Should Reporters Give to Campaigns?

No one should deny reporters the right to donate, just like no one can deny their right to vote. And a campaign contribution is just a vote, except it might actually help decide who wins the election. As long as I can't tell who they're voting for or donating to by reading their stories, I don't see a problem.

On the subject of media and public officials, I have to ask: Should Supreme Court justices base their opinions on torture on fictional TV shows?

The whole article is moronic...

Here's the thing. The universe is 100,000 journalists. 0.14% of these journalists contributed to political causes. In other words, 99.86 percent DO NOT contribute to politicians or parties. Yet Dedman thinks he sees a "pattern" that somehow confirms the "liberal media" nonsense because 90% of 0.14% of journalists gave to democrats.

And here how much of an idiot Dedman is.... When I pointed out that you CANNOT draw any kind of conclusions based on so little data, his response was:

"What did you want, a headline saying: Small percentage of planes crashed at O'Hare today."

This moron doesn't know the difference between statistically significant data and an air disaster.

Moreover, when I criticized him for failing to report on contributions by media ownership, his response was...

"If you didn't see all the stories, here are the links: "MSNBC.com limited its search to ... Donors in news jobs, not corporate executives
or publishers, who are allowed by nearly every news organization to do."

Of course, that isn't exactly an explanation, given that THE VAST MAJORITY of the journalists cited were not forbidden from making political contributions either.

What is more significant? The fact that Dedman's corporate overlords at General Electric contributed MILLIONS to political candidates in the last few years -- with 2/3 of it going to Republicans? Or that the David Denby--film critic of the New Yorker gave Kerry $1250 --even though Denby reviews films like An Inconvenient Truth and Fahrenheit 911.

Who is more suspect? The employee of the corporation that fired Phil Donahue for his political views who doesn't report on his corporate overlord's political contributions for completely bogus reasons, or David Denby?

(oh, and btw James...your corporate overlords at Time Warner gave about $433K through their PAC in 2004... 2/3 of it to GOP candidates. So I'd not take too strong a position on this one.)

"oh, and btw James...your corporate overlords at Time Warner gave about $433K through their PAC in 2004... 2/3 of it to GOP candidates. So I'd not take too strong a position on this one."

Too late. Richard Parsons already sent his goons down to waterboard me.

Seriously, I'm glad you mentioned this, because an important flip side to the issue. And my short answer is essentially the same: that I don't care who a news organizations' corporate owner gives money to, either; what matters is whether the news coverage is fair and not interfered with for partisan reasons. If it's slanted, or if it values giving aid to "the good guys," however defined, over the whole truth, then that's a real crime even if nobody donates a dime to anyone.

(I'm sure this is a simplistic answer, but I'm probably approaching my verbiage limit on this one.)

(D) The Boston Globe, Henry Riemer, sports statistician

I'm glad you brought this article to my attention. Like Most Americans, my political opinions are heavily influenced by the Boston Globe's sports section. So it's very helpful to know that their sports statistician donated to Democrats.

Thank you MSNBC for highlighting this very important detail.

"(I'm sure this is a simplistic answer, but I'm probably approaching my verbiage limit on this one.) "

Verbiate more!

unfortunately, as Time's media critic, it falls to you to be the point person on journalism, especially electronic journalism. (I keep telling the Swampies that they need to add a media critic to the Swampland corral, but apparently their afraid to or something.)

I don't think there should be bans on campaign contributions by their employers. Instead, those employees should happily admit said contributions, and their political/ethical views, and let the readers draw their own conclusions on the "independence" of the stories they write. Similarly, campaign contributions should be clearly posted on the websites of their corporate overlords. It's the 21st century, and storage and bandwidth are rather cheap - lets use those arguably pointless corporate websites for transparency (as well as advertisement).

