Leo J. Shapiro and Associates has conducted a study that highlights some interesting distinctions between consumers of various news products and their political affiliations.

Here’s the breakdown by percentage of Dems vs. Repubs for each type of media:

Red Media:
Preferred by those inclined to vote Republican.

Blue Media:
Preferred by those inclined to vote Democratic.

The most obvious difference is that Democrats tend to read more than Republicans. The problem is that Blue Media, with the exception of the Internet, has been in decline for some time. Print journalism is struggling with lower circulation and consolidation which results in less competition. In terms of political ad revenue, Red Media receives about 22 dollars for every one dollar spent by political ad buyers on Blue Media.

But, while Red Media is dominated by television, which commands the largest share of political ad revenue, Blue Media’s Internet is growing faster than any other venue. Spending for online political advertising increased 733% in 2004. Editor and Publisher, projecting that Internet growth is likely to continue, says that:

“…newspapers have built some of the nation’s best Web sites, giving them the opportunity at all levels of political races — as well as for issue-driven referendums — to offer powerful advertising and promotion mediums.

This is especially true in the realm of “package message” deals that allow political candidates and their supporters fresh and effective means of reaching established constituencies and new supporters through a combination of print and Web advertising and promotion vehicles.”

This report of the study’s findings doesn’t address online ads other than those on newspaper web sites. That leaves a lot of territory uncovered. Internet service providers like AOL and Earthlink, portals like Yahoo and Google, the web homes of broadcasters like CNN and MSNBC, and, of course, blogs, are sure to be a part of the burgeoning online political ad market.

It would be interesting to see if there was any correlation between the ascendancy of Red Media and the Republican sweep of Washington. And conversely, what effect did the decline of Blue Media have on the political misfortunes of Democrats?

There is a very real risk that lawmakers and regulators will take sides by promoting the media color that skews in their favor. Today that means Republicans advocating laws and regs crafted to further concentrate power in Red Media conglomerates – sort of a media-centered K Street Project. The Internet’s Blueness may not endure either, as the FCC moves forward with its assault on network neutrality, along with other efforts to constrain the net’s ordered anarchy.

The media is not a collateral victim in all of this. They are a full partner. And if we expect to restore anything resembling balance we have to be aggressively vigilant. The information in this study can be useful in deciding how best to reach Blue America.

What color is your Media?

The International Press Institute has released its World Press Freedom Review for 2005. It presents the details of what is a particularly bad year for the press.

“The high death toll for journalists continued in 2005 with 65 journalists killed. Iraq, where 23 journalists died, remains the world’s most dangerous country for the media. Journalists also died in 21 other countries, including Bangladesh, Haiti, Russia, and Somalia.”

Iraq, in fact, has seen the highest number of media deaths for 3 years running, for a total of 65 fatalities since 2003.

The IPI also noted that political demogoguery (like that from Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rice) is putting a damper on free speech. IPI Director Johann P. Fritz said:

“A free media has always been essential to democracy; however, 2005 saw a subtle shift in this thinking and there is now a worrying political mindset that views some of the media’s work as damaging to both the war on terror and relations with Islam.”

These figures demonstrate the risk that some journalists accept as requisite to the duty they choose to perform. Iraq’s place at the top of the danger scale is both obvious and tragic. Sadly, these numbers don’t include the tens of thousands of civilians that have been killed.

Yesterday, Chris Matthews interviewed Gen. Anthony Zinni and pressed him on the administration’s planning for post-invasion Iraq.

Matthews: Who believed there would not be resistance? What fool thought that a third world country would let us march into their country and start calling the shots without resistance? I mean, I am just saying. Who believes that?

Zinni: Well, I can tell you, the planners at the Pentagon seemed to adopt these very naive expectations and assumptions.

Matthews: What kind of a chowder head would believe that in the middle of the Arab world we were going to face this magical situation where everybody is going to be giving us flowers, the girls are going to be kissing us, they‘ll be jumping on our tanks, in love with our G.I.‘s.

Zinni: Nobody in the Arab world believed it. I talked to all the leaders there.

Then Matthews really lets himself have it: For about a day or two, I was saluting it. It looked like, it was like a P.R. stunt, the whole country was tearing down statues and loving our guys.

There you have it. Matthews is the fool, the chowderhead, that believed the hype – by his own admission. And he is soft-pedalling his seduction by characterizing it as “a day or two.” He stumped for this occupation for months, if not years.

With approval ratings mired in the low 30’s, and support for the war (and most of the rest of his agenda) in collapse, the president has embarked on a new initiative for American renewal. He is wooing the press.

This is a somewhat surprising development from an administration that consistently blames its problems on the press. This White House has never been able to admit a mistake, only that the media fails present a properly glowing image of its achievments.

However, in the past week the president has been inviting reporters to engage in “off-the-record” trysts where he hopes to seduce them into painting more flattering portraits of his adventures. The media, whores that they are, are lapping it up. With few exceptions, they have accepted the invitations and revelled in the attention showered on them.

Most journalists agree that conversations with the president constitute news and should never be off the record. But some of them just can’t help themselves when granted access to the corridors of power. Meetings like this are worrisome because the public doesn’t know what took place. We don’t know if there were promises made or favors agreed to. The risk that reporters can be influenced to color their reporting by the prospect of scoring future exclusives or leaks is too great to ignore. And even if that never takes place, the secrecy surrounding it chews off a chunk of their credibility because we’ll never know what went on.

Putting aside all suspicion and possibility of ethics breaches, there is another very simple reason to decline such meetings: They have no journalistic purpose. If the reporter cannot disclose what was said (and the White House wanted to keep secret the fact the the meetings even took place), then the only benefit to any party is to the president who is free to spin and/or bribe his guests. That alone makes it shameful for anyone in the media to accept such a tainted invitation.