Media Bias in The United States - Conservative Bias

Conservative Bias

Conservative bias in the media occurs when conservative ideas have undue influence on the coverage or selection of news stories.

Possible causes of conservative bias include:

• Media Concentration: A handful of corporate conglomerates (e.g., (Disney, CBS Corporation, News Corporation, TimeWarner, and General Electric) own the majority of mass media outlets in the United States. Such a uniformity of ownership means that stories which are critical of these corporations are in some cases underplayed in the media.

• Capitalist Model: In the United States the media are operated for profit, and are usually funded by advertising. Stories critical of advertisers or their interests may in some cases be underplayed, while stories favorable to advertisers may be given more coverage.

• Conservative Media Organizations: Certain conservative media outlets such as NewsMax, WorldNetDaily, and Fox News describe themselves as news organizations, but are generally seen as promoting a conservative agenda.

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) has argued that accusations of liberal media bias are part of a conservative strategy, noting an article in the August 20, 1992 Washington Post, in which Republican party chair Rich Bond compared journalists to referees in a sporting match. "If you watch any great coach, what they try to do is 'work the refs.' Maybe the ref will cut you a little slack next time." A 1998 study from FAIR found that journalists are "mostly centrist in their political orientation"; 30% considered themselves to the left on social issues compared to 9% on the right, while 11% considered themselves to the left on economic issues compared to 19% on the right. The report argued that since journalists considered themselves to be centrists, "perhaps this is why an earlier survey found that they tended to vote for Bill Clinton in large numbers." FAIR uses this study to support the claim that media bias is propagated down from the management, and that individual journalists are relatively neutral in their work.

A report "Examining the 'Liberal Media' Claim: Journalists' Views on Politics, Economic Policy and Media Coverage" by David Croteau, from 1998, calls into question the assumption that journalists' views are to the left of center in America. The findings were that journalists were "mostly centrist in their political orientation" and more conservative than the general public on economic issues (with a minority being more progressive than the general public on social issues).

Rupert Murdoch, the CEO of News Corporation (the parent of Fox News), self-identifies as a libertarian. Rupert Murdoch has exerted a strong influence over Fox News.

In 2008 George W. Bush's press secretary Scott McClellan published a book in which he confessed to regularly and routinely, but unknowingly, passing on lies to the media, following the instructions of his superiors, lies that the media reported as facts. He characterizes the press as, by and large, honest, and intent on telling the truth, but reports that "the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House", especially on the subject of the war in Iraq.