Are The Media Too Liberal?

Two weeks ago, a woman called the reader line at the Seattle Post- Intelligencer with the kind of complaint that overheated partisans make to nearly every news organization in nearly every election year. "The picture on page 4 of Vice President Quayle," she said, "shows his mouth screwed up, while beside him Candice Bergen as Murphy Brown looks very happy." The same thing happens, the woman added, whenever the paper runs photos of President Bush and Democratic challenger Bill Clinton, or for that matter other nominees of each party. "The Republicans are always frowning. The Democrats are always happy."

Journalists tend to laugh off such hypersensitivity. Any veteran of a newspaper or TV newscast knows it's a miracle the product gets out at all. Ideological conspiracy would be beyond the capacities of management -- not to mention temperamentally implausible for the fractious, jostling group of egos found in any newsroom. Besides, most journalists are by nature opportunists whose ideology or other loyalties would never stop them from pursuing a career-making story. If there were bias, what difference would it make? Despite the supposedly pervasive liberalism of the major news media, American voters have put conservative Republicans in the White House in 20 of the past 24 years.

But this year, after countless breast-beating symposiums and innumerable studies about fairness, millions of Americans remain passionately resentful of what they consider a marked liberal bias. While few reporters will acknowledge the facts publicly, it is widely admitted in private that many journalists covering Bill Clinton feel generational affinity and unusual warmth toward him -- and that much of the White House press corps disdains President Bush and all his works. Says White House reporter James Gerstenzang of the Los Angeles Times, one of the few who will speak on the record: "Reporters feel condescension and contempt for Bush. There really is that attitude. They're openly derisive." It is not hard to find savvy political journalists who think Bush may yet win. It is very difficult to find many who will vote for him.

There are plenty of reasons apart from ideology for the political press to favor Clinton. One is pure ambition: many reporters covering Clinton hope to follow him to the White House press corps, a major career move, while those who have had the beat during the Reagan and Bush years would gladly shift to editing or columnizing. Another reason is access. Out on the hustings, especially during the primaries, Clinton was inevitably more accessible than a sitting President, who must split his time between campaigning and governing. Moreover, as a matter of style and strategy, even when they are on the road, "access to the Bush and Quayle campaigns has been almost nil," notes Josh Mankiewicz, political reporter at Los Angeles's K-CAL. Says Mary Tillotson of CNN: "The President used to come back and schmooze with us on Air Force One. We haven't seen him up close for months."