Special Report: Columbia University

With its substantial influence, Columbia has become a force to shape the future of journalism. Alumni have gone on to many prominent news organizations, but have often retained a bias that mirrors that of the faculty and donors of the school.

Nearly half (47 percent) of Columbia’s journalism faculty work for liberal publications. These publications are not just liberal leaning like the New York Times and MSNBC, but outspokenly websites and magazines like Alternet, Mother Jones and the Huffington Post. Columbia even hired the former president of a violent radical group as a full-time professor. These professors are instilling a liberal worldview in their students, who then go on to have jobs at respected news organizations.

This bias is consistent with the substantial amount of liberal funding that the school gets from George Soros and the Tides Foundation. Soros is a man on a mission: to promote liberal causes around the world. A school training the next generation of liberal journalists fits that mission exactly.

The “About” page of the Columbia University School of Journalism website says that the school provides its students with the opportunity “not only to succeed, but to shape the future of journalism.” By merit of their job placement alone, they definitely are shaping that future, but not in a positive way.

Recommendations for Journalists

The Business and Media Institute has the following recommendations for journalists writing about Columbia School of Journalism.

• Extreme Bias Damages Credibility: The Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics states that journalists should “remain free of associations or activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility.” When citing or interviewing a Columbia alumni or faculty member, it is important to be aware of any left-wing connections he or she might have.

• Do Some Genuine Journalism and Investigate Major Donors: Left-wing billionaires donating millions of dollars to any organization should raise some eyebrows. Since 2000, Soros has given more than $500 million to liberal organizations in the U.S., underwriting almost every major liberal initiative. News outlets need to invest both time and effort to examine these connections.

Recommendations for Columbia University

The Business and Media Institute has the following recommendations for how Columbia can repair its reputation as a premier journalism school.

• Hire Conservative Professors: The SPJ Code of Ethics states that journalists should “Refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment, and shun secondary employment, political involvement, public office and service in community organizations if they compromise journalistic integrity.” Twenty-seven of the 40 Columbia University School of Journalism full-time professors work for left-wing publications, while only three work at the moderately conservative Wall Street Journal, and one is a Fox News contributor (who also writes for left-wing outlets). In order to remain balanced, Columbia should hire more neutral and conservative journalists.

• Refuse to Give a Platform to Those who Support Terrorists: Columbia needs to stop catering to the blatantly pro-terror news network, Al Jazeera. When Columbia University, as one of the foremost schools for journalism in the nation, not only entertains but promotes a blatantly anti-American and pro-terrorist news network, it undermines the nature of journalism.