5 ms·

> I'd say the same thing about journalists. 90%+ of journalists are democrats. I can't believe in all the responses nobody has challenged this statement. What

by birken 7y ago

> I'd say the same thing about journalists. 90%+ of journalists are democrats. I can't believe in all the responses nobody has challenged this statement. What is your source for this? Based on exit polls, in aggregate white men are heavily republican, and college educated white men are still republican by over 20 points. This seems like an extraordinary claim. And for one tangible data point, in 2012, wikipedia shows 158 newspaper endorsing the democratic candidate, and 112 newspaper endorsing the republican candidate [1]. Obviously not a perfect metric, but that is ~58% of newspaper endorsing the democratic candidate. Even in 2016, when the Republican candidate was specifically anti-journalists, only 69% of newspapers endorsed the democratic candidate [2]. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspaper_endorsements_in_the_2012_United_States_presidential_election#Daily_newspapers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspaper_endorsements_in_the_... 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspaper_endorsements_in_the_2016_United_States_presidential_election#Daily_newspapers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspaper_endorsements_in_the_...

listenallyall 7y ago
Your 2016 reference states Clinton 500, Trump 28. (plus 30 "Not Trump") Not sure how you get 69% from that. >> What is your source for this? On an individual level, more than 90% of journalists' personal donations went to Clinton. $382,000 to $14,000. https://www.cjr.org/covering_the_election/campaign_donations_journalists.php https://www.cjr.org/covering_the_election/campaign_donations...
- birken 7y ago
  In the 2016 campaign I referenced Clinton endorsements vs total endorsements. "No endorsement" received over 3x as many endorsements as the republican candidate. Also don't oversample from the 2016 election. One of the candidates literally referred to journalists as "enemy of the state". Probably not shocking that many journalistic outlets would rather endorse nobody than a candidate like that. Even going back 4 years you did not see that pattern. According to Wikipedia, in 2004 the democratic candidate got 52% of the newspaper endorsements. In 2008 the democratic candidate got 62%. These are far from perfect measures but again, if 90% of journalists were in fact democrats then my guess is the number of newspapers that endorsed democratic candidates would be much closer to 90%, and it clearly isn't. The total donations really aren't really convincing because clearly the vast majority of journalists donate to nobody, so you really don't know exactly what the preference is for the median journalist. I'd also be interested in the stats for 2012, 2008 and previous elections before making any conclusions.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspaper_endorsements_in_the_2008_United_States_presidential_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspaper_endorsements_in_the_... > As of November 4, 2008, Barack Obama had received more than twice as many publication endorsements as John McCain; in terms of circulation, the ratio was more than 3 to 1, according to the detailed tables below. By circulation, it was like > 75% Obama versus McCain. Assuming journalist employment is roughly proportional to circulation, that suggests that a similar percentage of journalists are Democrats.
rayiner 7y ago
I mis-remembered the statistic a bit. (Sorry too late to edit, but breaking down the numbers here.) 7% of journalists identify as republican, versus 28% identifying as democrat. The majority identify as independent: https://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2014/05/survey-7-percent-of-reporters-identify-as-republican-188053 https://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2014/05/survey-7-percen.... So 80% of journalists who disclose a political affiliation identify as Democrat, and 20% identify as republican. To put that into perspective: nationally, 27% of people identify as republican, versus 29% as democrat: https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx. Among the general population self-identified republicans and democrats are roughly evenly represented, but among journalists democrats outnumber republicans 4:1. I would expect the independents to break along the same proportions when it comes to voting. Another way to look at it is to compare journalists to various demographic groups: https://www.people-press.org/2018/03/20/1-trends-in-party-affiliation-among-demographic-groups https://www.people-press.org/2018/03/20/1-trends-in-party-af.... Journalists are less likely to self-identify as republicans than: urban voters, jewish voters, millenials, asian voters, and hispanic voters. That is particularly interesting because journalists are more likely to be white and male than the general population, or democrats as a group. Therefore, their party identification is particularly unusual when compared to other white men. On other metrics: a Texas A&M poll of finance journalists found that 58% described themselves as very or somewhat liberal, versus 4.4% saying they were very or somewhat conservative: https://www.dailywire.com/news/462-financial-journalists-were-asked-their-ashe-schow https://www.dailywire.com/news/462-financial-journalists-wer.... Nationally, however, 37% of people say they are very or somewhat conservative, versus 24% who say they are very or somewhat liberal: https://news.gallup.com/poll/188129/conservatives-hang-ideology-lead-thread.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/188129/conservatives-hang-ideol.... That makes the polled financial journalists 2.3x more likely to self-identify as liberal, and 1/8 as likely to self identify as conservative as the general population. That means the ratio of conservatives to liberals is 20x higher in that pool of journalists than in the general population.
- nkurz 7y ago
  While we are picking apart your statistics, I wondered about your claim that journalists are "Overwhelmingly, white and male democrats". From what I can tell journalists at major US papers have about a 60:40 male to female ratio: https://www.statista.com/statistics/625800/newspaper-journalists-gender-distribution/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/625800/newspaper-journal.... I also found this interesting source which seem to say that most newsrooms are about 80% white: https://googletrends.github.io/asne/ https://googletrends.github.io/asne/. My quick conclusion is that if we thus assume that male, white, and Democrat are independently distributed, we find that 60% * 80% * 30% = 15% of journalists are white males that identify as Democrats. While this is probably the most common combination of these particular characteristics, it doesn't feel particularly overwhelming.

