Kyler Proffitt
Kyler Proffitt
Fox News gets a bad reputation because it heavily favors conservatives:, those who believe in limited government, free markets and having traditional American values. Think about it for a second — Fox News has a bad rep because it is filled with hosts who are conservative and viewers who share the same opinion.
Further, many despise Fox News because it’s the lone, major news outlet that’s conservative. No staunch republican goes to CNN, MSNBC or NBC to get their news because it’s going to be biased and skewed out of their favor. Now, I’m not saying there are never conservatives on those news stations, but the heavy portion of the major news stations are for the liberal ideology.
Perhaps the reason for this is a lack of conservative writers and reporters in the media. According to a study done by New York Daily News, in 2013, only 7.1 percent of all journalists identified as conservative compared to 28.1 percent identified as liberal. As far as the rest, 50.2 percent identified as independent and 14.6 percent, “other.” It is very possible the explanation for this is a lack of citizens who contain conservative values that want to enter the reporting industry. While the explanation for the lack of citizens with conservative values involved in the media could be because of the establishment of the already set news coverage, it may also begin with one preferring to have another occupation.
Yet, there is another possibility. There are some news agencies that attempt to squash conservative viewpoints and voices. This is where the real problem comes into play because, while there are things that you just can’t say, people should be able to express their views and feel safe in doing so, regardless of what they are.
This troubling bias is greater than ever due to the presidential election this year between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Maybe I just couldn’t recognize it four years ago when Mitt Romney ran against President Barack Obama, but this bias appears to be at a historically high level. Now, Trump says some dumb things, we can all agree on that, but the way the liberal media handles it is unfair.
Liberal media jumps all over anything Trump says immediately and completely blows it out of proportion, whether his comments should be criticized or not. A prime example was when Trump said that “Second Amendment people can stop Hillary Clinton.” Come on people, he was not saying for gun owners to go kill Hillary Clinton, he’s clearly telling us all we can realize Clinton is trying to take our guns and that gun owners should stand up and vote against her.
Lack of conservative voices in the media attributes to this, because while some on Fox News take to criticize Trump, there are those who defend him and like to think more fairly about what he says instead. Both sides of the debate are seen and heard, not just one.
Plenty of studies have proven that media “leans” liberal, such as a 2005 study by two college professors, Jeffrey Milyo of the University of Missouri and Tim Groseclose of George Mason University. The candidates for the republican presidency echoed this back during the republican presidential candidate debates, when Sen. Ted Cruz first took a crack at the media in criticizing all the questions being asked. His attack rallied all other candidates to join forces and begin bashing the media for its strong bias toward liberals.
The disparity between conservatives and liberals in the media is worsening. As more liberal viewpoints are expressed in the media, it has made understanding conservative viewpoints harder because they aren’t seen or heard as much. Then, when they are heard by the public, they seem so ludicrous that nobody can get a good idea of an opposing view.
The lack of voices further distorts how arguments are presented and candidates are portrayed. Go watch MSNBC all day long, I doubt you will find one positive thing said about Donald Trump, unless they invite a supporter to speak, in which case they’ll just be interrupted the entire time.
There needs to be a greater number of conservative voices in all media sources. Journalism doesn’t work as a one-sided machine; journalism needs to present all the facts for citizens to form an opinion. More conservatives need to step up, understand they have a voice and begin using it.