The article is about demographic surveys of American journalists 1970-2013. Table 4 is about political affiliation. The key statistics: % of journalists that identify as Republican move from 25% in 1971 to just over 7% in 2013, in a rather steady decline. The % of journalists that identify as Democrat starts at 35 in 1971, peaks at 44 in 92, then declines back to just ~28 in 2013. So in 2013 Democratic journalists outnumber Republicans 4-to-1, while in 1971 they were nearly equal. The next step would be to figure out whether this is the result of more liberal-leaning publications starting up or of some kind of change within existing news organizations.
I realize this is not very helpful, but it's a start and this is what can be said while referring to objective data. Another interesting note is that the fraction of journalists identifying as Independent also happened to rise significantly in 2013.
I will be back later when I have time to find some more statistics.
I suppose it makes sense that the press would gravitate toward the Democrats. They can sort of have their cake and eat it, too, that way. They can clamor for progress, jump on the progressive bandwagon, but still peddle in fear and various forms of conservative scolding (violence in video games, skimpy clothing and so forth). Very interesting, though.
Well, what do the numbers say? I want to refer to Table 4 in https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1077699018778242#
The article is about demographic surveys of American journalists 1970-2013. Table 4 is about political affiliation. The key statistics: % of journalists that identify as Republican move from 25% in 1971 to just over 7% in 2013, in a rather steady decline. The % of journalists that identify as Democrat starts at 35 in 1971, peaks at 44 in 92, then declines back to just ~28 in 2013. So in 2013 Democratic journalists outnumber Republicans 4-to-1, while in 1971 they were nearly equal. The next step would be to figure out whether this is the result of more liberal-leaning publications starting up or of some kind of change within existing news organizations.
I realize this is not very helpful, but it's a start and this is what can be said while referring to objective data. Another interesting note is that the fraction of journalists identifying as Independent also happened to rise significantly in 2013.
I will be back later when I have time to find some more statistics.
I suppose it makes sense that the press would gravitate toward the Democrats. They can sort of have their cake and eat it, too, that way. They can clamor for progress, jump on the progressive bandwagon, but still peddle in fear and various forms of conservative scolding (violence in video games, skimpy clothing and so forth). Very interesting, though.