Saturday, July 18, 1998

Bashing the 'liberal media' myth

By Martin Schram

Just in time for the lazy, hazy, news-lite days of summer comes a poll of 141 Washington- based journalists that delivers an important but rather hidden message for both the media and the masses.

The survey's sponsor, the very liberal Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, concludes its numbers debunk a myth of bias -- the "liberal media" myth that conservative activists love to proclaim.

As proof, FAIR cites the fact that these Washington journalists appeared to be to the right of responses given by the public in weighing the importance of reforming entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security and especially in believing the North American Free Trade Agreement has had a very positive effect on trade and that the president should be given greater fast-track authority to negotiate similar pacts.

But in its zeal to undo what it calls the "myth" of a liberal media, the sponsor has "mythed" the real significance of its own survey.

What those numbers are also telling us is that my colleagues in the news media apparently have failed to convey to the public what they have concluded about the importance of reforming our rapidly-expanding entitlement programs. And especially: Washington-based journalists have failed to inform Americans about what they apparently learned about the success of NAFTA, which is roundly attacked by a new marriage of strange bedfellows -- organized labor and Pat Buchanan.

Consider the real picture painted by the numbers in this survey: Asked if NAFTA has had a more positive or more negative impact since it was passed in 1993, 65 percent of the journalists said "positive," compared to just 32 percent of the general public; only 8 percent of the journalists answered "negative" compared to 42 percent of the public.

Now ask this: How many of the journalists could cite in-depth articles they have done that tried to assess the performance of NAFTA to date? We're not talking here about articles in which journalists quoted the quick-and-easy sloganeering analysis of a pol who is liberal and a pol who is conservative. We are talking about articles in which journalists traveled outside of Washington to cities where jobs have been affected one way or the other.

We are also talking about whether journalists tried to provide assessments of what might have happened to those jobs had there been no NAFTA; after all, we have been hearing for more than a decade that Americans were losing jobs to low-wage, low-benefits locales in Central and South America and in Asia.

In short, how many journalists have even attempted to do the tough-to-do policy assessment pieces that are indeed time-consuming but are so important for people who once again will be asked to make their own tough assessments on election day about whether the House and Senate should remain in Republican control or whether the Democrats should be given another chance.

The same question could be asked of journalists concerning Social Security and other entitlement programs.

The survey also seems to be telling us that journalists are people, too. That is, journalists see policy priorities often through a prism of their own circumstances. Consider health insurance. Washington journalists are well-paid by employers that provide fine coverage packages. Not surprisingly, the journalists did not place as high a priority on the importance of having employers provide health insurance to employees as did the general public.

We know from other surveys that on social issues, such as a woman's right to have an abortion, journalists are more liberal than the general public.

And we know, according to another poll, that in the 1992 election a majority of Washington journalists surveyed voted for Bill Clinton over George Bush.

Time out for a pop quiz: So who was it that complained, in 1993: "I have fought more damn battles here for more things than any president has in 20 years, with the possible exception of Reagan's first budget, and not gotten one damn bit of credit from the knee-jerk liberal press. And I am sick and tired of it, and you can put that in your damn article."

Answer: That was Bill Clinton, in an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine's William Greider. That was three years before the so-called biased liberal media had exposed those campaign contributions scandals the right wing didn't know about. And five years before anyone in the Washington media pack had learned to spell L-e-w-i-n-s-k-y.

Scripps Howard News Service