Directions

Read the excerpt below (from Brent Baker's report posted at NewsBusters.org). Read "Types of Media Bias" in the right column. Then answer the questions.

A survey conducted late last year and released in March by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press confirmed…that compared to the views of the public, conservatives are under-represented in national journalism while liberals are over-represented. Jennifer Harper of the Washington Times discovered the [information] buried deep in the annual “State of the Media” report from Pew’s Project for Excellence in Journalism and FNC’s Brit Hume…highlighted the findings from the survey of 222 journalists and news executives at national outlets:

Only 6 percent said they considered themselves conservatives and only 2 percent said they were very conservative. This compares with 36 percent of the overall population that describes itself as conservative. Most journalists, 53 percent, said they’re moderate. 24 percent said they were liberal and 8 percent very liberal.

Only 19 percent of the public consider themselves liberal. And it’s not much of a leap to presume many of the 53 percent who describe themselves as “moderate” are really quite liberal.

……………………..

Read the complete report at NewsBusters.org.

Read the PEW’s “State of the Media” report here. (NOTE: In PDF format. See the bottom of page 18 for the statistics on journalists’ ideology.)

Visit the PEW website at people-press.org.

Identifying Media Bias

To accurately identify different types of bias, you should be aware of the issues of the day, and the liberal and conservative perspectives on each issue.

Types of Media Bias:

Questions

Do you think that the disproportionate number of liberal journalists, as documented in the PEW report, has had an affect on the way the news is reported?  Explain your answer.