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Angry White Men -- aka Journalists
Townhall.com ^ | May 13, 2014 | Debra J. Saunders

Posted on 05/13/2014 1:50:48 PM PDT by Kaslin

A poll released last week reported that 7 percent of American journalists say they are Republicans. The survey also found that the news force is aging, having a median age of 47. And 62 percent of journalists are men. A mere 8.5 percent of full-timers are minorities. Less than 1 in 4 are "very satisfied" with their job. In short, the profession that dubbed the Republican Party a refuge for "angry white men" is teeming with angry white men.

The irony here is wasted on the ink-stained-wretch community.

Indiana University has conducted this survey of more than 1,000 journalists every decade since 1971, so it measures changes in the industry. The 2002 survey reported that 18 percent of journalists identified as Republicans. At 7.1 percent last year, America's newsrooms housed a lower percentage of Republicans than San Francisco (8.4 percent).

No wonder conservatives don't trust the media.

Professors Lars Willnat and David Weaver also recorded the lowest showing of journalists who called themselves Democrats since 1971, when it was 35.5 percent. Now 28 percent say they are Democrats; half say they are independent; and 15 percent say they are "other."

Bernie Goldberg, a former CBS reporter who is now with Fox News, thinks many of the self-identified "independent" journalists are liars who "know better than to tell the truth and tell the pollsters who they really are." I suspect that Goldberg is onto something. Though surveys have found more ideological diversity in newsrooms outside the Beltway, a 1996 Freedom Forum poll of Washington correspondents found that 89 percent said they had voted for Bill Clinton in 1992.

I've known colleagues to be rather defensive on the issue of liberal bias. It couldn't be that like Ivy League faculties, liberal editors tend to hire people who dress, think and vote as they do. No, there must be a more noble reason that liberal journalism self-replicates.

I've heard it before: Journalists are smarter than other people, so of course they're liberal. (That's right; we're so clever that we work in a shrinking industry.) Or: Liberals are drawn to journalism because they question authority.

Problem: When groupthink prevails, the hive swarms best when presented with the scent of weakness in an outside authority. When a story makes Republicans look stupid, it inevitably becomes a big story everywhere. Think Todd Akin's dim-witted "legitimate rape" remark in 2012. It was big news across the country.

In modern journalism, diversity is supposed to be as holy as accuracy. Editors flock to workshops that help them hire ethnic minorities, members of the LGBT community and other groups deemed to be disadvantaged. Makes sense. Newsroom staff should look not like the faculty lounge but like America.

But when it comes to politics, it's a different world. Sure, on occasion I've seen organizations troll for a conservative for balance -- for a particular page or function -- but there is no industry effort to rebalance the newsroom to make it think more like America. Angry white males are an insular bunch.


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS:

1 posted on 05/13/2014 1:50:48 PM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

How many people in newsrooms are gay activists?

Certainly more than the 2% of rumored general population...


2 posted on 05/13/2014 1:56:06 PM PDT by a fool in paradise (The new witchhunt: "Do you NOW, . . . or have you EVER , . . supported traditional marriage?")
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To: a fool in paradise
How many people in newsrooms are gay activists?

95%, and the rest silent? Those who disagree must be silent to remain working.

3 posted on 05/13/2014 2:01:58 PM PDT by The_Media_never_lie (The media must be defeated any way it can be done.)
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To: Kaslin

On Line 5, Deb reports, “Less than 1 in 4 are satisfied....”

That’s grammatically like saying, “how much” journalists do you have, who are satisfied...?”, instead of saying how “few” or, how many do you have?

Have the rules changed?

Numbers of people are now measured in terms of fluids, instead of separate units of individuals (”less” and more, and not by “fewer” and more). Drives me crazy. But then.....? Lol.


4 posted on 05/13/2014 2:12:46 PM PDT by RitaOK ( VIVA CHRISTO REY / Public education is the farm team for more Marxists coming.)
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To: The_Media_never_lie

The casting couch comes in pink now...


5 posted on 05/13/2014 2:16:53 PM PDT by a fool in paradise (The new witchhunt: "Do you NOW, . . . or have you EVER , . . supported traditional marriage?")
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The measure of a man is what he does with power.

~Plato




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6 posted on 05/13/2014 2:17:43 PM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: trisham

Don't make white men angry. You won't like them when they're angry.

7 posted on 05/13/2014 2:28:06 PM PDT by Enterprise ("Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." Voltaire)
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To: Enterprise

:)


8 posted on 05/13/2014 2:30:39 PM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: Kaslin

Why should journalists be angry? They can write anything the want, so long as it echos the Pravda line.


9 posted on 05/13/2014 2:46:52 PM PDT by The_Media_never_lie (The media must be defeated any way it can be done.)
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To: Kaslin

I would bet most “journalists” come from a liberal bubble they’ve lived in their whole lives with rarely encountering a genuine conservative much less having read conservative literature. They’re creatures of their sheltered environment who believe every liberal myth pounded into them since they were babies. They go from one liberal bubble to another liberal bubble.


10 posted on 05/13/2014 2:52:34 PM PDT by driftless2
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To: Kaslin
In modern journalism, diversity is supposed to be as holy as accuracy.
Ummm, the only thing "holy" in journalism is the objective, whatever that is. Accuracy may or may not benefit the outcome, generally it does not.

Of course propagandists claim to be objective, truthful and accurate - and even to hold those ideals as akin to "holy." Do you expect a committed liar to confess the truth? Hahahahahah.

11 posted on 05/13/2014 2:53:16 PM PDT by Cboldt
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To: Kaslin

Most newsrooms have white liberals, black liberals, Asian liberals, gay liberals, lesbian liberals, and one white conservative, and yet consider themselves diverse.


12 posted on 05/13/2014 3:55:36 PM PDT by libertylover (The problem with Obama is not that his skin is too black, it's that his ideas are too RED.)
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