Kirsten Powers: Singling Stephanopoulos out misses the point
Like a fish that doesn't notice water, mainstream journalists swim in their own opinions.
ABC News' chief anchor George Stephanopoulos has been embroiled in a scandal after he failed to disclose $75,000 in donations to the Clinton Foundation before grilling Peter Schweizer, the author of a book critical of the foundation. The former Clinton aide accused the author of having a "partisan interest" in writing the book due in part to his four month stint as a George W. Bush speech writer.
This is an open-and-shut case: Stephanopoulos should never have conducted this interview without revealing his connection to the foundation.
But does anyone actually believe that had he not made the donations, the interview would have gone differently? Are we all really surprised that a mainstream news media host might be predisposed to skewering an author who is causing damage to the presumed future Democratic presidential nominee?
Some are. Former ABC News anchor Carole Simpson explained on CNN, "There is a coziness that George cannot escape. While he did try to separate himself from his political background to become a journalist, he really isn't a journalist."
While Stephanopoulos might be the piñata of the week, singling him out misses the point. Simpson is harkening back to an era of journalism that sadly no longer exists. After all, we have a mainstream news media that took a Democratic Party talking point — "the war on women" — and reported it as if it's breaking news.
Presuming guilt among Republicans and goodness among Democrats is so reflexive and rewarded in today's mainstream media culture, it's not that hard to see how Stephanopoulos truly would not have understood he had an egregious conflict of interest as he faced down Schweizer. Like a fish doesn't notice the water, today's mainstream journalists are impervious to their bias in favor of Democratic candidates or liberal issues. They believe they are being objective because they have mistaken their ideological belief system for truth. As New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has noted repeatedly, "The facts have a liberal bias."
This view has fertile ground in which to flourish, as the ideological and intellectual diversity of the nation's newsrooms decreases. Per The Atlantic, "Among journalists who align with one of the two major parties, four in five said they're Democrats." While many of these people are able to account for their bias, too many aren't. A friend recently recalled to me watching journalists at a mainstream media outlet erupt in cheers as election returns came in favoring President Obama. It must have been lonely for the few Republicans: According to an Indiana University survey, in 1971, almost 26% of reporters were Republican. Today, it's 7%.
Expect the facts to keep getting more liberal.
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