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The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press did a recent survey of journalists. It's an interesting snapshot of the state of the news media and how they rate their own coverage of President Bush and the election. Not surprisingly, Fox has the most striking profile in terms of political point of view; nobody else comes close.
posted by The Decider @ 11:21 AM
This is it -- our piece of the rock, where we set the agenda and lay the smack down. Or (more likely) exchange ideas civilly, listen intently, and learn from each other and from our visitors. Fantastiko offers political fireworks, news that flies under the radar, and a safe place for constructive debate.
Although he encourages debate and, in general, the open expression of ideas, he is THE KNOWER AND DECIDER OF ALL THINGS. The Decider is generous and has little interest in keeping complete world knowledge to himself; therefore, you will find answers to life's puzzling puzzles here. He lives comfortably in Columbia, Maryland with his wife, child, labrador retriever, and many books of knowledge.
4 Comments:
This survey is really interesting. Many surveys try to capture the public's view of an industry. This covers and industry's view of itself. The participants in the survey are experts in the subject. But they are far from objective.
I have not seen '04 numbers, but I recall that in 2000, a year in which Gore and Bush each got 48 (+/- 0.5)% of popular vote, a poll of journalists showed more than 90% for Gore and less than 10% for Bush.
Against that backdrop, it is not surprising that most of the participants feel that any treatment of the president that does not involve a skinning knife is insufficiently critical. And Fox is the new threat to MSM.
Up to 1992, the media had a stranglehold on what the public learned about candidates, their positions, and the issues. In '96 talk radio befuddled MSM. By 2000, talk radio was old hat; the web was the new alternative outlet. By 2004, the big web sites for news are cnn.com, msn.com, etc. -- and talk radio is even older hat. Fox is the new threat.
-Chris
I agree with you, Brian, that the respondents of this survey can't be called "objective" and that a better measure of their political leanings would have made for even better context. I do think the survey is quite interesting, because even without any claim to objectivity, journalists may indeed have a better perspective on what journalism could and should look like, whereas my sense is that the general public seems to grant news shows the benefit of the doubt when it comes to objectivity.
I also agree that Fox is a threat. I'm not sure whether I agree, though, that the mainstream media (which I assume is what MSM means) is what they're threatening. Isn't Fox PART of the mainstream media? Isn't it the most popular news on TV, watched by millions of mainstream American viewers? My main objection to Fox is not that it provides an *alternative* to mainstream news outlets; it's that it IS a mainstream news network that often offers partisan "news and views" under the banner of objective journalism, a charge I assume we're all familiar with and which I'll not rant about any further here. It sounded to me from your comments like the "stranglehold" that the MSM used to have on political information is what's threatened by Fox, and that that's actually a good thing. Is that what you're saying? And if Fox isn't part of the MSM, how do you define the MSM?
When I think of the main stream media, I think of the big papers (New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Chicago Tribune), the three old networks (NBC, CBS, ABC), CNN, and MSNBC. I put websites associated with the groups (cnn.com, msn.com) in the MSM category too. I also group NPR into MSM, but it really is a somewhat different animal.
Talk radio, web sites like Matt Drudge, and papers like the Washington Times are alternative media. I put Fox and Fox News into this category.
-Chris
According to this article (http://www.fair.org/extra/0404/fox-ratings.html), I'm wrong about Fox having the highest audience. Still, my perception is that there are Fox watchers and there are CNN watchers, each having their own groups with little switching (I could be totally wrong; I have no data on this). If I'm right, I think you have to consider Fox mainstream. More importantly, if most Fox viewers are conservative (just a hunch) and Fox is rated as a highly watched network, and according to the last election our country is majority conservative, then how is it not mainstream?
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