And paul, ever heard of the phrase "the lady doth protest too much"? A 9:1 ratio and you instantly assume said values are totally meaningless due to small sample size? Despite that said leanings are actually rational and expected, as many people go into the journalism business to illuminate unfairness, and then climb the journalism ladder, starting with little guy gets hosed by X stories, which could easily be fixed by more government/greater spending on X (the current Democrat view). Whereas it is rational and expected that their corporate overlords, as large, frequently multinational conglomerates, would be fond of pro-business profit viewpoints (the current Republican view)?

Just because someone you don't like said something doesn't automatically make it untrue - it is up to each of us to decide the truth of the matter, with all the information that we can get our hands on. Enter transparency, exit "don't do anything that leaves a trail".

"And paul, ever heard of the phrase "the lady doth protest too much"? A 9:1 ratio and you instantly assume said values are totally meaningless due to small sample size?"

this wasn't a "sample". Dedman went through all of the filings available through the FEC, and found 144 people (out of a universe of approximately 100,000) who contributed.

In other words, this was not a poll in which a population was sampled, but a census. And the conclusions that can be drawn are that (rounding to big/whole numbers) 1 in 1000 (125 out of 100,000) journalists contribute to Democrats, and 2 in 10000 (17 out of 100,000) journalists contribute to Republicans -- and 1 in 50,000 gave to both parties.

"Just because someone you don't like said something doesn't automatically make it untrue "

I agree. The problem here is how this guy reported it.... he took an INSIGNIFICANT number of journalists who contributed to campaigns (144 out of 100,000) and made the ratio sound significant (9 out of 10 of the insignificant number of contributors contributed to democrats).

How insignificant is the actual data... well, consider the fact that your odds of getting hit by lighting in your lifetime is 1 in 5000. The odds of being killed by a car in your lifetime are about 1 in 700. So its five times more likely that a journalist has contributed to a Democrat in the last couple of years than you will be hit by lightning during your lifetime. And its about 1.5 times more likely that you will be killed by a motor vehicle than a journalist has contributed to a democrat in the last couple of years.

Again... 99,856 out of 100,000 DID NOT CONTRIBUTE. That is the significant number. Everything else is pure BS.

not to beat a dead horse but...

In my letter to Dedman, I pointed out that what he was doing was similar to finding out that 144 out of 100,000 journalists whose DVD rentals he examined had rented bondage porn in the last couple of years, and 9 out of ten of them rented hetersexual bondage porn..... and then reporting it as if 90% of journalists were into heterosexual bondage scenes.

What the data actually shows is a lack of evidence in an interest in bondage among more than 98% of journalists.

But that wouldn't be much of a story, now would it?

OK, well I'll verbiate just a smidge more. As to Tom and p_luk's agreement: I too tend to think that journalists tend to average somewhat left of center, tho not so far from the center, with a little more conservatism when it comes to economic issues (esp. the farther you get up the pay scale). I have no data, nor am I saying Dedman's percentages are accurate--just going on my anecdotal experience, not limited to Time. Likewise, I would agree with corporate's tendency to lean right economically.

But, and I'm going to sound like an apologist here, I think that people tend to overestimate the influence of these leanings on the actual news. Particularly because so much media criticism nowadays comes from people with strong partisan interests, I think people have a hard time understanding why someone with the power of the press would _not_ intentionally wield it to influence politics and "improve" the world.

As a rule, journalists have a inbred traitorousness--and I mean that in a good way--that makes them take pride in valuing a good scoop over the interests of "their side." And except for your activist press-baron types, the people who run journalistic institutions are chiefly interested in making as much money as possible. Unless you have a partisan niche, that profitability is going to depend at least in part on putting out a credible product.

Not to say that political bias doesn't matter at all, but I think any number of other problems in the media--access journalism, the urge to ingratiate one's self to readers, above all the drive to do whatever makes the most money and find a journalistic reason for it later--are more serious problems than who donates money to whom.

