Barbara Oakley at Psychology Today: Why most journalists are Democrats.
posted by Helen at 7:19 AM
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
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34 Comments:
A fun article. It speaks well of the author that she can have such critical thinking skills as a self avowed (albeit classical) liberal. You do not see that every day.
Trey
They say that if you want to change society, you start by re-engineering its words. The press is the first team for that. It's made up of people who want to change society, not report facts to inform people.
I agree with Trey. Good for the author to see through the crap. The author mentions her daughter's experience in college. As expensive as college is, her daughter was not about to jeopardize her grade to stand for principle, despite the ridiculous stance of her professor.
Big Education is as overripe for disruptive innovation as Big Media. Consider that *most* of college education is being assigned a book, reading the book, and then proving that you read the book in a way that is publicly acknowledged. All for hundreds or thousands of dollars per class.
Or I can just buy the book through Amazon. Through technology today, certainly there is a way to gather with other autodidacts for discussion and maybe even write a paper on what I've read. In this way, I don't have to check my principles at the classroom door for fear of hurting the grade issued by a Marxist professor.
idealistic and savetheworldish...at first, but then somewhere down the line there slips in a meanness. a disillusionment possibly.
but why deny the very essense of socialism, which is tyranny.
doesn`t that fly directly in the face of any altruistic wish to save the world, or better it?
it seems that, for many, the surface ideology of sharing and a worker`s paradise is the bright, shiny dream, but they conveniently forget the messenger of socialism is a dark boy indeed.
he is one who wishes to bind you and twist your words and work you until you drop.
most liberals don`t understand that bill and hilary were card-carrying communists during college, radicals ready to tear at the fabric of the hand that feeds. like john lennon, not just cute refuseniks, but malicious resenters of the status quo and the affluence that pushed them up in the first place.
playing with the words plays with the mind.
gay used to mean happy.
Very interesting column. The far left wants to help society (the world?) by forcing everyone to contribute. Far right want to help the society (the world?) by forcing everyone to adhere to a strict set of morals. Same disease, different symptoms.
The 4th estate has failed in the US. It should be digging up facts and exposing them to the light of day. Instead the press has become politicized. What's not muddied by the Left (most of it) is just as dirty with the taint of the Right. Maybe you can make gray out of black and white but it sure would be nice if there was true neutral journalism going on somewhere.
but why deny the very essense of socialism, which is tyranny.
doesn`t that fly directly in the face of any altruistic wish to save the world, or better it?
The human mind is a tricky and confusing place. Denial of the most basic realities comes easy at times.
Most liberals I know possess an underlying hatred of some sort. They hate the rich. They hate the free. They hate those who don't think like them. When you hate, the truth takes a backseat.
It's not a problem for me that most journalists are Democrats and lefties (they aren't liberals; liberals believe in rights for everybody and in national defense). It is a problem that, as far as I can tell, most journalists view their job as advancing a far-left-of-center ideology, to the extent of suppressing stories, injecting opinion into what are represented as news pieces, and, on occasion, just plain lying.
A meaningless bunch of silliness from the old days that purports to show how journalists (reporters?_) are commies! Guess what: papers are run and published by capitalists, and journalists merely do the reporting and not even the editing. Editorials are the place where positions are depicted.
Psychology Today is a pop journal not peer reviewed.
This is the same old tiresome rant that conservatives have lived off for years.
Now go to the papers and show us how journalists are what is herein claimed.
i think there are many types of journalists. there are the type that are so ideological that they get run over by bulldozers...and there are those that get shot by irish mobsters for digging to deeply into "truth"....
....and then there are technical reporters writing about science, art, economics, etc...
most people i see involved in journalism though tend to be lefties. hippies, ponytale types and refuseniks of on type or annother.
and besides, newspapers are entertainment. not news.
news, to me, is what i need to know to live my life. if i`m going to work in the city, i need to know what the highway is like.
now.
so i call a friend or two who i know travel the region daily and get a live report.
picking the newspaper up, or listening to the radio for traffic or even local tv gets me assaulted by thier programming. not the information i need.
and an earthquake in bolivia has shit all to do with anything but upsetting me over coffee.
fred. you are right. jounalists of all stripes are making entertaining pieces for profit.
and then there are technical reporters writing about science, art, economics, etc...
