Politics: In case you hadn't heard, media left of center

The conclusion isn't surprising.

But I found the way they tried to quantify right-center-left very interesting.

The press release from UCLA says the following:
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.
It was nice to know that some of my favorite news sources are regard as centrist. Of the morning shows, I do like Good Morning America and in the evening I'm partial to the Newshour. In the report they said those two programs plus CNN with Aaron Brown were the most centrist of the news outlets they examined.

Not surprisingly, the study said that CBS Evening News, Los Angeles Times and New York Times were the most left leaning news sources. In a dichotomy of news and opinion, the conservative editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal is opposite of the liberal news pages. In fact, the WSJ news pages were regarded as the most liberal of the media surveyed!

3 comments:

lugerpitt said...

The divergence between the editorial pages and the news pages is fairly straightforward to explain. Good media operations separate the editorial and the news gathering parts of the newsroom (and separate the advertising sections from both). The whole point of this is so the news gathering arm has the freedom to uncover facts as they find them. Good reporters will ensure that even readers that disagree with them, if the disagreement is based on philosophical differences, can find the facts that they base their decision in in the article. Good editors insist on it. You should never be very happy with what you read in the news. It is a good sign that you are hiding something from yourself. The europeans have a somewhat more mature (in my mind) attitude towards media bias. The biases are openly acknowledged, and people who consider themselves informed make an effort to access news sources from different viewpoints. If nothing else, you have a good way of telling

The problem (if you want to call it that) is the more ideological commentators (both left and right) find the inclusion of 'facts' that may support opposing arguements to be evidence of 'bias' towards the other side. So while conservative commentators complain about the mainstream media having a left wing bias, and place the New York Times at the top of the list, the more liberal media watch group Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting considers the New York Times to be center-right, and considers the mainstream media to have a conservative bias. FAIR at least has an arguement as to why, they think that the mainstream media is controlled by their advertisers, and since there are documented cases of advertisers trying to influence media content, they are correct on occasion. Other than the arguement of reporters actually being on location with one group or another (presumably the wrong one) conservatives don't have quite as clean of a explanation of origen. Being hit from both sides, in my mind, is a sign of independence from both.

Truth in Advertising note: FAIR considers the place I work at to be center-right as well. Many people who work at my company look with amusement at all the biases we are accused of, which range from far-left to far-right depending on who is doing the accusing.

lugerpitt said...

Ah, here is a more professional commentary on the methodology used.

http://www.economicprincipals.com/issues/06.01.01.html

Rene said...

Thanks for dropping by and sharing your observations from your specialized field.

Indeed, in the ideal situation, the editorial, news and advertising should be independent. I fully expect the editorial pages to have an opinion. It is nice when a paper that is known to have one particular leaning makes it a point to run syndicated columnists from other points of view.

Here in Los Angeles, the big paper, the LA Times is losing readership in droves because their news section has been anti-Governor Arnold and President Bush. It is fine for their editorial section to take those positions as that is that sections purpose.

As for the news pages having a political leaning, it is inevitable but I suppose what is sometimes irksome is when readers acknowledge that the bias exists but the newspaper managment seems oblivious to it.

The free marketplace now has produced a wide range of news outlets via the internet and cable. Thus, one can get news from right, left and center leaning media operations.

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