Does a liberal bias really exist?

Natorgator · Post by **Natorgator** » 2004-10-11 03:13pm

Not so according to this study:

Measuring Media Bias
By LINDA SEEBACH
Rocky Mountain News
Jul 4, 2004, 09:11

People trying to persuade others to adopt their views are very likely to cite think-tank experts who agree with them. And the liberal lobbying group Americans for Democratic Action (their description of themselves) regularly grades politicians from 0 to 100 based on their votes on selected issues, with the most liberal members of Congress earning 100.

Two researchers have combined these two disparate ideas to come up with a measure of media bias that doesn't depend on journalists' own perceptions of where they fit on the political spectrum, or on subjective judgments about the philosophical orientation of think tanks. Tim Groseclose, of UCLA and Stanford, and Jeff Milyo of the University of Chicago used data comparing which think tanks various politicians liked to quote and which think tanks various media outlets liked to quote in their news stories to estimate two ADA scores for each media outlet in the study, one based on the number of times a think tank was cited, and the other on the length of the citation.

The media outlets were The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the three network news shows, Fox News' "Special Report" and "The Drudge Report" (the paper is online at www.yale.edu/isps/seminars/american_pol/groseclose.pdf ).

"Our results show a very significant liberal bias," they write. "One of our measures found that the Drudge report is the most centrist of all media outlets in our sample. Our other measure found that Fox News' Special Report is the most centrist." And all three papers, plus NBC and CBS, "were closer to the average Democrat in Congress than to the median member of the House of Representatives."

Fair and balanced, anyone? To use a simplified example, they say, suppose there were only two think tanks, and The New York Times cited the liberal one twice as often as the conservative one. Then the newspaper's ADA score would be the same as that of a member of Congress who did the same.

The estimated ADA score for Fox, based on citations, was 35.6. That puts it in the company of Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and a few points below the House median, 39.0. The two highest were The New York Times, at 67.6, and "CBS Evening News," at 70.0. The average Republican in Congress has an ADA score of 11.2, and the average Democrat 74.1.

The authors say they expected to find that the mainstream media leaned to the left, but they were "astounded by the degree." So when people say, for example, that The New York Times may be tilted left, but people can compensate for that by watching Fox News, they don't take into account that the Times is much further from the center than Fox. "To gain a balanced perspective, one would need to spend twice as much time watching Special Report as he or she spends reading The New York Times."

Turning the research around also allows the authors to answer the question of which think tanks are liberal or conservative _ in most cases everyone knows, but there are some questions. Rand, for instance, comes out pretty much in the middle until they look at it more closely and discover there are, in effect, two Rands; one that does social and political stuff, which is mostly quoted by liberal politicians, and another that does military stuff and is seldom quoted by anybody.

Another anomaly is the American Civil Liberties Union, which turned out much more conservative than anybody really thinks it is; but that proved to be primarily because of its opposition to the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance bill, frequently cited by conservatives.

The predominance of liberals (however identified) in major media is well-documented, but there remains a great deal of controversy over how much that fact influences news reporting (this analysis looks only at news reports, not editorials, reviews or letters to the editor). Most journalists I know say they work hard to keep their personal views out of their news reporting (again, excepting people like me who are supposed to be expressing opinions). And most of them, I'm sure, sincerely believe they succeed. This is evidence that what they succeed best at is sounding like Democrats.

I'm a little skeptical of studies which call Fox News "centrist". Has anyone else heard about this particular study?

Wicked Pilot · Post by **Wicked Pilot** » 2004-10-11 03:25pm

What kind of fucked up methodology uses citings as the determining factor? Bill O'Reilly quotes liberals all the time, does that make him one of them?

Glocksman · Post by **Glocksman** » 2004-10-11 03:26pm

No, but as I've said before the 'liberal bias' of the media is largely dependent upon the particular issue being reported. On some issues (like the AWB) the mainstream media are practically cheerleaders for a particular POV instead of reporters. On others, coverage is neutral reportage of available information, which is the ideal.