Unfortunately, very few of them actually have an understanding of what they are writing about. It's most readily apparent in the IT press - reconstituted press releases as "news" articles. But affects other areas of technical knowledge. I don't know your area of expertise, Dr. A, but in mine I have seen poorly understood and sometimes just flat out wrong articles.
Mostly because the reporter in question never took any actual math, physics or computer classes beyond the survey courses they were required to take. And they probably hated those and wondered why they needed to take them because I'll never use that stuff anyway.
Of all the courses I wish I had done better, it's the ones that I didn't want to take 'cause I'll never use that stuff anyway.
Part of the whole "want to help society" is the elitist notion that you people are too stupid to live on your own.
I've seen this with other socialists and faux-communists: they believe that it's good for us even if we don't know it, and that they are part of the ruling class.
Stalin had a name for those people. Useful idiots, he called them. And yes, we are heading that way. When John Edwards talked of "Two America's" he was right even if he was wrong.
The political elite have alread exempted themselves from public education for their children, and Social Security for themselves, and placed language in the health care reform that also exempts them.
If the health care plan is as good as claimed, why are they exempting themselves from it?
I worked at a small newspaper for 5years. Some of the reporters there went on to major daily papers. Intellectually they were pretty average for college graduates. Which is why people don't buy papers any more. They're tired of pontificating by people no smarter than themselves.
If the health care plan is as good as claimed, why are they exempting themselves from it?
I'm sure fred can come up with some twisted logic to explain this.
"This is the same old tiresome rant"
I thought you were describing your own posts Fred. Read them, most of them are old and tiresome. Now when you get off politics, I enjoy your posts. Otherwise, same as it ever was.
Trey
Intersting.
The journalists intent, along with the openness of a free society and the closedness of a tyrranical one, is how few in america know much about the tens of millions of women abroad who had their sexual organs maimed with crude cutting tools--yet virtually everyone who is clueless about those tens of millions of female victims know that (conservative) justice Clarence Thomas alledged said offensive words to Anita Hill.
This is an unintended consequence of freedom--minor ills in generally good societies are far easier to expose than major wrongs under evil governments.
And in fact, Trust, you're demonstrating exactly your own point by citing female genital mutilation. . .since there are tens of millions of men right here in the usa who have been majorly wronged by routine and ritual male genital mutilation.
To say nothing of the hundreds of millions of further male genital mutilation victims abroad, as the worldwide ratio is, by the best estimate we appear to have, 2 female genital mutilation victims to 13 male genital mutilation victims overall.
And we still sexually mutilate over a million baby boys in this country every single year. Almost one every 30 seconds.
But there's hardly a peep about it in the press, let alone an actually honest and factual article in which the anti-child side is asked the most basic and simple of critical questions about their position.
Journalists are inherently elitists since they seek and hold jobs whereby they give information (and perspective) to the masses. The more prestigious the newspaper or magazine, the more the journo feels superior, on the inside, and even more erudite. This combines with the need to help make society better to produce the elitist liberal with a guilt complex and an axe to grind for the oppressed.
Add to this the influx of thousands who were inspired by Woodward and Bernstien and you get the Democrat drones we have writing today.
@Acksiom said... And in fact, Trust, you're demonstrating exactly your own point by citing female genital mutilation. . .since there are tens of millions of men right here in the usa who have been majorly wronged by routine and ritual male genital mutilation.
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Your point is correct that we are more sensitive to female genital mutilation than male (within the country at least), but I just want you to know I was aware of what you speak of. In fact, earlier today, I forwarded an article about a male victim to Dr. H.
