Just 30% Of Left-Leaning Journalists Say Every Side Deserves Equal Coverage

A majority of U.S. journalists say every side doesn’t always deserve equal coverage in news reporting, according to a new survey from Pew Research. 

That troubling attitude is openly embraced by 55% of all journalists. However, since people are prone to giving poll responses that are deemed more socially acceptable, it’s likely an even higher percentage are actually dismissive of the notion of balanced reporting.  

That puts them sharply at odds with the average U.S. adult — 76% of whom agree that “journalists should always strive to give every side equal coverage.”  

Things get more interesting when you look at responses across various cross-sections of journalists. For example, there’s a huge difference in attitude depending on the political leaning of the platform a journalist works for. 

Among journalists who say their outlet’s audience leans left, just 30% embrace a steady devotion to equal coverage — compared to 57% of those whose audiences lean to the right. 

Pew also broke down responses by the type of news organization journalists work for. In what may come as a surprise, TV journalists put the most value on equal coverage (55%), followed by radio/podcast (49%), print (43%) and online (37%). 

There’s every reason to think things are going to get worse in the coming years: Pew found younger journalists place far less importance on equal coverage than older journalists do. Just 37% of all journalists up to 29 years old think equal coverage is something they should always aim for.  

That’s no surprise, given cancel culture’s growing grip on college campuses — campuses led by faculty and administrators who not only tolerate speakers being shouted down by mobs but actually punish people who express ideas that counter leftist orthodoxy.

Hostility to those ideas is deemed virtuous by those who think those views cause “harm.” Journalists infected that warped mindset would think it’s a disservice to give all sides equal coverage.   

Reflecting that dynamic just last week, CNN’s Don Lemon, in an interview in which he mocked the idea that “we want to hear” what Republican arguments are, said:

“We sit around and we talk about these things and we want to give this false equivalence to Democrats and Republicans. That is not where we are right now. Republicans are doing something that is very dangerous to our society and we have to acknowledge that…We must acknowledge that as journalists because if we don’t, we are not doing our jobs.”