@P_luk:

"what he was doing was similar to finding out that 144 out of 100,000 journalists whose DVD rentals he examined had rented bondage porn in the last couple of years, and 9 out of ten of them rented hetersexual bondage porn..... and then reporting it as if 90% of journalists were into heterosexual bondage scenes."

Good point (and good analogy). But what if Dedman took that finding and concluded that 90% of journalists *are heterosexual*? Not as much of a stretch, right?

"Good point (and good analogy). But what if Dedman took that finding and concluded that 90% of journalists *are heterosexual*? Not as much of a stretch, right?"

I'm afraid not, because the you have no information on the 99,856 journalists who don't rent bondage porn, only the very small minority of those who do rent it. When you are talking about a miniscule subset of a large population, you cannot extrapolate based on the data from that subset, because it is de facto non-representative of the whole.

I mean, if I'd said that 75% of the bondage porn had been straight, would that mean that only 75% of all journalists were heterosexual? Of course not.

Another way of looking at it is voting. You have an election where there are 100,000 voters. In one precinct of 144 people, 125 are white, 17 are black, and two are hispanic..and the Democratic candidate won 55% of the vote. You can't use that data to extrapolate EITHER the result of the election citywide, nor the demographics for the rest of the city. You simply don't have enough information-- the precinct may be typical, but there is no way to know that.

"Toddlers Against Bush"???

You gotta be kidding? This is twisted.

You lefties who deny a liberal media bias are almost funny. Of course, living in a fantasy is a lib trademark, so...

"As to Tom and p_luk's agreement: I too tend to think that journalists tend to average somewhat left of center, tho not so far from the center, with a little more conservatism when it comes to economic issues (esp. the farther you get up the pay scale). I have no data, nor am I saying Dedman's percentages are accurate--just going on my anecdotal experience, not limited to Time. "

I have no problem acknowledging that the personal views of most professional journalists tend toward the liberal/democratic side. After all, "reality is biased toward liberalism", as they say. Professional journalists are better educated (because they have to be) and better informed (because its their job) than the average american -- and both factors make one more likely to be liberal.

Plus, there is the nature of journalism itself -- "bad news" is more newsworthy than "good news", and "bad news" always carries with it the implication that there is a problem to be solved that the individual news consumer cannot solve themselves -- and the natural tendency is to look toward government for a solution. That in itself tends to make journalists more "liberal", at least in terms of the role of government. Finally, there are "environmental" factors -- professional journalists tend to herd in large cities... an enivironment that is conducive to "liberal" perspectives because urban environments are far more heterogenous than suburban/rural environments, and tolerance -- a liberal value -- is necessary.

So there are all these factors that contribute to professional journalists having "liberal" views. But it that same liberal mindset that requires them to present the news fairly and as impartially as possible --- a liberal typically is aware of their own biases, and strives to ensure that those biases do not supercede their rationality. Liberals question their own beliefs and positions on a regular basis, and are open to new information and ideas -- that is why liberals make the best reporters.

But the demands of the news business qua business turn perfectly good reporters into journalistic disaster areas -- and this is especially true in the dominant news media -- television. While a GOOD picture may be worth a thousand words, pictures are no substitute for substantive information that only words can convey --- yet television news is all about the visuals, and the pictures and sound bites that accompany them have almost nothing to do with the information that people need to make informed decisions.

(geez, I haven't even gotten to my point yet! Well here goes.)

I don't know if Dedman is a liberal or a conservative. What I do know is that the article in question is a piece of crap, and he's responsible for it. The real headline should have been "Almost No Journalists Contribute to Political Campaigns", and that is what the story should have been about-- the apolitical nature of 99% of professional journalists. Maybe, toward the end of the piece, he could have mentioned something about the 9 to 1 ratio among the insignificant minority of journalists who do contribute to campaigns...but that is about it.