More relevant is the point that Anita Hill was never physically harmed or even threatened with harm, but yet we made a big deal about the alleged crime against her. Conversely, few people know that nearly 100 million women have had their clitoris' cut off; millions of Chinese girls are aborted, murdered at birth, and sold to brothels; in the Middle East thousands of girls are burned to death by husbands seeking larger dowries and millions have been born into slavery.
That is not to discount John Wayne Bobbitt and male victims of violence. More to the point the the left in general (feminists in specific) are more concerned with a female (alleged) victim of verbage (particularly when it would cripple a conservative up for a court appointment) than hundreds of millions of female victims of real atrocities. Then again, in the Middle East and China there is not a free press.
Media outlets bring the public what they want most: entertainment. Often this is disguised as news.
@God Of Bacon said... Media outlets bring the public what they want most: entertainment. Often this is disguised as news.
______
Much like how, in 2008, Obama campaign literature was published disguised as newspapers.
There is a related article by Kenneth Silber: Why Scientists Hate Republicans.
Male genital mutilation? Are you talking vascectomy or circumcision? No matter. If journalists are so radical left and scientists hate republicans, how is it that we are still fighting two and a half illegal, immoral, and wasteful wars? The mainstream press had a love fest unbroken in the eight years Junior ran the show. Even the 'communist' PBS regurgitated pro-invasion propaganda and tolerated very few, if any, voices of reason in the run up to the invasion of Iraq. In every conceivable arena the Bush team rammed through measures and the majority of house and senate democrats just stood by like Blanche DuBois having the vapors.
And now Obama, thanks to the Clinton transition team, is vying for closest to dead center centrist administration of all time?!?
Capitalism and greed and the neocons have put this country into hock. But, by all means, go to your happy place and imagine that it is a vast left-wing conspiracy.
Why are most journalists liberal? Simple. Liberals are more open to new experience and are more creative (review Big Five Personality factors and political ideology).These two traits are prerequisites for good journalism.
Oh, and psychology today? Talk about pop psychology.
Notwithstanding Clinton's lackluster leadership, I get a kick when Honor and Dignity to the White House-types start foaming at the mouth and this is just such an occasion. Slick Willie Always gets his women! It is a real treat to hear the recriminations for 'negotiating' with the axis of evil. CNBC just had some juicy debate about it. Under Bill, it was J.C. who got to do the end running diplomacy. Now Bill gets to do it himself. The guy that so many loved to hate has carried the day in a very big way. So here's to the Birkenstock wearing, latte drinking, freedom fry munching, very first 'black' President of the United States!
Bill Clinton is...Slick Willie: a.k.a. Don Juan; Maurice; The Gangsta of Love; the Joy of Sax tootin' Ayatolla of Rock&Rolla; the venerable Hummongous! (hide your women)
So, in the spirit of Hannibal, Murdoch, Face, B.A., and 'the rest' as they say on Gilligan's Island, here is my ode to Team-B:
In the late 1990's a 'crack' commander in chief was threatened with impeachment by witch-hunters and right wing nuts. This prez escaped because the nuts in question didn't have a 'case' and, in retrospect proved to be more perverted than the Bubba they tried to frame. Today, still wanted by governments across the world, he survives as commander in chief of love...machinery. If you have a problem, if young reporters are wrongfully imprisoned, if no one else can help, and...if you can find him, maybe you can hire the B-team.
The Clinton years were great years if you were an investment banker, a "graphic artist," or any kind of a sexual pervert.
They were not so great if you were a gun owner or a veteran.
(Liar saying "I'm a gun owner myself but..." in 3, 2,1...)
politics....more entertainment.
clinton was embarrassing to me because he was such a dick. to his wife, to the military, to the country at large...
...funny that, when he needed a distraction, he fired a rocket at lybia...with some help from the bad men at the pentagon.
and i think the reason the impeachment of clinton went badly is that it`s not illegal to bang chubby little interns on your desk.
immoral, yes. but who cares anymore.....thanks to liberals. and don`t take the kids to see bruuno by the way, even though the media forgot to tell eveyone it`s about gay sex.
jeez, my kids were talking about it the other day like it was escape to witch mountain.