Fox is definitely slanted rightwards, I wouldn't call them 'centrist' at all.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-10-11 03:31pm

"Liberal" vs "Conservative" is irrelevant when it comes to evaluating the objectivity of news reports. One could agree with the Democrats 75% of the time and yet be completely logical and objective if the Democrats happen to be correct 75% of the time.

The presumption that 50% agreement with one side (never mind "citings", which is even dumber) and 50% agreement with the other side equates to objectivity is an idiotic contrivance that relies upon the assumption that both sides are right precisely 50% of the time.

PS. Case in point: by any objective standard, it has been shown that the Bush Administration's WMD claims for Iraq are utterly false. According to the "evaluate an argument by the frequency of agreement with each party" dogma, the best news reporting would have firmly positioned itself in between "Saddam had WMDs" and "Saddam didn't have WMDs" regardless of the facts. In reality, the most objective position happened to agree completely with one side: "Saddam did not have WMDs". Yet these "bias" idiots would have you believe that such a position is "biased" even though it is completely correct. They have replaced "evaluation by accuracy and objectivity" with "evaluation by ideology".

aerius · Post by **aerius** » 2004-10-11 03:35pm

Of course a liberal bias exists. Everyone knows that CNN really stands for Communist News Network and CBS is the Communist Broadcasting Service. Damn liberal commies, they're everywhere.

Natorgator · Post by **Natorgator** » 2004-10-11 03:50pm

Darth Wong wrote: PS. Case in point: by any objective standard, it has been shown that the Bush Administration's WMD claims for Iraq are utterly false. According to the "evaluate an argument by the frequency of agreement with each party" dogma, the best news reporting would have firmly positioned itself in between "Saddam had WMDs" and "Saddam didn't have WMDs" regardless of the facts. In reality, the most objective position happened to agree completely with one side: "Saddam did not have WMDs". Yet these "bias" idiots would have you believe that such a position is "biased" even though it is completely correct. They have replaced "evaluation by accuracy and objectivity" with "evaluation by ideology".

Well said, I didn't think of that way. However, their methods of looking at citings and judging bias from those was a bit dubious to me.

CJvR · Post by **CJvR** » 2004-10-11 03:53pm

Around here 2/3 of the reporters belong on the left wing. Either outright comunists, green or leftwing Social-Democrats. When media bias is debated here it is naturaly that the ownership is the main problem. :)

Pablo Sanchez · Post by **Pablo Sanchez** » 2004-10-11 05:01pm

CJvR wrote:Around here 2/3 of the reporters belong on the left wing. Either outright comunists, green or leftwing Social-Democrats. When media bias is debated here it is naturaly that the ownership is the main problem.

Right. The owners make the policy, not the reporters.

CJvR · Post by **CJvR** » 2004-10-11 05:05pm

Pablo Sanchez wrote:Right. The owners make the policy, not the reporters.

LOL! Yeah it is much easier to spinn a story in the window between it's completion and print instead of spinning it from the start...

Bugsby · Post by **Bugsby** » 2004-10-11 08:17pm

CJvR wrote:
Pablo Sanchez wrote:Right. The owners make the policy, not the reporters.
LOL! Yeah it is much easier to spinn a story in the window between it's completion and print instead of spinning it from the start...

It is. According to surveys, about 2/3 of reporters are Democrats. Yet about 3/4 of editors are Republicans (I forget the exact numbers, I can dig up the survey again for exacts if there is a demnad). Now think. Who has more say about what people see? The guys who write the stories, or the guys who determine what gets put on the page. At best, it's a wash. But I tend to think the conservative bias of editors overrules, because the editors hire the reporters. If a reporter constantly puts a liberal slant on his work under a conservative editor, that reporter will not get published and will soon find himself another job. So I'd say the media bias is to the right moreso than to the left. But this is irrelevant.

Two things: First, the first chapter to Al Franken's Lying Liars. He says that the problem with the media isn't a bias to the left or right, it's a bias towards sensationalism and other things. The problem is that the media networks are corporations, and they sacrifice objectivity for sales. That is the bias you should be looking to peel away when examining the news, not left or right.

