@BatJamags
I’ll admit to be left lean, certainly on the “social issues” side of politics. I have and will continue to vote my conscience over my pocketbook every time.
I’ll take the counter point. As we saw with Swamp Thing, media is a coin operated machine. In the end, sustained creative employment is based on “Do you make money. Does your work turn a profit.” Is it really that “liberal artsy” types are creating media that more consumers want, and not the other way around? I’d argue, based on sheer profit motive, that is ultimately the case. Media sales aren’t based on an “electoral college” type vote but based on a “popular vote” using $$$.
Pretty much all media companies are publicly trade companies. That financial market is a traditionally “conservative” heavy when it comes to employment weighting.
The arts historically, certainly dating back to the renaissance, has had more people of a “liberal bent”. So if “liberal media” is an issue, it certainly is nothing new.
There is also the theory that more “liberal” people are willing to take lower potential paydays because if there Work doesn’t resonate, they won’t make money. More “conservative” are often more interested in securing a better or certainly more likely payday. So perhaps “conservatives” are less likely to go into one field over another as well.
It also comes down to target markets. If the demographics of who you are selling that media to. We know that conservative “media” is generally consumed by an older demographic, which is historically more “conservative leaning” and the older the demographic, historically spends less on media. We also know that comics are generally consumed by a younger demographic, historically more “liberal leaning” and historically spend more on media.
“Fair and balanced” media has certainly, Renaissance and later, never been the case. Why should we expect that would change? Look at the “conservative” leaning comics took when the Comics Code Auth came into being. That was in part driven by who was really shelling out the money to buy comics and at that time, those people (mostly parents of children) were more “conservative leaning”.
When in doubt, follow the money.
As for academia, that has historically been bent towards the “liberal” side of thought dating back to Ancient Greece and Rome. Certainly within the 20th and 21st centuries we know that most educators make far less than they could in the public sector. So again, perhaps more “conservatives” are more likely to want the bigger payday and are more likely to embrace the private sector than academia. Again, going back to the late 19th and early 20th century, universities had more “conservative bent” because a majority of students were coming from higher income families that historically were more conservative. Again, follow the money.
While I see the aspect of your argument, it is, IMO, only skin deep. When you peel back “this onion”, I don’t think the argument holds up.
