A Response To: "Gauging Press Bias"
By Bruce Bartlett
Read This First: www.washingtontimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20040622-085207-8465r
A new poll from the Pew Research Center has raised again the issue of liberal bias in the media. A growing body of academic research at top universities supports it. Unfortunately, those in the major media still don't get it and are unlikely to change their behavior, resulting in further declines in ratings and circulation.
Several slights of hand here. First, he specifically mentions the Pew Research Center poll to lend legitimacy to his coming assertions, and then switches his basis for his assertions by referencing unspecified "academic research" at unnamed "top" universities. He wraps this not-so-veiled assertion that the media is liberal by saying the damage is really one of ratings. Suggesting that its in the medias best interest to swing to the conservative side. Poor start.
Liberal bias is a tiresome subject, I know. [He's got THAT right.] We have been hearing about it for at least 30 years. [Baseless assertion that suggest that we've all KNOWN about the bias for 30 years. What this statement really means is that the have been complaining about it for 30 years.] Although those who work in the media continue to deny it, they are having a harder and harder time explaining why so many viewers, readers and listeners believe it.
Here is the crux of his argument. It's not that their is overwhelming evidence that the media IS bias, just that people's PERCEPTION of the media is that they are bias. Well, that's because many cannot distinguish between facts that are biased against an issue or ideology and bias reporting. NEO-CONS rage when reporters report facts that damage their cause and they think that is biased reporting. Sad, but true.
This is the point of the Pew study. Whatever the media think about themselves, there is simply no denying that a high percentage of Americans perceive a liberal bias. The credibility of every single major media outlet has fallen sharply among conservatives and Republicans, while falling much less among liberals and Democrats.
See above comment. It's not that the Pew study showed real bias, its that it showed perception of bias. And funny, mostly among conservatives whose appropriately aligned mouthpieces have been screaming that media is biased. Gee, I wonder where they get THAT idea from?
This has affected viewing habits. Conservatives have drifted away from those outlets they perceive as most biased, which has contributed heavily to an overall decline in viewership. Among all Americans, those who watch the evening network news regularly have fallen from 60 percent in 1993 to just 34 percent today. Among Republicans, 15 percent or less report watching the evening news on ABC, CBS or NBC.
Fluff and meaningless. People don't like the news because its mostly info-tainment now. Too much speculation - on BOTH sides and too many stories on emotional non-issues.
One consequence is that conservatives are gravitating toward those outlets that are perceived as being less biased toward them.
There's that word perception AGAIN. So, basically, they want a news outlet that reaffirms their convictions, not one that reports facts that might be biased against their ideology. Sounds like human nature to me. Sad, but true.
These include Fox News, talk radio and the Internet. Ironically, academic studies view these not as conservative, but as objective.
Hmmm...please site what study says this. I call bullshit!!!
Apparently, the effect of having a rightward tilt only has the effect of moving "conservative" outlets to the middle, owing to the extreme left-wing bias of the dominant media.
Ahhh...he slips in the disproven assertion, again, that the dominant media is EXTREMELY biased to the left...without proof....AGAIN. Gee, where DOES that perception come from?]
An interesting study in this regard was recently done by Tim Groseclose of UCLA and Jeff Milyo of the University of Chicago. They devised a method of measuring press bias based on the way members of Congress cite various think tanks. By looking at their rating on a liberal/conservative scale based on votes, they were able to determine which think tanks were viewed as conservative or liberal. They then looked at how often these think tanks were cited in the media.
How is the use of Congressional quotes bias on the part of the media? I'm sorry, but I think this study is flawed in its methodology. I don't disagree with what they used as evidence, just what it means. Again, if the facts are thus, and one reports the facts - regardless of source, what's the point? If they're arguing that the facts are biased against their issue or ideology, well, tough shit.
Oh yeah, also, kind of cherry-picked an article to suit his needs, no? If you look up the authors of the studies you'll see that they are POLITICAL ECONOMISTS. So, he basically chose a study that looked at the economic effects of the PERCEPTION of bias in the media. How CONVENIANT.
The conclusion of the Groseclose-Milyo study is unambiguous. "Our results show a very significant liberal bias," they report. Interestingly, they found that the Internet's Drudge Report and "Special Report"on Fox News were the two outlets closest to the true center of the political spectrum, despite being widely viewed as conservative.
I'm sorry, I'll leave that one to stand on its own. Ha! They aren't viewed as conservative, they're viewed as gossip columns!
Messrs. Groseclose and Milyo also look at the political orientation of journalists relative to the population. They note that just 7 percent of journalists voted for George H.W. Bush in 1992 versus 37 of the voting public. This means that journalists are more liberal than voters in the most liberal congressional district in the United States, the 9th district in California, which contains the city of Berkeley. Even there, Mr. Bush got 12 percent of the vote, almost twice his support among journalists.
Straw man. Writers have editors. And while a small majority would be still be considered left leaning, it again does not change whether what they report are facts or not. This is irrelevant AND also reported by PEW.
