Media Study

[Hulkein]

http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=6664


Of the 20 major media outlets studied, 18 scored left of center, with CBS' "Evening News," The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times ranking second, third and fourth most liberal behind the news pages of The Wall Street Journal.

Only Fox News' "Special Report With Brit Hume" and The Washington Times scored right of the average U.S. voter.

The most centrist outlet proved to be the "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer." CNN's "NewsNight With Aaron Brown" and ABC's "Good Morning America" were a close second and third.

Yeah, it's a single study, but it's pretty in-depth and an interesting read.

[Apotheosis]

Well, it should come as no surprise that media outlets are biased in any way.

Media is created by humans, and therefore will reflect a bias, regardless of how objective journalists try (or try not) to be.


Yes, it was a good read.

[Trinitis]

Originally posted by Hulkein
http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=6664


Of the 20 major media outlets studied, 18 scored left of center, with CBS' "Evening News," The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times ranking second, third and fourth most liberal behind the news pages of The Wall Street Journal.

Only Fox News' "Special Report With Brit Hume" and The Washington Times scored right of the average U.S. voter.

The most centrist outlet proved to be the "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer." CNN's "NewsNight With Aaron Brown" and ABC's "Good Morning America" were a close second and third.

Yeah, it's a single study, but it's pretty in-depth and an interesting read.

Am I the only person that don't trust ANY study not done by me? Too many factors can sway the judgement of any study. It's just..ugh.

[Warriorbird]

Eh. I think when studies like that are so canted against radio and the net....results tend to be off a fair bit.

[ElanthianSiren]

Interesting read indeed. I'd like to see their raw data to see specifically what was sampled in its entirety.

-M

[Back]

How does Drudge Report get ranked in with NewsHour With Jim Lehrer?

Also wondering where AP and Reuters are in the study.

I’m not disagreeing with the report just yet... from my own perspective NYT, LAT, WP and most of the liberal media they cite, to me, seem to pander more to the right.

[Hulkein]

They say the reason Drudge got listed left of center (barely) was because he links to a lot of national media stories, which pull him left.

The personal stories that he writes are right of center, though.

[Back]

Originally posted by Hulkein
They say the reason Drudge got listed left of center (barely) was because he links to a lot of national media stories, which pull him left.

The personal stories that he writes are right of center, though.

What I meant was how does Drudge get included with CBS or WSJ? Its just some guy's news/blog web site. There are tons of others. Unless it has to do with the number of hits being far and beyond any other new/blog site...

[Hulkein]

Yeah, that is funny. Wonder what their criteria was for including Drudge.

Maybe just to see if they could find more conservative outlets?

[Edited on 12-19-2005 by Hulkein]

[Kefka]

If Drudge is left of center, then how can anything be considered right?

[Hulkein]

Read it again, Kefka. They said the reason his site was deemed slightly left of center was because of the inherent left bias in the national articles he posts, seeing as he links to a lot of stories from other outlets.

[TheEschaton]

"I suspected that many media outlets would tilt to the left because surveys have shown that reporters tend to vote more Democrat than Republican," said Tim Groseclose, a UCLA political scientist and the study's lead author. "But I was surprised at just how pronounced the distinctions are."

This bothers me, when will people realize it's not the reporters which determine what news gets put on the air? Unless, of course, they're Dan Rather? ;-)


Groseclose and Milyo based their research on a standard gauge of a lawmaker's support for liberal causes. Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) tracks the percentage of times that each lawmaker votes on the liberal side of an issue. Based on these votes, the ADA assigns a numerical score to each lawmaker, where "100" is the most liberal and "0" is the most conservative. After adjustments to compensate for disproportionate representation that the Senate gives to low‑population states and the lack of representation for the District of Columbia, the average ADA score in Congress (50.1) was assumed to represent the political position of the average U.S. voter.

So, because these people are "over-represented", they would weight these people less, if I'm reading this correctly? Then, the average of how liberal the person is would drop, IMO, since most of these low population states tend to be conservative (IE, the Dakotas, Iowas, etc, etc).


Groseclose and Milyo then directed 21 research assistants — most of them college students — to scour U.S. media coverage of the past 10 years. They tallied the number of times each media outlet referred to think tanks and policy groups, such as the left-leaning NAACP or the right-leaning Heritage Foundation.

Again, to reiterate what others said, I'd like to see their methodology. Did they distinguish between citing a think tank as the main support for their argument, or as a contrary argument? If the article cited two different think tanks, what's the result for the purpose of the study?


Next, they did the same exercise with speeches of U.S. lawmakers. If a media outlet displayed a citation pattern similar to that of a lawmaker, then Groseclose and Milyo's method assigned both a similar ADA score.

