by Liz Swasey
In 1981, S. Robert Lichter, then with George Washington University, and Stanley Rothman of Smith College, released a groundbreaking survey of 240 journalists at the most influential national media outlets — including The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS — on their political attitudes and voting patterns.
Results of this study of the “media elite” were included in the October/November 1981 issue of Public Opinion, published by the American Enterprise Institute, in the article “Media and Business Elites.” The data demonstrated that journalists and broadcasters hold liberal positions on a wide range of social and political issues. This study, which was more elaborately presented in Lichter and Rothman's subsequent book, “The Media Elite,” became the most widely quoted media study of the 1980s and remains a landmark today.
Key Findings
• 81 percent of the journalists interviewed voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in every election between 1964 and 1976.
• In the Democratic landslide of 1964, 94 percent of the press surveyed voted for President Lyndon Johnson (D) over Senator Barry Goldwater (R).
• In 1968, 86 percent of the press surveyed voted for Democrat Senator Hubert Humphrey.
• In 1972, when 62 percent of the electorate chose President Richard Nixon, 81 percent of the media elite voted for liberal Democratic Senator George McGovern.
• In 1976, the Democratic nominee, Jimmy Carter, captured the allegiance of 81 percent of the reporters surveyed while a mere 19 percent cast their ballots for President Gerald Ford.
• Over the 16-year period, the Republican candidate always received less than 20 percent of the media’s vote.
• Lichter and Rothman's survey of journalists discovered that “Fifty-four percent placed themselves to the left of center, compared to only 19 percent who chose the right side of the spectrum.”
• “Fifty-six percent said the people they worked with were mostly on the left, and only 8 percent on the right — a margin of seven-to-one.”
• Only one percent strongly agreed that environmental problems were overstated, while a majority of 54 percent strongly disagreed.
• 90 percent favored abortion.
• 80 percent supported “strong affirmative action for blacks.”
• 54 percent did not regard adultery as wrong, compared to only 15 percent who regarded it as wrong.
(This update courtesy of the Media Research Center.)
