The Washington Post ombudsman inveighs against the Liberal Media (which it thinks it's part of):

[It may be that] that traditional news outlets like The Post simply don't pay sufficient attention to conservative media or viewpoints.

It "can't be discounted," said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. "Complaints by conservatives are slower to be picked up by non-ideological media because there are not enough conservatives and too many liberals in most newsrooms."

"They just don't see the resonance of these issues. They don't hear about them as fast [and] they're not naturally watching as much," he added.

Post Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli said he worries "that we are not well-enough informed about conservative issues. It's particularly a problem in a town so dominated by Democrats and the Democratic point of view."

To guard against it, he said, "I challenge our reporters and editors with great frequency to look at what is going on across the political spectrum . . . at the extremes, among the rabble-rousers, as well as among policymakers." He said he pressed the National desk this week to provide more ACORN coverage.

You've got to like the Pew dude's remark that there's a problem with "non-ideological media because there are not enough conservatives and too many liberals in most newsrooms". Even if something is deemed "non-iedological", there's still something fishy going on. (Conspiracy theories, anyone?)

Back to the Post's ombudsman:

The most authoritative recent research into the political leanings of newsrooms (including television, radio, magazines and wire services) shows they are considerably more liberal than the general public. At daily newspapers, those who "lean to the left still far outnumber those who lean to the right," said Indiana University journalism professor David H. Weaver, whose researchers surveyed 1,149 journalists in 2002 and recently conducted a follow-up study of 400.

Where is the survey of the leanings of the owners and executives in television, radio, magazines and radio services?
posted by Quiddity at 9/20/2009 09:48:00 AM