Journalists give campaign cash. 125 to Democrat/Liberal, 17 to Republicans

[Desertdog]

Journalists give campaign cash
News organizations diverge on handling of political activism by staff
By Bill Dedman
Investigative reporter
MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19113485


BOSTON - A CNN reporter gave $500 to John Kerry's campaign the same month he was embedded with the U.S. Army in Iraq. An assistant managing editor at Forbes magazine not only sent $2,000 to Republicans, but also volunteers as a director of an ExxonMobil-funded group that questions global warming. A junior editor at Dow Jones Newswires gave $1,036 to the liberal group MoveOn.org and keeps a blog listing "people I don't like," starting with George Bush, Pat Robertson, the Christian Coalition, the NRA and corporate America ("these are the people who are really in charge").

Whether you sample your news feed from ABC or CBS (or, yes, even NBC and MSNBC), whether you prefer Fox News Channel or National Public Radio, The Wall Street Journal or The New Yorker, some of the journalists feeding you are also feeding cash to politicians, parties or political action committees.

MSNBC.com identified 144 journalists who made political contributions from 2004 through the start of the 2008 campaign, according to the public records of the Federal Election Commission. Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left: 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes. Only 17 gave to Republicans. Two gave to both parties.

The donors include CNN's Guy Raz, now covering the Pentagon for NPR, who gave to Kerry the same month he was embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq; New Yorker war correspondent George Packer; a producer for Bill O'Reilly at Fox; MSNBC TV host Joe Scarborough; political writers at Vanity Fair; the editor of The Wall Street Journal's weekend section; local TV anchors in Washington, Minneapolis, Memphis and Wichita; the ethics columnist at The New York Times; and even MTV's former presidential campaign correspondent.

Go to  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19113485 for complete story

[K Frame]

Shocking.

Absolutely shocking.

[grampster]

Seriously, it matters not one whit to me what a journalist does with his/her money or spare time.  What I do expect though, is that their character is such that they report all sides of a story, no matter their beliefs or bias.   It is supposed to be their craft their profession.  Pride of craft should outweigh bias.  Stated another way:  Does it really matter what are the politics of your car insurance salespeson?  Or your butcher or mailman?  In America we are free to choose what to believe or support.  We admire or trust professionals because of how they perform their craft.  How many of you read or hear a report and wonder if it actually happened the way it was reported, or if their might not be another side?  Fox news has a slogan that should be the benchmark of all media;  "Fair and balanced.  We report, you decide."  All media should strive to meet that benchmark. (Whether Fox actually meets its own expectation is a subject for another discussion.  I bring up their slogan merely to remark that it is a benchmark that is worthy.)

When the media became the giant it is today, it lost something; it's search for the facts or the truth.   Editorial pages were supposed to be the place where the bias of a particular writer was exposed.  Take it or leave it, these words were opinion.  The rest of the pages containing news were supposed to contain only the facts, and those facts were to be verified.

Modern day left wing Liberalism wouldn't be so dangerous if only the secular progressives grasped the notion that they are not always right, all the time; my way or the highway.   In the media today, it seems like stories are reported around a conclusion.  First the conclusion, then the story.  They have it backwards imho.  First should come the story, then the digging out of all of the facts, then a conclusion may be drawn.  Maybe not all that simple every time, but at least find and expose the facts.

It's too early in the AM for me to be so serious.  I think I'll go wash Swmbo's car and listen to some country music.

[Desertdog]

Does it really matter what are the politics of your car insurance salespeson? 

No it doesn't, but on the other hand, their views aren't broadcast to millions of people while wrapped up in the respectability of being "the news."

I would love to see a "newscast" just reporting the news the way it happened  without any bias either way.  As Sgt. Friday always said, "Just the facts."

[jselvy]

ain't gonna happen.
All published works contain a certain amount of bias. It is virtually impossible to write without at least some.
I do agree that journalists have an obligation to minimize it as much as possible, but there seems to be no standard of professional ethics in this regard.

Jefferson

[Perd Hapley]

The statistics are at least important because they call into serious question the already preposterous, but ever-more-common, claim that major media organizations and their reporting are controlled by right-wing capitalists.  And they confirm what we already knew: that newsrooms are left-wing cloisters, where journalists confirm one another in a left-wing point of view, keeping them firmly out of touch with other political viewpoints that be more in line with reality, and often unable to recognize facts that make them uncomfortable.  It is not so much that journalists are conspiring to slant the news.  It is simply that, so long as the status quo obtains, they cannot report the news accurately, as they don't understand the world around them. 

If journalists could simply recognize their own bias, which they are beginning to do on the air, they could start to look beyond them, and report the news in a more objective way.  Yes, bias is unavoidable.  But the first step to looking at matters honestly is to admit our own tendency to give in to bias. 

[Brad Johnson]

I beat you by two days.

nya nya nya nya NYA nya....

http://www.armedpolitesociety.com/index.php?topic=7521.0

 

Brad

[Silver Bullet]

Where are all the High Road trolls who claimed that the media was conservative-biased ?  They're never around when you need them (of course, when do I need them ?).   

[mountainclmbr]

It seems like the fairness doctrine could backfire on the Dems if applied "fairly".