A new shock study (sarcasm) has found that most financial journalists identify with the leftist persuasion. This adds to the concern among conservatives and libertarians that the press has a bias and will report the news based on their ideology, not on the facts.
According to an Arizona State University and Texas A&M University survey of 462 financial journalists, 58.47 percent leaned left, while just 4.4 percent leaned right – 37.12 percent reported being moderate.
These surveyed reporters were from The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, the Associated Press, and The New York Times.
Also from the study:
“First, financial journalists have stronger incentives to produce original information and analysis than to disseminate information already in the public domain, and they rely heavily on private communication with company management for information. Second, sell-side analysts play an important role in informing financial journalists, many of whom lack financial sophistication. Third, the incentives for sensationalism in the business press assumed in prior research are dominated by incentives for accurate, timely, in-depth, and informative reporting, while the quid pro quo incentives assumed in prior literature (e.g., putting a positive spin on company news to maintain access to inside sources) are substantial.”
It isn’t necessarily surprising to find even financial journalists – the ones who should know better – are left-leaning. They typically celebrate a government stimulus program or more spending among politicians. They also never lambast the Federal Reserve System.
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