Instead, he wrote an expose about nothing of significance (a very small number of journalists appear to have broken the rules of their employers concerning political contributions) and presented it as "confirming" the falsehood that there is "liberal bias" in the media. And, of course, the right-wing is eating it up, never bothering to realize that his "investigative report" involved less than 0.15% of "professional journalists"....and an infintesimal percentage of journalists whose "beats" make the question of impartiality relevant.

That's crap journalism, pure and simple -- and its crap journalism with a "conservative bias". Not because Dedman is a conservative -- but because he's a crappy reporter who hyped a meaningless story that fit precisely into the conservative narrative.

(its times like this I wish I actually blogged)

"(its times like this I wish I actually blogged)"

Don't you dare! Time Warner needs the free labor!

As Michelle Malkin wrote -

"The question isn’t, as Poniewozik frames it, whether he should be allowed to donate–but whether he properly discloses it and any relevant conflicts of interest to readers in a timely manner. None of the journalist donors spotlighted in Dedman’s report did that. It’s a point the Sunlight Brigade keeps glossing over."

@Steve:

Actually, I agree with Malkin insofar as that goes. I believe that the journalists who were doing straight-news stories on the elections--and those were very few--should have disclosed if they had donated to candidates in the same election they were writing about. But a theater critic? A sports statistician? That's looking pretty hard for things to be outraged over. And do we need Hendrik Hertzberg's disclosure to know where he stands politically? The guy writes a column in the New Yorker where he outlines his political beliefs specifically.

Although again, I think even making the straight-news political reporters disclose is more about the appearance of objectivity than actual objectivity. Is a journalist who donates to a campaign that much more likely to slant a story than a journalist who simply votes? I doubt it.

p_lukasiak is assuming that if a donation is not on the FEC website, there was no donation.

How wrong can you be?

First, I would love to know where other than the thin blue sky the number 100,000 journalists came from.

Second, donations to federal candidates are only reported if they break the $200 threshold. Meaning, a person can give say $150 and not be listed in the FEC records. THOUSANDS of reporters could have given to Federal candidates and we'd never know it. It is p_lukasiak that is making the unwarranted and baseless assumption that if there is no FEC record, there was no donation.

Third, it is highly probable that there are MORE journalists who contributed to Federal candidates above the 4200 threshold. Read the methodology section of the survey: he searched for obvious words in the occupation (such as "reporter" or "anchor") or in the employer section under the name of the top 200 newspapers and major nes magazines.

That leaves a) almost all local newspapers b) all local TV networks c) all local radio news d) many news magazines. Big gaping hole there.

Finally, there is the matter of contribution to STATE candidates. These would never, ever show up in the FEC search and, sadly, most states are unable to search-by-contributor. If they are capable, again as with the FEC, they tend to have cut off points; donations by one person up to $XXX do not have to be itemized by the campaign and reported individually but can be lumped together.

To reiterate: simply because there is no FEC record of a particular person donating does NOT mean the person never donated to a political candidate. Moreover, the survey such as it was was by no means all inclusive and failed to search for either State candidate contributions or the donations of reporters and other news media in local or smaller market publications/airwaves/radiowaves. Finally, the number 100,000 p_lukasiak has provided has no founding or support other than his (her?) conjecture.

This is not to say the report and survey are not flawed; they may very well be. Only that p_lukasiak has not identified or rather mis-identified "flaws" that simply do not exist.

If stock analysts are required to disclose what stocks they are invested in, why shouldn't reporters be required to disclose the same? Journalists get into the biz to "change the world", that's their motivation, the least they should do is disclose where their mindset is BEFORE they report on politics. It still AMAZES me how self-righteous reporters are, how critical they are of every other profession except their own! They constantly claim politicians and "media figures" have to be held up to a higher standard, then conveniently exclude themselves from said group. I as a CPA cannot advise my clients regarding issues where I have even the APPEARANCE of a conflict of interest. Why can't reporters simply disclose next to their name on any TV or print report a (D) or an (R)? As any GOOD reporter would say: What are they hiding? What makes you all so high and mighty????