Thanks a lot, Michael! I knew it would blow up and I did hesitate for a moment, but mostly because it would take up a lot of time and distract from my book. Which turned out to be correct. ;-) But since I left academia, I'm not pulling any punches anymore.
Yeah, I think so. It would be petty for them to put me on a blacklist now, and people would notice. Btw, the host himself loved my "stunt", of course the higher-ups hated it. ;-)
Maarten, I believe this is also relevant - the data are for Germany, US and the UK, but it's probably quite similar in Belgium:
In 2024, researchers from the Technical University Dortmund (Germany) asked German journalists which German party they were closest to: 23% said they had no party preference, 41% named the Green Party, 16% the Social Democratic Party (SPD), 8% the Christian Democratic Party (CDU/CSU) and 6% the Left Party (Die Linke), 1% the BSW (a leftist party that recently broke away from the Left Party).
To give a sense of how this compares to the distribution of party preferences in the electorate: The combined vote share of the four mentioned leftist parties in the 2025 German federal election was 41.8%. The share of German journalists who named one of those 4 leftist parties as their preferred party was 63%.
So leftists are strongly overrepresented among German journalists. If one were to look at German journalists below age 40 the overrepresentation would presumably be even larger, to a significant extent.
41% of the German journalists surveyed in 2024 named the Green Party as their preferred party. In the federal election of 2025, the vote share of the Green Party was 11.6% (In the 2021, the vote share of the Green Party was 14.7%.) And the Green Party is the wokest of the left parties in Germany.
From: Eric P. Kaufmann: The Third Awokening: A 12-point plan for rolling back progressive extremism. New York, Bombardier Books, 2024
"The leftward shift among academics was mirrored by an analogous trend among journalists. In the US, the left:right ratio among journalists shifted from less than 1.5 to 1 in 1971 to 4 to 1 in 2013. (In Britain, there are currently two-and-a-half left-wing journalists for every right-wing journalist, but historical data is not available.) The fourfold leftward shift in academia and twofold change in journalism did not reflect dynamics in the wider society where the balance between right and left, or liberal and conservative, has remained relatively constant since the 1960s. Highly educated people had moved somewhat left in the 2000s, but in a much more limited way than academics or journalists." (pp.89-90)
Thanks! It's the same dynamic in Belgium. A profile study of Belgian journalists found the Greens to be the most popular party among Flemish journalists at around 26%, socialist Vooruit second at ~17%, and radical-right Vlaams Belang dead last at ~1%. So a heavy Green and left skew among journalists, far above those parties' ~20% share of the actual electorate. Exactly the Germany/US/UK pattern Kaufmann describes.
This also reminds me of American reporting on the Mahmoud vs. Taylor case, in which the US Supreme Court ruled by a 6-3 vote that parents could opt their elementary school children out of lessons on LGBTQ, and in particular, transgender, themes. “Religion” was popularly cited as a reason for the “transphobia” underlying the case in American reporting, which was also strangely silent on the actual religion of the plaintiff (Mahmoud) in Mahmoud vs. Taylor. I’ll leave it to your crack reporting to see if you can figure out Mr. Mahmoud’s religion, despite its absence in most news stories on this case.
Also worth remembering how many people, including major political figures, said that Adolescence was a "documentary" when it was released. Partly because of its immersive style, that fictional movie seems to have confused quite a few viewers.
Absolutely! I fell for that myself when I started watching it. Because of the gritty realism and documentary style, I assumed at first it must be "based on true events" or something (like Gus Van Sant's Elephant). Nope, completely made up!
Thank you for having the courage to speak up publically. Most people would not have done that.
Thanks a lot, Michael! I knew it would blow up and I did hesitate for a moment, but mostly because it would take up a lot of time and distract from my book. Which turned out to be correct. ;-) But since I left academia, I'm not pulling any punches anymore.
It is sad that you had to leave academia to do what exactly what academics are supposed to do (but rarely have the courage).
It is very telling about the current state of academia.
