Should newsrooms hire conservatives?

Matt Yglesias makes an excellent point here: most talented Republicans go into business, and most talented liberals are the ones who go into journalism. Its an interesting argument. I'm not sure I buy his thoughts that conservatives dominate broadcast media, but I definately think he's about right in the other areas of journalism - food writers are all liberal, there are some conservative political reporters, and a decent percentage of conservative op-ed writers.

He says it would be ideal to have more liberals in business and more conservatives in journalism - but is a at loss on how to get there.

Are there journalism organizations that newspapers could target to do recruiting that parallel the networks for minorities and women? This assumes there is a parallel network to tap into, but I've never seen any evidence that such a network exists. Yes, they could target religious colleges, but that assumes there are schools that have top-level journalism programs similar to the Columbia, Northwestern, NYU, and Missouri's or even Howard.

To state the bleeding obvious once again, it is usually immediately apparent if someone is a woman or belongs to a racial minority, so any patterns of discrimination that exist in newsrooms (or any other employment) kick in as soon as the applicant walks in the door for a job interview. It is less apparent whether someone is a conservative unless they volunteer the information. So it's comparing apples with oranges.

So conservatives believe there needs to be more balance starting with the Washington Post. I wonder what they think about the state of affairs at the Washington Times or perhaps the NY Post?

As a long time reader, I'm finding the NYTines to be a bit monotonous. Yes yes, I know they're super-liberal, but could we get a break every now and again?

This is really to state the obvious, but newspapers with a diversity of views (I really do not care about the color of the skin or the gender of the journalist) are more interesting to read, and hence, one would think, more profitable?

90% of reporting has no political angle.

Translation: I agree with the bias of 90% of what I read.

Badger: this is a problem with much of conservatism. For all of its traditionalism, conservatives have a great deal of trouble with narrative as a mode of knowledge. Rod pointed this out in an earlier thread, quoting Conor Friedersdorf:

"Conservatives and libertarians sometimes face a disadvantage in policy arguments. We're attuned to the indirect effects and unintended consequences of certain policies, whereas our liberal interlocutors concern themselves primarily with direct effects. Why is this a disadvantage? Because the liberal can say, "Look at David from Detroit, who is going to lose his job, and his home, if GM goes bankrupt." Whereas the best conservatives and libertarians can do is to say, "Somewhere in America there is an unknown person who will lose their job, and their home, if the automakers are bailed out, due to the inevitable effect of egregious economic inefficiencies that will course through the financial system."

"The person who is hurt in the liberal narrative and the one hurt in the conservative narrative are both real human beings. But the fact that the former is identifiable is often used by liberals as an emotional bludgeon. "How can you not back the bailout? David will lose his house!""

Much ink has been spilled on this principle as applied to rent-controls in NYC. I don't have the solution, but I think it would be amusing for someone to write an issue of a newspaper talking about all the theoretical problems that the conservatism has solved.

That issue would doubtless contain a story about the rock that repels tigers.

To stand athwart history shouting "Stop!", perhaps?

These days, you'd be doing it an increasingly empty room if you joined a print medium.

It's not that conservatives are too "conservative" to enter low-wage, unstable fields like journalism and academia; they are far more likely to have a wife and kids at a young age. I am a 26-yr-old Mormon lawyer, and most of my Mormon friends my age are married with one or two kids; almost all of us are on the lawyer/doctor/business track. If you want to support a decent-size family, there's not much choice. Only hippies living six to an apartment can afford to live on a $25,000 starting reporter salary.

This in interesting. I was deliberately denied an editor in chief position of my student newspaper in college because I was "too conservative" for the student publications board. This, even though I'd previously served as managing editor and as a paid reporter for several prior semesters. The majority of the newspaper's staff was shocked and dismayed, and the student newspaper faculty adviser was completely disheartened. I was crestfallen from the experience, but dusted myself off and moved on. I certainly was not all that conservative before the experience, but I definitely became so afterward. It was a two-roads diverging kind of experience. This -- combined with several intensive internships in D.C. -- confirmed for me all of the suspicions we have about liberal bias in the media. It's rampant and pervasive ... and entirely intentional.

"Fair enough. Let us assume that there simply aren't enough qualified conservatives seeking jobs in newsrooms -- and if there were, they'd be hired. OK, fine. Now, substitute the word "blacks" for "conservatives" and "College Republicans" in those paragraphs, and see how it reads. Do you think the kind of people who make hiring decisions in newsrooms are likely to believe Boehlert's rationale, but would react strongly against the same logic if applied to women or racial minorities?"

Sure they would accept it if it were shown to be true. A quick look at the pool of applicants would confirm or deny that there were too few blacks, hispanics, women, etc. in the pool.

Now...how many conservatives are there in the pool of applicants? Are you suggesting affirmative action based on political viewpoint, Rod? Should we develop a "United Conservative College Fund" because a conservative mind is a terrible thing to waste?

Or could it be that there are too few conservatives entering the journalist profession? Could it be that they are entering the business world (which might explain why our economy is collapsing and businesses are failing...but that's for another post)?

Sorry, "Your Name" above (yesterday, 3:58 pm) was me

That was me at November 19, 2008 1:15 PM.

Cursed software deletes your name field when the spam prevention fails.

Please add to the above. If you have obvious religiuos views, your out. Any thing beyound a Unitarian is viewed as a bumpkin from the south.