IF ONLY A HIGH-PROFILE RIGHT-WING NEWS OUTLET EXISTED TO GIVE CONSERVATIVE KIDS SOME ROLE MODELS!

I see that this Chris Cillizza newsflash has inspired a predictable amount of self-righteous harrumphing:

Just 7 percent of journalists are Republicans. That's far fewer than even a decade ago.

A majority of American journalists identify themselves as political independents although among those who choose a side Democrats outnumber Republicans four to one, according to a new study of the media conducted by two Indiana University professors....

These numbers will likely affirm the belief in conservative circles that "all" reporters are secretly Democrats....

This study has been conducted five times since 1971. The percentage of reporters identifying as Democrats has dropped, too, though not as much, while the number calling themselves independents has increased. Yes, the right thinks this proves the existence of media bias.

You know what could really turn this around? Imagine if right-wing kids could watch conservative journalists practice in real time. What if they could actually see journalistic conservatism modeled for them that way? How different everything would be if -- I know this sounds crazy -- a conservative channel were the highest-rated news source on American television. Yeah, I know -- crazy, right?

The existence of Fox News, and the fact that it's extremely successful in the ratings, should be an inspiration to right-wing wannabe journalists eveywhere. It isn't, though, for two reasons:

First, nobody at Fox News actually practices journalism. Nobody digs out stories, finds scoops, offers depth and perspective and background on what's happening in America and the world. It's all advocacy. There's no reporting.

Second, the Fox party line is that journalism is evil, even though, ostensibly, Fox is in the business of journalism. If the central news source in the right-wing universe tells its audience every day that the news business is in league with the devil, well, you can't be surprised when righty kids don't want to turn Satanic.

It's not just Fox. Why isn't there a journalistically serious right-wing newspaper in America? I'm not counting The Wall Street Journal, which has a rabidly right-wing editorial page, but is fairly moderate otherwise. Apart from that, there's nothing -- which is why even right-wing bloggers have to source their straight news, for the most part, to news outlets they routinely denounce as hopelessly left-wing. No one else does actual reporting. What prevented the emergence of a right-wing New York Times all these years? Why is there no right-wing ProPublica or Vox or FiveThirtyEight or First Look Media? Money? There are no rich righties who could have bankroll such endeavors?

Right-wingers don't go into journalism because they're propagandized to hate journalism. Don't blame liberals, or the "liberal media," for that.