support for it, and the green light they once again granted following the visit of their Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, to the entity,†it said in a statement.
see why Israel can kill innocent children with American taxpayer money
1- Because the God of Money of our World is a Jew who supports and lives in Israel. For more details, click on the following link.
https://mega.nz/file/FqhzGKbB#bsX4PD-O59HEA0-rynD29xkk47dmddycY5CjZfoDLYg
2- Because https://www.tiktok.com/@thefearlessqueenmel/video/7307640994579680542?lang=en&q=why%20dont%20Americans%20knowl%20what%20you%20have%20seen%20&t=1701880206555
See how innocent children are killed by the most powerful Israeli using American bombs at
Al Jazeera Arabic Live
at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNyUyrR0PHo
if you do not do something such as going on the street and telling your government which is controlled by the Jews to stop killing the Gaza people and stop the Israeli War and send food to the starving people of Gaza. If you can not do it then forward this message with the above two links to at least 4 of your friends and ask them to forward it to 4 of their friends so that the world will know that the new mass murderers are the Jews of the world . It is ironic that the Holocaust servicers (the Jews) are creating a new Holocaust against the Philistines in Gaza.
if you do not do this also then you do not have a HART
More balanced my butt. Larry Horist has demonstrated a bias in his writing since, well, forever.
The general MSM may have staff claiming to be conservation or republican, but in name only … in other words, RINO’s.
Much like most of Larry’s writing’s (who frankly is hardly a conservative or at the very least a Never-Trumper on his best day), you can be assured that any ‘republican’ on any of these sites (ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, the View) is as biased against true conservative values as Larry is.
So like all things Larry, I take what he as to say with a block of salt lick.
Bill Ball … Apparently you are not familiar with my writings. Never Trumper? I voted for him in 2016 and 2020 — and will again in 2024. I
am constantly critical of left-wing propaganda media. I have defended Trump from the outrageous attacks from the left. And I make no apologies for my long record of conservative activism. What conservative values do you think I am biased against? Since I almost never get attacked from the right, you have me scratching my head regarding the basis for you opinion. It makes no sense to me.