A shocking 3.4% of journalists are Republicans. Does it matter?

In the real world, there are roughly as many Republicans as Democrats. In America’s newsrooms, however, it’s an ideological black hole.

A study by Syracuse University’s journalism school found that just 3.4% of American journalists identify as Republicans. This isn’t just an imbalance; it’s a comedic farce of epic proportions. But nobody’s laughing.

For conservatives, the only answer is conservative media. Only the market will correct this.

The number is an all-time low for conservative journalists. Ten years ago, a whopping 7% of all journalists identified as Republicans. In the ’70s, about a quarter of journalists identified as Republican. Democrats, on the other hand, were just over 36% of journalists in the most recent study, a ratio of nearly 11 to 1.

It is not a terrible thing that most journalists consider themselves “independents,” although that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re unbiased. But the number of Democrats still far outstrips the minuscule number of conservatives in any “mainstream” corporate newsroom.

Finding a conservative in a typical newsroom is starting to feel like a Where's Waldo puzzle where Waldo has decided to stay home. Why? I can think of a few reasons.

The crusaders

Many of them really do mean well. As college students, they want to make a difference in this world. They want to highlight problems or people they fear have been overlooked. They want to give voice to those they assume are voiceless. Almost by definition, they seek change.

I was talking about this idea with my former boss, John Moody, the founding head of news at Fox News Channel. His litmus test for new journalists was as simple as it was revealing.

“I’d ask him or her, ‘Why do you want to get into news?’ If they replied, ‘I want to help change the world’ or ‘to make the world a better place,’ I pointed out my office window and said, ‘The Red Cross is right down the road there.’”

“If they responded, ‘What do you mean?’ I’d say, ‘The job of a reporter is to tell the world what they have seen with their own eyes or been told by a reliable source or, preferably, two. It’s not to tell them what you wish or what you think.”

“A lot of those people walked out, dejected. They probably ended up at CNN.”

Simple geography

New York City is the center of network news. To be fair, it’s the biggest city and the biggest TV market in the country. But it rankled plenty of Fox News employees in the Los Angeles bureau when they realized the sun rose and set in New York (and that they, therefore, had to operate on an East Coast work schedule!).

New York City is also populated with a lot more liberals. Democrats hold the majority of public offices in the city. And 68% of registered voters in the city are Democrats. So it stands to reason that New York City newsrooms are more Democratic as well.

Even when you look at local news, you can see how geography might attract more left-thinking people. Bigger cities, in general, tend to lean more blue than red. And bigger cities, in general, are the ones that can support local news stations and papers. When you think of the biggest newspapers in the country, they’re all local papers in big cities.

Among smaller markets, you’ll also find plenty of young journalists who may not be from the area but are working their way up to bigger stations.

Hostile newsrooms

Odds are many news managers are hiring people who think similarly to them. If you’re not making a concerted effort to hire people who think differently, you’ll naturally gravitate toward people whom you believe to be sensible. And there’s a good chance you believe them to be sensible because they think kind of like you.

And once you’ve established even a small majority in one direction, those who don’t agree are going to have a tough time speaking up. Another former news executive friend made it clear: “Why would a smart, ambitious conservative join a club where they weren’t welcome and likely face career, if not outright legal, discrimination?”

At this point, we’re too far gone to turn this train around.

For conservatives, the only answer is conservative media. Only the market will correct this.

And nearly every time we turn around, we see the legacy outlets shrinking. The Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, NBC News, ABC News, NPR, Vice, Vox, and BuzzFeed, among others, have shed hundreds of journalists over the past year.

By contrast, conservative outlets are still on an upswing, serving the half of the country derided by the others.

Conservatives may never again populate the formerly mainstream press, but as readers come to Blaze News and the new conservative press corps instead, perhaps it won’t matter.

Ken LaCorte is a former Fox News executive who hosts “Elephants in Rooms,” discussing topics that the mainstream vilifies. You can find him on YouTube and Substack.