Liberal Bias

[sleigh]

A study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University looked at the network news (ABC, NBC, and CBS) and their coverage of the two candidates, beginning after Hillary's concession and continuing to last Monday.

Is there a liberal bias to the media? Not according to this study. Their findings were that the network news said negative things about Obama 72% of the time. In contrast, negative comments were made about McCain only 57% of the time.

It would appear there's a bias against liberals. Not a liberal bias.

Comments

[zhai.livejournal.com]

Clearly, George Mason is a liberally biased corrupt institution for saying such things.

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

Clearly. All universities are bastions of socialists and liberals. :-)

[cfgwebgeek.livejournal.com]

Yeah, right. Name three (excluding religiously operated) with a conservative sociology department. Name one. ;->

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

I can't, since I don't know anyone in any sociology department in any university. (And why Sociology, Scott?) I can tell you that administratively, NKU is very conservative with lots of ties to the Republican party -- they had the then-(Republication)-governor's wife speak at commencement last year, and this year the commencement speaker was an ambassador in the Bush administration, and W himself was invited to speak (and did so) at the university on his last visit. But the Sociology department? [shrug] Dunno.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

Somehow, facts aren't going to convince anyone on the right. Especially not the conservative news media.

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

Facts? We don't need no stinking facts!

[fredcritter.livejournal.com]

Gosh. Who knew?

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

Not me. [Affects a German accent] I know nothing. :-)

[chamois-shimi.livejournal.com]

I was watching the Colbert Report the other night and he was playing some Fox clips that were extremely anti-Obama, and I was kind of shocked. I guess I'd bought into the idea that the media tended to be liberal-leaning ... or I dunno, maybe they're just racist. :P

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

You mean, Fox News has a bias against liberals? *gasp* :-)

[cfgwebgeek.livejournal.com]

I was struck by a couple of things. First was the line "[W]hen network news people ventured opinions in recent weeks, 28% of the statements were positive for Obama and 72% negative." To which I would only add, "And 100% were professionally unethical for telling viewers how to think about an event rather than allowing them to draw their own unmoderated conclusions."

Well, okay, not "only." Another problem is that that 72% is a thoroughly raw number, possibly encompassing (at least) two quite disparate negatives. The best reductive examples of these I can think of are, 1) "He'll sell out American interests by allowing the terrorists a victory in Iraq," and 2) "He's sold out his supporters by voting for the FISA upgrade." If as few as three in ten of those negatives are of the latter type, then the true p/n ratio is just over 50% pro-Obama (the old, authentic Obama, that is, rather than the apparent feint to the right panderer in whom one is so disappointed).

But even that is impossible to state as a defensible hypothesis, because the report offers no sensible description of the study's methodology. Which is not surprising, because from what I can see there is no methodology. Unless by "methodology" you simply mean "the way we did things." It is a joke to classify "Obama 'has problems' with white men and suburban women" as a negative comment on the candidate. For frak's sake, it's a simple, accurate description of demographics. (Although it does explain why a runaway primary leader would get high "positives" while a struggling marginal primary leader would get low "positives." And yes, those quotes do constitute a thinly-veiled sneer.) I retract my earlier point about professional unethicallity, and apologize profusely to the reporters. For directing it at them. At least in this instance.

Because, while we're at it, let's look at the story. In particular, the beginning of the ninth paragraph: "Conservatives have been snarling about the grotesque disparity revealed by another study..." Change that to "Liberals have been whining," and you've given the posters at the Daily Kos and the Huffington Post fodder for the next week. It doesn't surprise me in the least, because I'm used to seeing such. But the use (by anyone) of characterization in the middle of a news story is propaganda in action. "Look, look! Here's a study that proves my colleagues and I aren't liberals, like those snarling conservatives say we are! And you can trust that I'd report any study that showed we were, but I haven't, so that proves there isn't one. And we aren't. So there."

(Yeah, I know, I'm characterizing. But, hey, it's not like I'm pretending to be a reporter...)

Anecdotes prove nothing. Still, it was the New York Times that all but started the (eventually debunked) rumor about McCain and the lobbyist...and the LA Times has "suggested" to its bloggers that, just like the print edition, they completely ignore the current John Edwards contretemps. Protecting the people's right to know what they decide is important, and no more...

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

"And 100% were professionally unethical for telling viewers how to think about an event rather than allowing them to draw their own unmoderated conclusions."

It's damned near impossible to write (or talk, in the case of network news) about anything without showing some bias, just by the choice of words. I'd agree with you that the Cult of Personality that seems to be rampant on network news makes that problem even worse, but there's no such thing as 'unbiased reportage' and there never has been. That's an impossibility.

At issue is whether that bias leans one way or the other, or if it's relatively balanced. That's all.

"Anecdotes prove nothing." Indeed they don't, but the study cited didn't rely on anecdotal evidence. Are there 'liberal' outlets? Yep. There are. Again, the question isn't whether Medium X is liberal-biased or conservative-biased, it's whether the Media as a whole is unbalanced one way or the other. And the study contends that for the broadcast network news, it appears more friendly to the Conservative side.

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

Oh, and who's "disappointed" in Obama? I'm certainly not. Democrats have run left in the primary, then moved more to center in the general election since the dawn of time. That should surprise no one.

Did I like his vote on the FISA bill? No, I did not, and sent his campaign an e-mail saying so. But at least he had to courage to vote and an argument as to why he chose to support it (even if I don't personally find his argument compelling); 'Mr. Security' McCain didn't vote at all on the bill.