But what do you really think?
Lately, I’ve been surprised that the media, never a hotbed of conservatism, has been going after the Bush administration hammer and tong.
Maybe my memory is playing tricks, but coverage of this administration seems far more biased than it was of Reagan.
But a new poll reveals that the media thinks it’s being too soft on the administration.
The poll, conducted by Pew and the Project for Excellence in Journalism found, found, as reported by Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post (“Survey Finds Angst-Stained Wretches of the Fourth Estate”), that…
“55 percent of national journalists, and 37 percent of local ones, who see the media as soft on Bush may well be reflecting their own views of the president. At national outlets, 34 percent describe themselves as liberal, 54 percent as moderate and 7 percent as conservative. (The local split was 23-61-12.) Nearly 7 in 10 of the liberal national journalists criticized the Bush coverage.
“You’d expect the minority who say they have a liberal point of view to be more critical of the press when it comes to Bush,” says Pew Director Andrew Kohut, whose organization interviewed 547 journalists. But he noted that 44 percent of the self-described moderates also hold that view.”
My guess is that the self-described moderates may be more liberal than they let on — remember there was a famous poll years ago that revealed how solidly liberal the press is. They’re probably poll-wise by now.
Imagine the kind of coverage we’d see if the press didn’t want to appear objective.