MSNBC took a look at 144 journalists who donated political contributions from 2004 to the start of the 2008 campaign:
...according to the public records of the Federal Election Commission. Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left: 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes. Only 17 gave to Republicans. Two gave to both parties.
The donors include CNN's Guy Raz, now covering the Pentagon for NPR, who gave to Kerry the same month he was embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq; New Yorker war correspondent George Packer; a producer for Bill O'Reilly at Fox; MSNBC TV host Joe Scarborough; political writers at Vanity Fair; the editor of The Wall Street Journal's weekend edition; local TV anchors in Washington, Minneapolis, Memphis and Wichita; the ethics columnist at The New York Times; and even MTV's former presidential campaign correspondent.
That number can be rounded off to 87% of those journalists on the list giving to causes and politicians on the left side of the aisle.
The article cites that 72% of Americans believe that news organizations have a tendency to favor one side. And as of this posting: 42% of respondents to a live poll linked at the end of the article do not believe journalists should make political contributions, while 38% think it's okay only if the journalists disclose the donations to their audiences. A mere 20% believe it's okay for them to make those donations as private citizens. (This number will likely change throughout the day.)
This bit jumped out at me:
Besides, there's the magazine's famously rigorous editing. The last bulwark against bias’s slipping into The New Yorker is the copy department, whose chief editor, Ann Goldstein, gave $500 in October to MoveOn.org, which campaigns for Democrats and against President Bush. "That's just me as a private citizen," she said. As for whether donations are allowed, Goldstein said she hadn't considered it. "I've never thought of myself as working for a news organization."
Emphasis mine. I wonder if Seymour Hersh, one of The New Yorker's most celebrated contributors, would agree with that assessment?
