"I've done it a million times": Rosen repeated canard that mass media is "the terrain of liberals"

Summary: Echoing previous comments, Mike Rosen asserted on his Newsradio 850 KOA program that media outlets such as the major broadcast networks and top national newspapers are "populated overwhelmingly by people with a liberal perspective." Rosen did not mention that the latest national survey of journalists by the Project for Excellence in Journalism showed that 53 percent of the respondents at media outlets identified as "[n]ational" self-identified their political thinking as "[m]oderate."

On his May 1 broadcast, Newsradio 850 KOA's Mike Rosen asserted that "any rational, fair-minded person has to acknowledge that the dominant liberal mass media" -- which he "define[d]" as "ABC, CBS, NBC, The Washington Post, The New York Times, the L.A. Times, the Chicago Tribune, Time magazine, Newsweek, CNN, PBS, NPR" -- is "the terrain of liberals" and that the media are "populated overwhelmingly by people with a liberal perspective." In contrast with Rosen's unsubstantiated remarks, a national survey of journalists conducted by the Pew Research Center for the nonpartisan Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) and published in its annual report, "The State of the News Media 2008," indicated that the majority of those surveyed self-identified their political thinking as "[m]oderate," rather than "[l]iberal" or "[c]onservative."

Rosen's comments echoed those he made in a May 4, 2007, Rocky Mountain News column and on his June 25, 2007, broadcast, when he stated that many of the news outlets he cited on May 1 are "reliably" and "overwhelmingly" liberal, respectively. Similarly, on November 29, 2007, Rosen criticized ABC, CBS, and NBC for having a "left-center agenda" and a "liberal" newsroom culture -- despite admitting that he "never" watches newscasts on those networks, as Colorado Media Matters noted.

According to the PEJ, Pew Research "surveyed over 500 journalists about the state of their profession and their attitudes towards the future. A cross section of national and local reporters, editors and executives, this survey builds off a similar survey conducted for the 2004 State of the News Media." The survey indicated that among respondents at media outlets identified as "[n]ational," when asked the question "How would you describe your political thinking," 53 percent answered "[m]oderate," while 32 percent said "[l]iberal" or "[v]ery liberal" -- a drop of 10 percentage points from the 1995 survey. Another 8 percent self-identified as "[c]onservative" or "[v]ery conservative."

Among respondents at "[l]ocal" media outlets, 58 percent described their political thinking as "[m]oderate," 23 percent as "[l]iberal" or "[v]ery liberal," and 14 percent as "[c]onservative" or "[v]ery conservative."

The PEJ is one of several projects administered by the Pew Research Center, which describes itself as "a nonpartisan 'fact tank' that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world."

From the May 1 broadcast of Newsradio 850 KOA's The Mike Rosen Show:

ROSEN: Now, any rational, fair-minded person has to acknowledge that the dominant liberal mass media -- and let me define terms, I've done it a million times; I'll do it one more time. I'm talking about ABC, CBS, NBC, The Washington Post, The New York Times, the L.A. Times, the Chicago Tribune, Time magazine, Newsweek, CNN, PBS, NPR. You get the point. Those are all outposts in the dominant liberal mass media. Yes -- yes, there's talk radio; there's Rush Limbaugh. Those are conservatives who are still overwhelmed by the liberal majority that prevails in the dominant liberal mass media. Yes, there's Fox television, Fox News with Brit Hume and others. During the prime-time evening news broadcasts, Fox News has about 2 million people; ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, and CNN combined have about 25 million people, 12 times the audience of the Fox News Channel. I'm talking about the dominant liberal media, populated overwhelmingly by people with a liberal perspective. People who went through journalism schools taught by liberal journalist professors -- journalism professors -- who then took their first job at a newspaper, a magazine, a television station, a radio station, a news department greeted by the generations of liberals who preceded them going through exactly the same channels. There is absolutely no question that the dominant liberal mass media is just that. It's dominated by liberals, and I'm delighted by the fact that there are relatively more conservatives in the mass media than had been the case 10 and 20 and 30 years ago. That's wonderful. But it doesn't alter the fact that this is the terrain of liberals.

—B.J.M. & C.K.