Since 1962, there have been surveys of the media that sought the political views of hundreds of journalists.
In 1971, they were 53 percent liberal, 17 percent conservative. In a 1976 survey of the Washington press corps, it was 59 percent liberal, 18 percent conservative.
A 1985 poll of 3,200 reporters found them to be self-identified as 55 percent liberal, 17 percent conservative.
In 1996, another survey of Washington journalists pegged the breakdown as 61 percent liberal, 9 percent conservative.
The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found the national media to be 34 percent liberal and 7 percent conservative.
Over 40-plus years, the only thing that's changed in the media's politics is that many national journalists have now cleverly decided to call themselves moderates.
But their actual views haven't changed, the Pew survey showed.
Their political beliefs are close to those of self-identified liberals and nowhere near those of conservatives. And the proportion of liberals to conservatives in the press, either 3-to-1 or 4-to-1, has stayed the same. That liberals are dominant is now beyond dispute.
In the Pew survey, only 5 percent say so--this, after further proof of liberal dominance and noisy debates about liberal bias.
And in 1999, 11 percent said ethics and standards were a major concern.
But after high-visibility scandals involving fabricated stories and controversies about plagiarism, only 5 percent agree.
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-215_162-620207.html
