Right-wing Bias in Journalists’ Perceptions of Public Opinion

How journalists perceive public opinion is important in democracies. These perceptions help journalists to construct meaningful stories and might influence news content. However, little is known about how accurate journalists’ perceptions of public opinion actually are. Using a survey with Belgian (Flemish) political journalists, we analyze their perceptions of public opinion on concrete policy proposals, next to their general political leaning. We combine the estimates from journalists with evidence about “real” public opinion, collected through a parallel citizen survey. Further, our quantitative survey results are complemented with qualitative explanations offered by journalists themselves. We find that the surveyed political journalists perceive their outlets’ audiences’ political leaning as more right-wing than their own. Regarding specific policy issues, the political journalists perceive the public almost consistently as being more right-wing than they actually are. Right-wing journalists are better at correctly assessing public opinion. Moreover, the more experienced journalists are, the smaller the right-wing bias in their estimations. Journalists seem to be well aware of their own center-left leaning and overcompensate for, rather than project, their own leaning in their assessment of public opinion. In all, our study shows that looking into journalists’ public opinion perceptions is a relevant and promising research track.