Already accused of "rigging" the election to help Hillary Rodham Clinton beat Donald Trump, America's journalists have reinforced that perception of bias by handing Clinton nearly $400,000 in donations so far, according to an explosive new report.

The watchdog Center for Public Integrity on Monday said that journalists favored Clinton 27-1 over Trump, who got a tiny $14,000.

Some 430 in the media business donated to Clinton compared to 50 to Trump.

Journalist from the ESPN, Vogue, Elle, the New Republic, Facebook, and many others coughed up cash for Clinton in record form. Even the Pulitzer Prize winning media critic for the New Yorker wrote a check for the Democrat.



"New Yorker television critic Emily Nussbaum, a newly minted Pulitzer Prize winner, spent the Republican National Convention pen-pricking presidential nominee Donald Trump as a misogynist shyster running an 'ugly and xenophobic campaign,'" reported the Center's David Levinthal and Michael Beckel.

"What Nussbaum didn't disclose in her dispatches: she contributed $250 to Democrat Hillary Clinton in April," added the investigators who themselves are prohibited by their employer from making political donations. They found that many other news organizations also bar donations.

That journalists support Democrats like Clinton is no surprise, as several polls have showed their political bent. But the donations put on an added layer of bias.

And in some cases, the donations came from institutions that urge employees to stay out of the political process, such as ESPN.

But Levinthal and Beckel found an ESPN insider who still gave money to Clinton. They wrote:

At ESPN, baseball news editor Claire Smith has made numerous small-dollar contributions to Clinton's campaign that add up to almost $600. Smith, who in a tweet last week described Trump as a "would-be dictator & sexual predator," did not return requests for comment, and ESPN spokesman Ben Cafardo declined to comment.

But ESPN's political advocacy policy states that employees such as Smith "must avoid being publicly identified with various sides of political issues" and that the sports network "discourages public participation in matters of political advocacy or controversy among editorial employees."

And while not reporters, some media executives who work for companies that prohibit journalist donations give money, like the Washington Post comptroller, said the report.

Read the full investigation here.

Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com