Maarten, do you think you will be invited on VRT in future?
Yeah, I think so. It would be petty for them to put me on a blacklist now, and people would notice. Btw, the host himself loved my "stunt", of course the higher-ups hated it. ;-)
Success all around!
Well done, Maarten.
Hadden we in Nederland maar zulke dappere duiders als Boudry. Chapeau voor het onthullen van deze doofpot.
Veel dank! :) https://buymeacoffee.com/maartenbou4
Maarten, I believe this is also relevant - the data are for Germany, US and the UK, but it's probably quite similar in Belgium:
In 2024, researchers from the Technical University Dortmund (Germany) asked German journalists which German party they were closest to: 23% said they had no party preference, 41% named the Green Party, 16% the Social Democratic Party (SPD), 8% the Christian Democratic Party (CDU/CSU) and 6% the Left Party (Die Linke), 1% the BSW (a leftist party that recently broke away from the Left Party).
To give a sense of how this compares to the distribution of party preferences in the electorate: The combined vote share of the four mentioned leftist parties in the 2025 German federal election was 41.8%. The share of German journalists who named one of those 4 leftist parties as their preferred party was 63%.
So leftists are strongly overrepresented among German journalists. If one were to look at German journalists below age 40 the overrepresentation would presumably be even larger, to a significant extent.
41% of the German journalists surveyed in 2024 named the Green Party as their preferred party. In the federal election of 2025, the vote share of the Green Party was 11.6% (In the 2021, the vote share of the Green Party was 14.7%.) And the Green Party is the wokest of the left parties in Germany.
From: Eric P. Kaufmann: The Third Awokening: A 12-point plan for rolling back progressive extremism. New York, Bombardier Books, 2024
"The leftward shift among academics was mirrored by an analogous trend among journalists. In the US, the left:right ratio among journalists shifted from less than 1.5 to 1 in 1971 to 4 to 1 in 2013. (In Britain, there are currently two-and-a-half left-wing journalists for every right-wing journalist, but historical data is not available.) The fourfold leftward shift in academia and twofold change in journalism did not reflect dynamics in the wider society where the balance between right and left, or liberal and conservative, has remained relatively constant since the 1960s. Highly educated people had moved somewhat left in the 2000s, but in a much more limited way than academics or journalists." (pp.89-90)
Thanks! It's the same dynamic in Belgium. A profile study of Belgian journalists found the Greens to be the most popular party among Flemish journalists at around 26%, socialist Vooruit second at ~17%, and radical-right Vlaams Belang dead last at ~1%. So a heavy Green and left skew among journalists, far above those parties' ~20% share of the actual electorate. Exactly the Germany/US/UK pattern Kaufmann describes.
Very interesting post. Thank you Maarten for the post, and for pushing back publicly against biased media.
When do you think will the English version of your book be published?
Thanks a lot! I hope to submit the manuscript by the end of the Summer (hopefully no more distractions from now on).
This also reminds me of American reporting on the Mahmoud vs. Taylor case, in which the US Supreme Court ruled by a 6-3 vote that parents could opt their elementary school children out of lessons on LGBTQ, and in particular, transgender, themes. “Religion” was popularly cited as a reason for the “transphobia” underlying the case in American reporting, which was also strangely silent on the actual religion of the plaintiff (Mahmoud) in Mahmoud vs. Taylor. I’ll leave it to your crack reporting to see if you can figure out Mr. Mahmoud’s religion, despite its absence in most news stories on this case.
It's a real head-scratcher, I'm completely nonplussed! ;-)
Also worth remembering how many people, including major political figures, said that Adolescence was a "documentary" when it was released. Partly because of its immersive style, that fictional movie seems to have confused quite a few viewers.
It is an exploitative series that feeds on the repressed prurience of its supposedly virtuous viewership.
Absolutely! I fell for that myself when I started watching it. Because of the gritty realism and documentary style, I assumed at first it must be "based on true events" or something (like Gus Van Sant's Elephant). Nope, completely made up!