Second, the issue Darth Wong brings up. I couldn't have said it better myself. The Dialy Show's Rob Corddry did, though. Check this out. It's hillarious and schockingly insightful.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2004-10-11 08:26pm

Two things: First, the first chapter to Al Franken's Lying Liars. He says that the problem with the media isn't a bias to the left or right, it's a bias towards sensationalism and other things. The problem is that the media networks are corporations, and they sacrifice objectivity for sales. That is the bias you should be looking to peel away when examining the news, not left or right.

There are no doubt that there are plenty of sensationalism. That's been the issue in journalism since day one.

Bugsby · Post by **Bugsby** » 2004-10-11 08:31pm

Stormbringer wrote:
Two things: First, the first chapter to Al Franken's Lying Liars. He says that the problem with the media isn't a bias to the left or right, it's a bias towards sensationalism and other things. The problem is that the media networks are corporations, and they sacrifice objectivity for sales. That is the bias you should be looking to peel away when examining the news, not left or right.
There are no doubt that there are plenty of sensationalism. That's been the issue in journalism since day one.

So why is everyone so hung up on Left vs Right? When the headline reads SCANDAL IN THE BUSH WHITE HOUSE, why does everyone say its the liberal bias? Its not... its the paper trying to move print.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-10-11 09:44pm

Bugsby wrote:So why is everyone so hung up on Left vs Right? When the headline reads SCANDAL IN THE BUSH WHITE HOUSE, why does everyone say its the liberal bias? Its not... its the paper trying to move print.

They say it's liberal bias because it's an easy way to discredit something in the eyes of dumbshits who think that agreement with one side is automatic proof that you're not being objective. It's exactly like the fucktards who refer to both creationists and anyone who accepts the scientific validity of evolution theory as "extremists" and declares that a "fair" assessment can't possibly agree with either one.

To put it bluntly, the current right-wing administration has been spewing such huge volumes of bullshit lately that it would be impossible to be objective and not be pitted against their claims most of the time. But then, all some idiot right-wingnut has to do is point out that you disagree with the right-wing administration most of the time and BANG, you've been found guilty of "liberal bias". It's such idiocy.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2004-10-11 09:51pm

Bugsby wrote:So why is everyone so hung up on Left vs Right? When the headline reads SCANDAL IN THE BUSH WHITE HOUSE, why does everyone say its the liberal bias? Its not... its the paper trying to move print.

For the simple reason that the sensationalist journalism is often designed over inflate the situation. It happens to both sides and it's a lot easier to simply attack the "bias" rather than address the issue. The issues isn't a new one and both sides get hung up on it.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-10-11 10:08pm

Stormbringer wrote:
Bugsby wrote:So why is everyone so hung up on Left vs Right? When the headline reads SCANDAL IN THE BUSH WHITE HOUSE, why does everyone say its the liberal bias? Its not... its the paper trying to move print.
For the simple reason that the sensationalist journalism is often designed over inflate the situation. It happens to both sides and it's a lot easier to simply attack the "bias" rather than address the issue. The issues isn't a new one and both sides get hung up on it.

Actually, conservative ranting about liberal media vastly outweighs liberal ranting about conservative media. Hell, even conservative media people such as Rush Limbaugh rant about the "liberal media", without the slightest hint that they are capable of recognizing the irony.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2004-10-11 10:29pm

Darth Wong wrote:
Stormbringer wrote:For the simple reason that the sensationalist journalism is often designed over inflate the situation. It happens to both sides and it's a lot easier to simply attack the "bias" rather than address the issue. The issues isn't a new one and both sides get hung up on it.
Actually, conservative ranting about liberal media vastly outweighs liberal ranting about conservative media. Hell, even conservative media people such as Rush Limbaugh rant about the "liberal media", without the slightest hint that they are capable of recognizing the irony.

They're definitely worse. But they're hardly the only ones to ever do that. During the Clinton scandal there was a lot of whining about media bias, including the imfamous Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. Hell, Vince Foster ranted about it in his suicide note.