If someone really wants to make a difference in the world, go into medicine and treat the poor. Or go into engineering and make things better. A "journalist" watches other people do important stuff and writes/talks about it - most often getting it wrong. Which is better, actually doing something productive or watching someone do something productive?
Helen, I have to say, you have an overall wonderfully thoughtful group of commentators here. I purposefully turned off comments on my blog, but the overall reaction to the piece has been unbelievably positive. Except from journalists, of course, who for the most part seem to be circling the wagons--sometimes in extraordinarily vitriolic fashion. I'm realizing ever more fully how much left wing socialist ideology has become its own emotionally-based religion. It just feels so right it must be true!
Clinton was impeached for perjury to a grand jury (a federal crime). His false testimony denied justice to his accusers (women he molested--not Republicans). Not even Republicans cared that he was banging an intern. That's why they HAVE interns.
@Professor Hale said... Clinton was impeached for perjury to a grand jury (a federal crime). His false testimony denied justice to his accusers (women he molested--not Republicans). Not even Republicans cared that he was banging an intern. That's why they HAVE interns.
____________
I agree. I have two points to add:
1. It was painted as moral high horse republicans crucifying him over sex because that was the PR way out of it. Had he answered for the legal aspects (a sitting president who was also a lawyer lying under oath, using his power to cover it up and obstruct justice) he couldn't have turned it around.
2. It is obvious to me, the way I see feminists groups behave regarding political leanings, had a republican president done what clinton had done, they wouldn't have defended him, they would have crucified him. MoveOn.org would have instead been named ImpeachNow.org.
My wife and I are watching the first season of 24 on dvds. It is a fun series, but one aspect of that original plot made us laugh.
For those of you not familar with the show, a black man is running for President and doing quite well. A side plot is that a journalist is going to publish an article stating that the condidate's son murdered a man believed to have raped his sister.
When the plot line was introduced my wife and I looked at each other and laughed. Who would believe that a journalist would publish a story that would cause difficulties for a black presidential candidate! How quaint!
As far as journalism as a profession, an actual journalist does our society a great service in my mind. They put aside their own feelings to provide the greater public with facts in order to allow us to make up our minds about the affairs of the day. Without a functioning press, we are completely at the mercy of manipulations and lies from interested parites with a vested interest in misleading us.
As we can plainly see.
I think our country is suffering from a lack of journalists.
Trey
an actual journalist does our society a great service in my mind. They put aside their own feelings to provide the greater public with facts in order to allow us to make up our minds about the affairs of the day.
we are mmissing journalists with that kind of ability.
reporters i believe they call them.
if more articles were written as a series of facts, events and outcomes, we could make our own mind up...but too often things are written by people with a name to be made...
pulitzer type names.
someone above mentioned bob woodward and bernstien. deep throat? how "romantic" is that.
and yes, the press sold us obama and his image is splashed on everything an image can be splashed on...like some shit pop star.
spice girls, miley sirus, obama.
famous for being famous.
my ten year old son named his dog miley. i asked him why he named his dog after a pop singer. he looked suprised for a moment,then said "oh yeah, mmiley sirus....i didn`t realise.."
people voted for obama-bama-lama like they buy soap powder.
they seen it on tv.
and on a billboard.
and on the back of a bus, and a milk carton, and a t-shirt.
can you say post-purchase anxiety?
oh, and by the way....my training is partly in hypnotherapy, so i have some expertise in commenting on the type of trance induction media provides in society.
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TMink
If you thought that was a hoot, watch "Broadcast News". The whole premise of the movie, that there is such a thing as journalistic ethics and that people actually care about them, will have you rolling on the floor laughing until you pee your pants.
Through technology today, certainly there is a way to gather with other autodidacts for discussion and maybe even write a paper on what I've read.
___________________
Jessica
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