The curious question is why the media remain so persistently liberal. Economic theory says that conservative news outlets should have come into existence to serve that market. However, Professor Daniel Sutter of the University of Oklahoma points out that there are severe barriers to entry into the news business that make it very difficult to start a new newspaper or television network, thus allowing liberal bias to perpetuate itself.
CRAP!!!! Those barriers fall when BILLIONAIRES get into the game. Puuuuuuhhhhhlease. Let's remember that FOX made its mark with flashy sports and trashy sitcoms BEFORE they started their news network. Irony at its finest.
Another answer comes from a study by Professor David Baron of Stanford. He theorizes that profit-maximizing corporations tolerate liberal bias because it allows them to pay lower wages to liberal journalists. By being allowed to exercise their bias, they are willing to accept less pay than they would demand if they were in a business where bias was not tolerated. Conservatives are perhaps less willing to pay such a financial price.
Ummm...THEORY...not proven...not even studied as far as I can tell...baseless assertion...just plain stupid.
Writing in the summer issue of The Public Interest, Professor William Mayer of Northwestern suggests that conservatives have adopted talk radio, which is overwhelmingly conservative, as an alternative news outlet. In other words, a key reason for the popularity of people like Rush Limbaugh is that they provide news and information not available elsewhere, not just conservative opinion.
"In other words..." Umm...another baseless CONCLUSION. Several leaps of logic are made in this one statement. He has offered NO proof that these "conservative" (his words) talk shows offer less biased NEWS and yet makes that exact statement from what I can only see as a leap of logic based on what he reported above. Oh, but he does admit that the commentary is conservative. Well, its the commentary that conservatives take away as news. Duh.
This helps explain why liberal talk radio has been such a dismal failure. Listeners are not getting much they can't already get in the dominant media. In Mr. Mayer's words, "Liberals, in short, do not need talk radio. They already have Dan Rather, Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw -- not to mention NPR."
NPR??? Ummm...no. He better go read some other studies. Tucker Carlson...yeah....liberal.
The dominant media is finally starting to realize that it has an economic problem from having a perceived ...
There's that word again
...liberal bias, even though it steadfastly denies any such bias. Editor and Publisher, an industry publication, is so alarmed that it has begun a study of the problem.
Bruce Bartlett is senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis and a nationally syndicated columnist.
THIS is the ultimate irony. He uses a study that employs research based on the use of think tanks as evidence of bias and...HE IS FROM A THINK TANK!!!!
http://www.ncpa.org/newdpd/index.php
A conservative one at that. Man, are they just THAT stupid?
By Bruce Bartlett
Read This First: www.washingtontimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20040622-085207-8465r
A new poll from the Pew Research Center has raised again the issue of liberal bias in the media. A growing body of academic research at top universities supports it. Unfortunately, those in the major media still don't get it and are unlikely to change their behavior, resulting in further declines in ratings and circulation.
Several slights of hand here. First, he specifically mentions the Pew Research Center poll to lend legitimacy to his coming assertions, and then switches his basis for his assertions by referencing unspecified "academic research" at unnamed "top" universities. He wraps this not-so-veiled assertion that the media is liberal by saying the damage is really one of ratings. Suggesting that its in the medias best interest to swing to the conservative side. Poor start.
Liberal bias is a tiresome subject, I know. [He's got THAT right.] We have been hearing about it for at least 30 years. [Baseless assertion that suggest that we've all KNOWN about the bias for 30 years. What this statement really means is that the have been complaining about it for 30 years.] Although those who work in the media continue to deny it, they are having a harder and harder time explaining why so many viewers, readers and listeners believe it.
Here is the crux of his argument. It's not that their is overwhelming evidence that the media IS bias, just that people's PERCEPTION of the media is that they are bias. Well, that's because many cannot distinguish between facts that are biased against an issue or ideology and bias reporting. NEO-CONS rage when reporters report facts that damage their cause and they think that is biased reporting. Sad, but true.
This is the point of the Pew study. Whatever the media think about themselves, there is simply no denying that a high percentage of Americans perceive a liberal bias. The credibility of every single major media outlet has fallen sharply among conservatives and Republicans, while falling much less among liberals and Democrats.
See above comment. It's not that the Pew study showed real bias, its that it showed perception of bias. And funny, mostly among conservatives whose appropriately aligned mouthpieces have been screaming that media is biased. Gee, I wonder where they get THAT idea from?
This has affected viewing habits. Conservatives have drifted away from those outlets they perceive as most biased, which has contributed heavily to an overall decline in viewership. Among all Americans, those who watch the evening network news regularly have fallen from 60 percent in 1993 to just 34 percent today. Among Republicans, 15 percent or less report watching the evening news on ABC, CBS or NBC.
Fluff and meaningless. People don't like the news because its mostly info-tainment now. Too much speculation - on BOTH sides and too many stories on emotional non-issues.
One consequence is that conservatives are gravitating toward those outlets that are perceived as being less biased toward them.
There's that word perception AGAIN. So, basically, they want a news outlet that reaffirms their convictions, not one that reports facts that might be biased against their ideology. Sounds like human nature to me. Sad, but true.
