The liberal media?

[Thanas]

Hi everyone.

I am currently debating the alleged liberal media bias in the media against a republitard whose reasoning is to put up huge anecdotes of people allegedly admitting liberal bias. Have there been any definite studies about alleged bias in the media?

Thank you for your help,
Thanas.

[Surlethe]

Not that I know of -- and it's his job to find them, anyway. If you wanted to play by his rules, you could always point out slanted Iraq war coverage, election coverage, etc.

[JLTucker]

I have a friend who is a republitard and he has mentioned the liberal media in our discussions before, though sadly I don't remember the exact details of said discussions. I too am interested in combating this claim.

[Darth Wong]

They never support their claims of the liberal media; they just repeat the claim over and over and over. Why not use the same tactic in reverse? Just keep using the term "right-wing media" over and over and over, and justify it by pointing out that other people exist who also think it's right-wing (and if he gets uppity, point out that all the media outlets are run by rich people who have a vested interest in right-wing politics).

[Thanas]

Here's how the argument went. He started with posting a study by the Media Research Center (or something, anyway it is a conservative "research" agency) claiming that people in the media are liberal, namely a poll which said that 17 percent of the media think themselves as liberals, while only 7 percent think they are conservatives.

I then hit him with this study.

To which the response was to point out that I had provided no proof that the media's coverage of the 2004 election is representative of the media's coverage as a whole. I am going to answer that one with the simple fact that there would be no better time for bias than during a presidential election.

Another response he made was that the anecdotes he used were "expert terstimony" instead of anecdotes because they consist of people who are in the business claiming they are liberal. I am going to answer that one with that they are still no replacement for statistical evidence.

I do know that the burden of proof is on him and I think I have got him well in hand and I will point it out to him (again), but I would still like to get some more pointers or facts to throw at him.

[CmdrWilkens]

There is a bit of a 2004 reference but this article may be of use in paticular this gem:

A study by a University of Maryland center concluded, “Those who receive most of their news from Fox News are more likely than average to have misperceptions” about Iraq. For example, in 2003, 67 percent of those who relied primarily on Fox wrongly believed the U.S. “found clear evidence in Iraq that Saddam Hussein was working closely with the al Qaeda terrorist organization.” Only 40 percent of those who relied on print media harbored this illusion, debunked thoroughly by the 9/11 Commission.

Instead of providing “fair and balanced” reporting, Fox has created an audience ignorant of the facts, but fully supportive of management’s ideology.

An audience that decides for itself, based on “fair and balanced” coverage, ought not to reach monolithic conclusions. Yet, in our 2004 polling with Media Vote, using Nielsen diaries, we found that Fox News viewers supported George Bush over John Kerry by 88 percent to 7 percent. No demographic segment, other than Republicans, was as united in supporting Bush. Conservatives, white evangelical Christians, gun owners, and supporters of the Iraq war all gave Bush fewer votes than did regular Fox News viewers.