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The statistics are inherentl flawed because the journalists are self-identified.
Doesn't matter what percentage of journalists call themselves liberal, the proof is in the newsprint.
East Germany called itself the German Democratic Republic, that didn't make it a democracy.
70% (or 75% or 95%) of journalists will vote for Kerry. So what? Kerry's no liberal.
I'm a self-identified liberal telling you Kerry's no liberal, take that for what you will.
The major media outlets in this country are owned/run by conservatives. Whether these be Bush-supporting conservatives, or Kerry-supporting conservatives they are conservatives. Conservatives may be defined as "those with a vested interest in maintaining the staus quo". I don't think that can really be controverted, and one of the things conservatives would like to maintain is their wealth, and power, and mostly, access to more wealth and power.
Are their employees more liberal then them? Sure, they're not millionaires (billionaires in many cases) with some vested interests to protect that the status quo duopoly party system in this county (the US) does a fine job of protecting.
Most journalists will tell you they're liberal, and admit thier bosses are not, then tell you that that's o.k., because they have never been censored.
Of course not.
If they were so liberal that they write things their bosses really hated they would never have reached that point in their careers in the first place. They would have been drummed out along the way.
Its no conspiracy, its business. Disagree with your boss enough times, no matter what your line of work and you will eventually be looking for a new line of work (or at least a new place to pursue it).
Try Eric Alterman's "What Liberal Media".
Or much better,though much tougher to get into Noam Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent"; or "Necessary Illusions".
Or, though I haven't read it, based upon reviews, a shorter, easier introduction to Chomsly's theories on how the media is used as the propoganda arm of the wealthy elites "Media Control: The Spectacular Achievments of Propaganda" looks to be worthwhile.
The point is sure, you can call the media liberal, but you've got conservatives defining what it means to be a liberal. In reality there is very little ideological difference between what is widely assumed to be the most liberal major media outlet (the New York Times) and the most conservative (FOX News). You'll find a little bit more diversity of thought if you move down to the small to medium sized media (NPR and the Village Voice on the slightly more left; Drudge & Rush on the slightly more right), but its really a very narrow spectrum of debate being covered.
The further afield you search, the more diversity of opinions you'll find, the BBC, to the Nation, to the Guardian, to Democracy Now to ZMag will get you further left.
National Review, then American Spectator, then NewsMax will get you further right. Can't really speculate much beyond that, I dont know what comes next as I haven't gone looking for it but the point I attempt to make here is that the "accepted" center that the media is accused of being left of, is actually pretty far right, so its not to hard to be left of it, and still be pretty conservative, but semantically be labelable as a liberal.
Anyway, think for yourselves.
Flame on.
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