Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Democrats far outnumber Republicans in the media Date: Wed, 18 Nov 92 16:10:35 EST Message-ID: \SE A;NATION \SS (WS) \HD Democrats far outnumber Republicans in the media \BY ASSOCIATED PRESS Journalists are more likely than other Americans to consider themselves Democrats, and the percentage of those who do is growing, according to a study released yesterday. In the survey, financed by the media study group Freedom Forum, 44 percent of journalists queried this year called themselves Democrats, compared with 38 percent 10 years ago. The percentage saying they were Republican declined from 19 percent to 16 percent during the decade. According to the researchers, that made journalists 5 to 10 percentage points more likely than all Americans to describe themselves as Democrats and 10 to 15 percentage points less likely to call themselves Republicans. The authors, David Weaver and G. Cleveland Wilhoit, professors of journalism at Indiana University, based the study on 45-minute telephone interviews with 1,410 U.S. journalists conducted from June 12 to Sept. 12. The journalists work for daily and weekly newspapers, radio and television stations, and news services and magazines. The Freedom Forum, the funding organization, is an independent nonprofit group that describes its objectives as advancing freedom of speech and of the press. Statistically, the study said, the typical U.S. journalist is a white Protestant male who has a bachelor's degree from a public college, is 36, is married, earns about $31,000 a year, and has worked in journalism about 12 years. The authors cautioned, however, against putting too much reliance on this profile. "It is difficult to talk in general terms about the 'typical' U.S. journalist, because there are more than 122,000 of them," they said. For instance, they said, black and Asian-American journalists are more likely than the typical journalist to be women and to be single. They also have higher average incomes, $37,000 to $42,000. The average age of American journalists has increased from 32 to 36 over the decade. The authors said the present average age is about what it was 20 years ago, before large-scale hiring of young people in the 1970s. The study showed that 21 percent of all journalists said they would like to be working outside the news media in five years, compared with 11 percent in 1982-83 and 7 percent in 1971. The median income of full-time journalists increased from $19,000 in 1981 to $31,297 last year, the study said, adding that this is "less than income estimates for other somewhat comparable occupational groups, such as internal auditors and accountants." This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM