The Media Tilts Left? Really?
Media Bias Is Real, Finds UCLA Political Scientist (UCLA News, 12/14/2005, via Brothers Judd)
While the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal is conservative, the newspaper's news pages are liberal, even more liberal than The New York Times. The Drudge Report may have a right-wing reputation, but it leans left. Coverage by public television and radio is conservative compared to the rest of the mainstream media. Meanwhile, almost all major media outlets tilt to the left.
These are just a few of the surprising findings from a UCLA-led study, which is believed to be the first successful attempt at objectively quantifying bias in a range of media outlets and ranking them accordingly.
"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."
"Overall, the major media outlets are quite moderate compared to members of Congress, but even so, there is a quantifiable and significant bias in that nearly all of them lean to the left," said co‑author Jeffrey Milyo, University of Missouri economist and public policy scholar.
The results appear in the latest issue of the Quarterly Journal of Economics, which will become available in mid-December.
This really comes as no surprise, but I'd be interested in seeing their methodology. Unfortunately, the journal is subscriber-only, so it's going to have to wait (unless some reader out there is a subscriber and would be kind enough to forward the article).
UPDATE (01-31-2006): My friend Ethan sends along a link to this page, which has a link to a pre-publication version of the article.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 01/30/06 22:35 | Media Matters | Technorati
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Comments
Didn't you read that one article that one day that didn't mention that one thing that was totally damning to Bush and the GOP? That completely demonstrated that media liberal bias is but a myth.
Posted by RAW @ 23:23 on 01/30/06
RAW: That made me laugh. =)
Posted by anne @ 16:33 on 01/31/06
I love it! Those wacky left-wing conspiring academicians (you know, the liberal elite who are brainwashing our impressionable youth) are suddenly the legitimatest of the legitimate, when they are saying what the right wing wants to hear.
Posted by Tracy @ 22:53 on 01/31/06
Those wacky left-wing conspiring academicians (you know, the liberal elite who are brainwashing our impressionable youth)
Umm, no, I don't know.
Go take your anti-psychotic meds and don't come back here to comment until you have something to add besides trolling.
Posted by Kevin @ 23:07 on 01/31/06
First of all, and this may surprise you, I'll freely admit to liberal media bias, but only up to a point. I'd say that a huge majority of journalists are liberal on social issues. I'd guess that most are pro-choice, pro-gun control, pro-evolution and anti-intelligent design, and so on.
Admittedly, I didn't study the article from top to bottom (especially the parts that had formulas with Greek letters-definitely out of my league there), but I was troubled by a couple of things. First of all, the number of times a think tank is cited seems a bit of a stretch to base an entire study on, especially since they counted everything a member stuffed into the Congressional Record. Plus, they called Joe Liberman a liberal, and that's just silly. Also, I tend to agree with the argument they dismiss on page 5, that journalists are going out of their way to appear unbiased. Their counter-argument, that Fox News would by extension be liberal, doesn't hold water. Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes specifically and purposefully established Fox News to be an extremely conservative news outlet, and hired conservative journalists. I think calling Brit Hume a centrist is a bit of a stretch, as well.
My main argument is that whatever liberal bias the press may have is buried deep underneath their need for access. This administration is notorious for cutting off reporters who ask uncomfortable questions or print or air unflattering stories. Look what's happened to Helen Thomas; she's been banished to the back row. It wasn't until Katrina, with its compelling TV pictures, that George Bush stopped getting pretty much a free ride from the press. Prior to that, even the bad news from Iraq had never done much to put a dent in his coverage.
Wow, this is really, really long. Sorry about that.
Posted by another precinct chair @ 20:31 on 02/02/06
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