Report: Mainstream media favors business over workers

A Center for American Progress report released Friday finds that media coverage of economic issues is biased and consistently fails to live up to expectations of balance and fairness.

On a range of economic issues, the perspective of workers is largely missing from media coverage, while the views of business are frequently presented, according to the quantitative study. The findings are based on analysis of coverage of four economic issues — employment, minimum wage, trade, and credit card debt — in the leading newspaper and television outlets in 2007.

David Madland writes, “Included in this analysis is coverage by the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, U.S.A. Today, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post — the five papers with the largest circulation nationwide — alongside the three major TV broadcast networks, ABC News, CBS News, and NBC News, as well as the three leading cable news networks, CNN, FOX News, and CNBC. The four economic issues were chosen because they represent a range of economic issues that impact ordinary citizens and that many citizens have defined opinions about.

“Following is a highlight of the report’s findings:

• Overall, representatives of business were quoted or cited nearly two-and-a-half times — as frequently as were workers or their union representatives.
• In coverage of both the minimum wage and trade, the views of businesses were — sourced more than one-and-a-half times as frequently as those of workers.
• In coverage about employment, businesses were quoted or cited over six times as frequently as were workers.
• On only one issue that we examined, — credit card debt, was coverage more balanced, presenting the perspectives of ordinary citizens in the same proportion as those of business.”

Read more here, including the full report.