Media Bias 101 summarizes decades of survey research showing how journalists vote, what journalists think, what the public thinks about the media, and what journalists say about media bias. The following links take you to dozens of different surveys, with key findings and illustrative charts. (Most recent update: May 2014)

A printer-friendly, fully-formatted 48-page version of the report (updated January 2014) is available in PDF format here (1.8 MB).



Part One: What Journalists Think

Surveys over the past 30 years have consistently found that journalists — especially those at the highest ranks of their profession — are much more liberal than rest of America. They are more likely to vote liberal, more likely to describe themselves as liberal, and more likely to agree with the liberal position on policy matters than members of the general public.

Part Two: How the Public Views the Media

A wide variety of public opinion polls have documented the fact that most Americans now see the media as politically biased, inaccurate, intrusive, and a tool of powerful interests. By a nearly three-to-one margin, those who see political bias believe the media bend their stories to favor liberals.

Part Three: What Journalists Say about Media Bias

Over the years, the Media Research Center has catalogued the views of journalists on the subject of bias. In spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, many journalists still refuse to acknowledge that most of the establishment media tilts to the left. Even so, a number of journalists have admitted that the majority of their brethren approach the news from a liberal angle.