These include Fox News, talk radio and the Internet. Ironically, academic studies view these not as conservative, but as objective.
Hmmm...please site what study says this. I call bullshit!!!
Apparently, the effect of having a rightward tilt only has the effect of moving "conservative" outlets to the middle, owing to the extreme left-wing bias of the dominant media.
Ahhh...he slips in the disproven assertion, again, that the dominant media is EXTREMELY biased to the left...without proof....AGAIN. Gee, where DOES that perception come from?]
An interesting study in this regard was recently done by Tim Groseclose of UCLA and Jeff Milyo of the University of Chicago. They devised a method of measuring press bias based on the way members of Congress cite various think tanks. By looking at their rating on a liberal/conservative scale based on votes, they were able to determine which think tanks were viewed as conservative or liberal. They then looked at how often these think tanks were cited in the media.
How is the use of Congressional quotes bias on the part of the media? I'm sorry, but I think this study is flawed in its methodology. I don't disagree with what they used as evidence, just what it means. Again, if the facts are thus, and one reports the facts - regardless of source, what's the point? If they're arguing that the facts are biased against their issue or ideology, well, tough shit.
Oh yeah, also, kind of cherry-picked an article to suit his needs, no? If you look up the authors of the studies you'll see that they are POLITICAL ECONOMISTS. So, he basically chose a study that looked at the economic effects of the PERCEPTION of bias in the media. How CONVENIANT.
The conclusion of the Groseclose-Milyo study is unambiguous. "Our results show a very significant liberal bias," they report. Interestingly, they found that the Internet's Drudge Report and "Special Report"on Fox News were the two outlets closest to the true center of the political spectrum, despite being widely viewed as conservative.
I'm sorry, I'll leave that one to stand on its own. Ha! They aren't viewed as conservative, they're viewed as gossip columns!
Messrs. Groseclose and Milyo also look at the political orientation of journalists relative to the population. They note that just 7 percent of journalists voted for George H.W. Bush in 1992 versus 37 of the voting public. This means that journalists are more liberal than voters in the most liberal congressional district in the United States, the 9th district in California, which contains the city of Berkeley. Even there, Mr. Bush got 12 percent of the vote, almost twice his support among journalists.
Straw man. Writers have editors. And while a small majority would be still be considered left leaning, it again does not change whether what they report are facts or not. This is irrelevant AND also reported by PEW.
The curious question is why the media remain so persistently liberal. Economic theory says that conservative news outlets should have come into existence to serve that market. However, Professor Daniel Sutter of the University of Oklahoma points out that there are severe barriers to entry into the news business that make it very difficult to start a new newspaper or television network, thus allowing liberal bias to perpetuate itself.
CRAP!!!! Those barriers fall when BILLIONAIRES get into the game. Puuuuuuhhhhhlease. Let's remember that FOX made its mark with flashy sports and trashy sitcoms BEFORE they started their news network. Irony at its finest.
Another answer comes from a study by Professor David Baron of Stanford. He theorizes that profit-maximizing corporations tolerate liberal bias because it allows them to pay lower wages to liberal journalists. By being allowed to exercise their bias, they are willing to accept less pay than they would demand if they were in a business where bias was not tolerated. Conservatives are perhaps less willing to pay such a financial price.
Ummm...THEORY...not proven...not even studied as far as I can tell...baseless assertion...just plain stupid.
Writing in the summer issue of The Public Interest, Professor William Mayer of Northwestern suggests that conservatives have adopted talk radio, which is overwhelmingly conservative, as an alternative news outlet. In other words, a key reason for the popularity of people like Rush Limbaugh is that they provide news and information not available elsewhere, not just conservative opinion.
"In other words..." Umm...another baseless CONCLUSION. Several leaps of logic are made in this one statement. He has offered NO proof that these "conservative" (his words) talk shows offer less biased NEWS and yet makes that exact statement from what I can only see as a leap of logic based on what he reported above. Oh, but he does admit that the commentary is conservative. Well, its the commentary that conservatives take away as news. Duh.
This helps explain why liberal talk radio has been such a dismal failure. Listeners are not getting much they can't already get in the dominant media. In Mr. Mayer's words, "Liberals, in short, do not need talk radio. They already have Dan Rather, Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw -- not to mention NPR."
NPR??? Ummm...no. He better go read some other studies. Tucker Carlson...yeah....liberal.
The dominant media is finally starting to realize that it has an economic problem from having a perceived ...
There's that word again
...liberal bias, even though it steadfastly denies any such bias. Editor and Publisher, an industry publication, is so alarmed that it has begun a study of the problem.
Bruce Bartlett is senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis and a nationally syndicated columnist.
THIS is the ultimate irony. He uses a study that employs research based on the use of think tanks as evidence of bias and...HE IS FROM A THINK TANK!!!!
http://www.ncpa.org/newdpd/index.php
A conservative one at that. Man, are they just THAT stupid?
posted by Mike at 10:12 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home