Outrage over political donations by Fox News's parent company News Corp. always seemed like a bit of a stretch when it implied that those contributions affected Fox's political coverage.
Many news media outlets are owned by larger companies. Those companies' activities don't ipso facto affect news coverage at their media subsidiaries. So when NewsBusters pointed out that 88 percent of political donations from employees of the three TV news networks went to Democrats, it was really just to note the double standard at work (surely, numerous employees have nothing to do with the news operations).
New data revealed by the Center for Responsive Politics, however, suggests a real bias at play. According to Megan [spelling corrected - Ed.] Wilson, who writes for the Center's site OpenSecrets.org, 65 percent of donations from 235 self-identified journalists have gone to Democrats this cycle.
Wilson reported (via Mark Tapscott):
Hayes is one of 235 people who identified themselves on government documents as journalists, or as working for news organizations, who together have donated more than $469,900 to federal political candidates, committees and parties during the 2010 election cycle, a Center for Responsive Politics analysis indicates.
People identifying themselves as working for hard news outlets such as the Washington Post, the New York Times, the New York Post, News Corp., Vanity Fair and Reuters are among the listed donors. Also listed are employees from outlets offering lighter fare -- ESPN, Vogue -- or community news. Some have donated thousands of dollars.
The average contribution per person identified is eight times Hayes’ amount, and because of some big-spending media professionals, that number is slightly skewed upwards -- with the median amount donated coming in at $500. Sixty-five percent of all identified donations went to Democrats, the Center’s research indicates.
Unlike either the News Corp. "controversy" or the numbers concerning network employees, these donation figures demonstrate a clear political slant among those who actually report the news.
In other words, if you "follow the money," as many Fox-haters are wont to do, it leads to a clear liberal bias among the nation's most prominent journalists.