by birken 7y ago

listenallyall 7y ago

Your 2016 reference states Clinton 500, Trump 28. (plus 30 "Not Trump") Not sure how you get 69% from that. >> What is your source for this? On an individual level, more than 90% of journalists' personal donations went to Clinton. $382,000 to $14,000. https://www.cjr.org/covering_the_election/campaign_donations_journalists.php https://www.cjr.org/covering_the_election/campaign_donations...

birken 7y ago
In the 2016 campaign I referenced Clinton endorsements vs total endorsements. "No endorsement" received over 3x as many endorsements as the republican candidate. Also don't oversample from the 2016 election. One of the candidates literally referred to journalists as "enemy of the state". Probably not shocking that many journalistic outlets would rather endorse nobody than a candidate like that. Even going back 4 years you did not see that pattern. According to Wikipedia, in 2004 the democratic candidate got 52% of the newspaper endorsements. In 2008 the democratic candidate got 62%. These are far from perfect measures but again, if 90% of journalists were in fact democrats then my guess is the number of newspapers that endorsed democratic candidates would be much closer to 90%, and it clearly isn't. The total donations really aren't really convincing because clearly the vast majority of journalists donate to nobody, so you really don't know exactly what the preference is for the median journalist. I'd also be interested in the stats for 2012, 2008 and previous elections before making any conclusions.
- rayiner 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspaper_endorsements_in_the_2008_United_States_presidential_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspaper_endorsements_in_the_... > As of November 4, 2008, Barack Obama had received more than twice as many publication endorsements as John McCain; in terms of circulation, the ratio was more than 3 to 1, according to the detailed tables below. By circulation, it was like > 75% Obama versus McCain. Assuming journalist employment is roughly proportional to circulation, that suggests that a similar percentage of journalists are Democrats.

rayiner 7y ago

I mis-remembered the statistic a bit. (Sorry too late to edit, but breaking down the numbers here.) 7% of journalists identify as republican, versus 28% identifying as democrat. The majority identify as independent: https://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2014/05/survey-7-percent-of-reporters-identify-as-republican-188053 https://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2014/05/survey-7-percen.... So 80% of journalists who disclose a political affiliation identify as Democrat, and 20% identify as republican. To put that into perspective: nationally, 27% of people identify as republican, versus 29% as democrat: https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx. Among the general population self-identified republicans and democrats are roughly evenly represented, but among journalists democrats outnumber republicans 4:1. I would expect the independents to break along the same proportions when it comes to voting. Another way to look at it is to compare journalists to various demographic groups: https://www.people-press.org/2018/03/20/1-trends-in-party-affiliation-among-demographic-groups https://www.people-press.org/2018/03/20/1-trends-in-party-af.... Journalists are less likely to self-identify as republicans than: urban voters, jewish voters, millenials, asian voters, and hispanic voters. That is particularly interesting because journalists are more likely to be white and male than the general population, or democrats as a group. Therefore, their party identification is particularly unusual when compared to other white men. On other metrics: a Texas A&M poll of finance journalists found that 58% described themselves as very or somewhat liberal, versus 4.4% saying they were very or somewhat conservative: https://www.dailywire.com/news/462-financial-journalists-were-asked-their-ashe-schow https://www.dailywire.com/news/462-financial-journalists-wer.... Nationally, however, 37% of people say they are very or somewhat conservative, versus 24% who say they are very or somewhat liberal: https://news.gallup.com/poll/188129/conservatives-hang-ideology-lead-thread.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/188129/conservatives-hang-ideol.... That makes the polled financial journalists 2.3x more likely to self-identify as liberal, and 1/8 as likely to self identify as conservative as the general population. That means the ratio of conservatives to liberals is 20x higher in that pool of journalists than in the general population.

nkurz 7y ago
While we are picking apart your statistics, I wondered about your claim that journalists are "Overwhelmingly, white and male democrats". From what I can tell journalists at major US papers have about a 60:40 male to female ratio: https://www.statista.com/statistics/625800/newspaper-journalists-gender-distribution/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/625800/newspaper-journal.... I also found this interesting source which seem to say that most newsrooms are about 80% white: https://googletrends.github.io/asne/ https://googletrends.github.io/asne/. My quick conclusion is that if we thus assume that male, white, and Democrat are independently distributed, we find that 60% * 80% * 30% = 15% of journalists are white males that identify as Democrats. While this is probably the most common combination of these particular characteristics, it doesn't feel particularly overwhelming.