Talon Karrde · Post by **Talon Karrde** » 2004-10-11 11:55pm

Darth Wong wrote:
Stormbringer wrote:
Bugsby wrote:So why is everyone so hung up on Left vs Right? When the headline reads SCANDAL IN THE BUSH WHITE HOUSE, why does everyone say its the liberal bias? Its not... its the paper trying to move print.
For the simple reason that the sensationalist journalism is often designed over inflate the situation. It happens to both sides and it's a lot easier to simply attack the "bias" rather than address the issue. The issues isn't a new one and both sides get hung up on it.
Actually, conservative ranting about liberal media vastly outweighs liberal ranting about conservative media. Hell, even conservative media people such as Rush Limbaugh rant about the "liberal media", without the slightest hint that they are capable of recognizing the irony.

What Rush is referring to is the media in which you don't expect to find a bias. When you tune into Rush Limbaugh, or a Sean Hannity, you know immediately their pre-meditated position. It shouldn't be laced in something that is supposedly presented as an unbiased news source, and this is what he is referring too.

Post by **AdmiralKanos** » 2004-10-11 11:59pm

Talon Karrde wrote:What Rush is referring to is the media in which you don't expect to find a bias.

Define "bias".

When you tune into Rush Limbaugh, or a Sean Hannity, you know immediately their pre-meditated position. It shouldn't be laced in something that is supposedly presented as an unbiased news source, and this is what he is referring too.

Since Hannity is part of the "fair and balanced" network, that's an inaccurate comment. And I don't recall Limbaugh ever admitting that he's biased; has he done so? O'Reilly did the same thing on the Daily Show, insisting that he's not biased.

Kon_El · Post by **Kon_El** » 2004-10-12 02:07am

AdmiralKanos wrote:Since Hannity is part of the "fair and balanced" network, that's an inaccurate comment. And I don't recall Limbaugh ever admitting that he's biased; has he done so? O'Reilly did the same thing on the Daily Show, insisting that he's not biased.

The reason the show is "fair and balanced" is that he is ballanced out with the other person on the show Alan Combs the other side of "Hannity & Combs.

One person is a republican the other a democrat. balance by advocates of both political sides of an issue talking about it.

Talon Karrde · Post by **Talon Karrde** » 2004-10-12 02:09am

Kon_El wrote:
AdmiralKanos wrote:Since Hannity is part of the "fair and balanced" network, that's an inaccurate comment. And I don't recall Limbaugh ever admitting that he's biased; has he done so? O'Reilly did the same thing on the Daily Show, insisting that he's not biased.
The reason the show is "fair and balanced" is that he is ballanced out with the other person on the show Alan Combs the other side of "Hannity & Combs.

One person is a republican the other a democrat. balance by advocates of both political sides of an issue talking about it.

Only partially correct. Hannity doesn't apply to the definition, he is a political analyst, not a reporter. He is allowed to express his views, such as Bill O'Reilly is.

Talon Karrde · Post by **Talon Karrde** » 2004-10-12 02:14am

AdmiralKanos wrote:
Talon Karrde wrote:What Rush is referring to is the media in which you don't expect to find a bias.
Define "bias".
When you tune into Rush Limbaugh, or a Sean Hannity, you know immediately their pre-meditated position. It shouldn't be laced in something that is supposedly presented as an unbiased news source, and this is what he is referring too.
Since Hannity is part of the "fair and balanced" network, that's an inaccurate comment. And I don't recall Limbaugh ever admitting that he's biased; has he done so? O'Reilly did the same thing on the Daily Show, insisting that he's not biased.

Bias-(From Merrian-Webster online) 1 : to give a settled and often prejudiced outlook to
2 : to apply a slight negative or positive voltage to

As for O'Reilly, I seriously believe the man thinks he is unbiased. He actually falls into a different boat in my opinion. Again, he is a political analyst, and thus is allowed to have opinions, which I believe you agree with, but O'Reilly seems to sicnerely believe he has an unbiased, clear look at things. Whether you agree with his "clear" thoughts is completely your opinion of course.

