Media bias in elections: big deal or not?
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Submitted by MikeTharp on Mon, 2008-08-11 15:56. |
We at the Sun-Star would like your view on whether press bias influences the runup to and outcome of elections--national, state and local.
The survey below reckons that more than half of you do:
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2...
And a recent study from Harvard, that right-wing bastion, indicates that Democrats consistently get more favorable coverage in the mainstream press than do Republicans:
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=279503526320834
I myself have believed for a long time that groupthink in newsrooms--over such social issues as abortion, affirmative action, immigration, gun control, feminism and gay marriage--is a dangerous force. It's up to editors to keep reporters who may feel one way about these and other issues honest enough to keep those feelings out of their stories. Editors have to make sure all sides of the issue are included, fairly and impartially.
Problem is, a lot of those editors believe the same way, so there's not much institutional resistance to the groupthink.
Not the case here, say I.
But we'd like to hear from you all.
Is there press bias in elections? If so, how much and what kind?
Thanks for thinking about this and letting us know.
Syndicate
Richly served
Press bias at election times? In the hope that readers in Merced will find it of interest, I'd like to express a British view on this.
The British national press has had a long history of influencing national elections. For example, it was the Daily Mirror's support of Labour which led to that party's election victory in 1945. The structure of British newspapers and the geography of the country have always allowed a few men to exercise great power through their papers.
The most powerful of them would be made peers, in recognition of their support for this or that government. So they become known by the perjorative name of "press barons". The strongest of them - Lords Northcliffe, Beaverbrook, Rothermere - were powerful to an unhealthy and irresponsible degree. (In 1931, their influence was attacked in a famous phrase by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, who declared that they sought "power without responsibiliity: the prerogative of the harlot through the ages".)
The era of the great press barons may have passed, but their place has been taken by foreign-born international tycoons. So, given the role of national newspapers in a small country like Britain, large swathes of the population continued to be influenced by the opinions of a few owners. In such conditions, the voices of individual journalists become lost - or, more accurately, repressed. The result: "groupthink", in Mike Tharp's phrase.
In the U.S., journalism has always been a more respected profession than in Britain. In America, the names of individual journalists are more likely to be known by readers. This, too, must be largely a result of geography: America's huge land mass and population bred a more local and/or regional press and readership. Of course, America, like Britain, has had its powerful newspaper owners. But I'd guess that, having evolved a local and/or regional press in the way it has, America developed as a nation of readers who were less likely to fall under the influence of a national paper.
If my description is just about right, then you Americans are surely in a healthier situation than Brits. As Mike Tharp points out, an individual American editor can (just like an old-style press baron) dictate the political line of his paper. But it seems to me that, in the U.S., journalists have a surer historical basis for their work - better placed, perhaps, to inform, persuade, debate, argue, stimulate, expound and express?
After my little diatribe, where are we? "Media bias in elections: big deal or not?" asks Mike. Well, seen from my British corner, yes, big deal. And long may media bias prosper - so long as this or that bias can be argued, debated and kicked around by the journalists and readers of an active regional press. On issues which matter nowadays (such as a national election), there can be no clear line beween fact and opinion, between statement and interpetation. So a population served by an active regional press embracing a spectrum of forceful journalistic views is richly served indeed.
If you got this far, folks, you deserve a medal. Thanks for bearing with me.´
BB