Again, this is skewed, if, by the above reasons, the ADA of the lawmaker is skewed as well. Furthermore, media outlets are supposed to present what lawmakers say. If NBC repeats what Nancy Pelosi says, and because Nancy Pelosi is the main player on this certain issue, does that mean they get Pelosi's score? Vice versa for Trent Lott?

The fourth most centrist show is Brit Hume's report?


Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., who has an ADA score of 74.

This seems...off, to me. If you take, say, a Barney Frank, D-MA, as 100, I'd put Lieberman much closer to 50.
Definitely want to see the methodology, but an interesting read.

-TheE-

[Edited on 12-20-2005 by TheEschaton]

[Back]

I have my own reasons to disagree with this study. Perhaps on the scale they used it works out the way it did. I would have to say that all the news outlets they are judging probably get most of their news from AP and Rueters. And, the study says nothing about other global news agencies such as BBC and Agents Press France.

All in all I will agree there is bias in the media. It comes in many forms. Even reporting without showing another side of a story is biased. Or, just repeating word for word what someone says is biased. Not asking certain questions is biased.

I read a couple of media watchdog sites and they slam everyone for many reasons. If anything this is just another lesson in getting as many different reports as possible to come to any solid conclusion. Even then... we rely on anonymous sources and never know the whole picture.

But it was an interesting read, Hulk. Thanks.

[Hulkein]

No problem.

About your issue with AP and Reuters beind excluded... By looking at papers as a whole it's going to be judging the AP/Reuters (moreso AP) stories, because so many of them are put in papers by the editors. The editors choose which AP stories to run, how to edit the language, and where to run it in the paper.

So, if ya think about it, it's getting beyond the AP reporters and getting at what the newspaper editors are picking from the wires to run. AP writes a lot of stuff that is never run in some papers, for whatever reason.

It would've been cool to see how biased AP as its own entity would be, but that's not as important as most people don't actually read AP stories straight from the AP, but rather through middlemen.

[Gan]

Originally posted by Backlash
I have my own reasons to disagree with this study. Perhaps on the scale they used it works out the way it did. I would have to say that all the news outlets they are judging probably get most of their news from AP and Rueters. And, the study says nothing about other global news agencies such as BBC and Agents Press France.

All in all I will agree there is bias in the media. It comes in many forms. Even reporting without showing another side of a story is biased. Or, just repeating word for word what someone says is biased. Not asking certain questions is biased.

I read a couple of media watchdog sites and they slam everyone for many reasons. If anything this is just another lesson in getting as many different reports as possible to come to any solid conclusion. Even then... we rely on anonymous sources and never know the whole picture.

But it was an interesting read, Hulk. Thanks.

Must.... not..... admit.... I.... agree..... with..... Backlash......

AAARRGH! I admit it, I agree with this and only this post by Backlash appearing in this and only this thread on this and only this day of this and only this year.

I need a rum to solve the anxiety that this is causing me. :(

[Ebondale]

I wonder how The Daily Show with Jon Stewart rates. I've always considered the show pretty impartial...

[Back]

A criticism of that study, its authors and methods (http://mediamatters.org/items/200512220003).

Try not to let the source bother you and read it objectively.

[Wezas]

Wait, Fox news is right of center?

Doesn't O'Reilly's Independant no-spin views pull it closer to the center?

[CrystalTears]

Originally posted by Wezas
Wait, Fox news is right of center?

Doesn't O'Reilly's Independant no-spin views pull it closer to the center?

For a liberal, you sure do listen to a lot of O'Reilly. If I didn't know better, I would think you're a closet fan of his. It's okay. You won't be hated for it. Much. :D

[Hulkein]

Originally posted by Wezas
Wait, Fox news is right of center?

No, not according to this study.

One of its shows are, though.

I guess O'Reilly isn't conservative enough, because he wasn't right of center.

[Warriorbird]

Hilarious. Fox News is left of center and the Wall Street Journal is the most liberal news source.

[Edited on 12-22-2005 by Warriorbird]

[Wezas]

Originally posted by CrystalTears
For a liberal, you sure do listen to a lot of O'Reilly. If I didn't know better, I would think you're a closet fan of his. It's okay. You won't be hated for it. Much. :D

Like I've said before, I listen to WJFK here in DC. Howard Stern in the morning, Don & Mike in the afternoon.

O'Reilly is on middays, and is on when I go out to get lunch. I must turn the car on at just the right time everyday, because he's always talking about the War on Christmas.

Either that or that's what he talks about most of the time now.