As for Limbaugh, your right. I'm sure he hasn't come out and said, "I'm biased." Again, he is an analyst. He knows he speaks from the right, but he also knows he is KNOWN as a conservative talk show host, otherwise he wouldn't constantly berate the New York Times for their apparent liberal bias.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-10-12 02:22am

Talon Karrde wrote:Bias-(From Merrian-Webster online) 1 : to give a settled and often prejudiced outlook to
2 : to apply a slight negative or positive voltage to

Since we are obviously not talking about voltage, we are talking about definition #1, which revolves around prejudice. Given that fact, you have yet to provide anything remotely resembling proof of liberal bias in the media. To prove prejudice, you must do more than merely show that the media tends to agree with liberals more than it does with conservatives; you must show that in doing so, it is demonstrating prejudice. Prejudice is not "anything but the Golden mean", you know.

As for O'Reilly, I seriously believe the man thinks he is unbiased. He actually falls into a different boat in my opinion. Again, he is a political analyst, and thus is allowed to have opinions, which I believe you agree with, but O'Reilly seems to sicnerely believe he has an unbiased, clear look at things. Whether you agree with his "clear" thoughts is completely your opinion of course.

As for Limbaugh, your right. I'm sure he hasn't come out and said, "I'm biased." Again, he is an analyst. He knows he speaks from the right, but he also knows he is KNOWN as a conservative talk show host, otherwise he wouldn't constantly berate the New York Times for their apparent liberal bias.

It would be ridiculous to berate someone for being "biased" if you are similarly biased in the other direction. I am sure Limbaugh, like O'Reilly, honestly believes that he is not biased either. Again, you appear to be operating on the misconception that "bias" means you occupy any position other than the Golden Mean.

If we apply this logic to (for example) the evolution debate, then it is "biased" to adopt any position on scientific evolution theory other than "intelligent design", because it's the midpoint between evolution and creationism. Similarly, if we apply this logic to the debate over the presence of WMDs in Iraq, it is "biased" to say that there are no WMDs in Iraq even if everyone (including the administration's own people) knows that this is true. What part of "unbiased != Golden Mean" do you not understand, exactly?

Kon_El · Post by **Kon_El** » 2004-10-12 02:28am

Given that fact, you have yet to provide anything remotely resembling proof of liberal bias in the media.

Its Bias that when the Democrats and Republicans have their conventions the media spends more screen time on the protestors outside the Republican convention than they do on the convention its self while ignoreing the equally large group of protestors outside the Democratic convention.

Its Bias to Blame the president for "misleading claims of WMDs" when everyone who read the inteligance Republican and Democrat alike all said the same thing he did.

It is there

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-10-12 02:28am

Kon_El wrote:
AdmiralKanos wrote:Since Hannity is part of the "fair and balanced" network, that's an inaccurate comment. And I don't recall Limbaugh ever admitting that he's biased; has he done so? O'Reilly did the same thing on the Daily Show, insisting that he's not biased.
The reason the show is "fair and balanced" is that he is ballanced out with the other person on the show Alan Combs the other side of "Hannity & Combs.

One person is a republican the other a democrat. balance by advocates of both political sides of an issue talking about it.

I've only seen the show a couple of times, but in both cases Combs was basically MIA. How much airtime does he get, compared to Hannity?

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-10-12 02:30am

Kon_El wrote:
Given that fact, you have yet to provide anything remotely resembling proof of liberal bias in the media.
Its Bias that when the Democrats and Republicans have their conventions the media spends more screen time on the protestors outside the Republican convention than they do on the convention its self while ignoreing the equally large group of protestors outside the Democratic convention.

How do you know that the protester group outside the DNC was just as big as the one outside the RNC?

Its Bias to Blame the president for "misleading claims of WMDs" when everyone who read the inteligance Republican and Democrat alike all said the same thing he did.

A misleading claim is a misleading claim, regardless of how many people were successfully misled by it on either side.

It is there

So far I haven't seen any evidence for it.