How Liberal Media Profit from Supporting Democrats

The idea that the national news media have a Democratic bias is well known. The Media Research Center has found a clear difference between the way the national news media treat Democrats and Republicans. But the media effort is not just supportive of Democratic candidates and their policies and negative toward Republicans; it is also accompanied by a very aggressive effort to defend Democrats whenever the media reveal a scandal. These actions imply that the media has an agenda. The nature and reasons for this agenda need to be investigated. An exploration of how and why media benefit from Democratic rule and policies may yield some useful insights. The traditional explanations of why the media favor Democrats are focused on their education: liberals are instructed in liberal ideology in college. The universities they attend also receive grant money to pursue research projects oriented to promote the liberal model of society, the economy, and environment.

Journalism students leave universities and enter the business world of television and print media as liberal reporters and writers. To understand how and why this liberal ideology operates in the huge national media business it's necessary to understand the nature of the traditional media business and its profit model. How media earn income, and the role the Democratic Party plays in their business model, is the crucial issue. News media and political parties share one crucial characteristic: just as governments have geographic boundaries, news media outlets are bounded by their viewership or readership area, called their "media market." So they are naturally attracted to the largest media markets and wish to preserve them. The crucial fact is that demographics are destiny for both media and political parties: both need people. And since the largest American cities are dominated by the Democratic Party, it follows that the media in these large cities must cooperate with the Democratic party to pursue their mutual agenda. Media then have a symbiotic dependence upon their host, the Democratic Party, or more accurately, the Demographic Party. Of course this is not the only reason. Access to city hall is also important: if they anger the Mayor with annoying questions they may lose their media credentials. And in Chicago, the Tribune Company, owners of the Tribune newspaper, benefited from state financial support. (U.S. v. Rod Blagojevich et al., No. 08CR888, p. 15). All of these issues, however, are sideshows to the main topic: demographics. The media must also deal with the reality that since the largest cities are controlled by Democrats the majority of newspaper readers in these cities are Democrats. And media don't want to alienate their markets' voters. But it goes deeper than that. While both the media and Democrats are intimately dependent on demographics for their survival only the Democratic party controls the populations of the major states and cities. And this has been true since at least 1930. As I have explained here before, the Party has aggressively acted to maintain their cities' populations.



Most of the big cities' populations peaked in 1950 and have gradually fallen since. The media have not discussed these constant population losses. This is why the facts are not commonly known. But the facts are readily available from the Census Bureau. For example, the Census Bureau's Working Paper No. 76 gives a history of the populations of the largest American cities. Since Americans are always moving out of major cities to suburbs and other states (Chicago lost 180,000 black residents just from 2000 to 2010) cities need a constant flow of immigrants to replace them. But the flow of legal immigrants is far too small to replace the numbers of those who move out. Consequently the three biggest cities have adopted sanctuary policies for illegal immigration as their major strategy for preserving their populations. The corollary is also true: cities without large illegal immigrant populations have lost the most residents. The list of American cities that have lost half their populations by 2000 includes not just Detroit, the best known case; but Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and St. Louis. Cities that have lost one-quarter to one-third and more of their populations include Boston, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Minneapolis, Newark, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and Wilmington, DE. These are all in the Midwest and Northeast, the strongholds of liberal politics and journalism. Illegal immigration requires not just the efforts of big city mayors but the willing cooperation of big city media outlets for it to exist and prosper. Illegal immigration is arguably the greatest, most far-reaching scheme of political corruption in history. To keep it functioning the media have been enthusiastic protectors of the Democratic politicians. Another reason the media have not criticized illegal immigration is that they are terrified that if their biggest markets shrink, their revenues will shrink. And this fear, as they know better than anyone, is justified. And this is the critically important fact: to pursue their demographic goals Democrats do not have to bribe the media with anything but their own business interest. Democrats in the largest cities of L.A., Chicago, and New York sponsor illegal immigration in order to save public sector union jobs and congressional seats. But illegal immigrants are largely funded through Federal programs. These program dollars create debt for all voters. Then the newspapers and TV news outlets in Chicago can't discuss the huge public debt, since it will make Democrats look bad, and hurt their own demographics. The Illinois public sector pension debt was exposed by the Illinois Better Government Association and Illinois Policy Institute. It was not researched by the big papers and TV stations. This debt continues to be grown by illegal immigration. So as the media ignore the great scheme of corruption they create more debt for the middle class and poor throughout the country. All because media want to protect their own "media market" turf and keep the population propped up. So the implication is that because the media have their own financial interest rooted in demographics, they protect the corruption of the Democratic Party and cause the expansion of national debt and unemployment. These actions are a far cry from their self-proclaimed role of whistle blowers and protectors of the people from government. Instead of exposing this corruption, they blame everything on corporate greed. One can ask whether liberal media focus on corporate greed to cover up their own advertising revenue greed and the government greed of the Democrats they support. This is also why the media write numerous articles using and supporting the Democrats' rhetoric of helping the poor, taxing the rich, etc. They protect the "brand" of the Democrats since this rhetoric functions to expand Federal programs, bring dollars into the biggest urban areas, and maintain the populations. They learned this rhetoric in liberal college classes. It prepared them for their job of advocating Federal spending. It would be very difficult to find media stories that criticize these programs as being failures and exploiting the poor. This is further proof that they are willing participants in the preservation of Democratic control of their biggest markets.