Interesting Media Bias story

[ProfJohn]

Read this on Nationalreview a few days ago. Very interesting ideas.

Maybe the "bias" we always complain about is not about politcal motivation, but about selling papers. It seems that the circulation of some papers matches their political biases rather closely.

As the article points out, this would explain why the Boston Globe leans left and the San Diego paper leans right, but not what happens on a national scale. Still it was an interesting find.
A New Media Bias Study

Two University of Chicago researchers have come out with a new study that connects the media bias of a newspaper to the political leanings of the people who buy it. It's behind a subscription wall, but the New York Times, CBS Public Eye and Slate's Jack Shafer all have interesting takes. Let's look at two beneficial findings of this study:
1. Reporters have to make political judgments when choosing their words. In order to study bias, the researchers made lists of common phrases used by Republicans and Democrats in Congress. (Think "death tax" vs. "tax cuts for the wealthy" ? Shafer made a handy list.) The researchers then charted which newspapers used which phrases. The exercise illustrates just how difficult it is to be truly objective. Reporters can claim to have represented both sides of a story, but that isn't worth much if the language of the story clearly puts one side in a better light.

2. A newspaper's bias appears to be partly a function of its readers' politics. Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago professor (not involved in the study) who wrote about its results for the New York Times, put it this way:

A comparison of circulation data (per capita) to the ratio of Republican to Democratic campaign contributions by ZIP code showed that circulation was strongly related to whether the newspaper matched the readers? own ideology.

Their measure indicates that The Los Angeles Times, for example, is a liberal paper. Its circulation suffers in Southern California ZIP codes where donations to Republicans are especially high.

The authors calculated the ideal partisan slant for each paper, if all it cared about was getting readers, and they found that it looked almost precisely like the one for the actual newspaper. As Dr. Shapiro put it in an interview, ?The data suggest that newspapers are targeting their political slant to their customers? demand and choosing the amount of slant that will maximize their sales.?

Message: Blame biased readers, not biased journalists.

That's fine when it comes to newspapers that serve local constituencies. But what about TV networks that provide news to the entire nation? Let's take cable news as an example.

I disagree with those who argue that the Fox News Channel just regurgitates talking points from the White House or the Republican Party, but I don't dispute the argument that it is more sympathetic to conservative ideas than any other network. And by treating conservatives fairly, Fox News was able to achieve dominant ratings success as America's center shifted to the right.

Along the same lines, I don't think any fair-minded person could dispute the fact that MSNBC's programming has gotten much more opinionated and liberal over the course of the last year as the Republican party lost popularity. MSNBC saw an opportunity to become a "liberal Fox New Channel" and took it. As a result, MSNBC is overtaking CNN as the second-place cable news network.

In this example, instead of newspapers mirroring the politics of their regions, we have national networks establishing themselves as ideological brands, to be consumed wherever their constituencies live. Or at least that's my theory. Someone should do a study and see if it checks out.

 

[sandorski]

duh

 

[fskimospy]

This is actually not news... it's been known for years. There have been many articles dating back since the early/mid 90's examining this.

Pretty much the deal goes that back when there were only 3 networks... they all tried to cast as wide a net as possible towards the centrist position. This was how they maximized viewers in a very consolidated media environment. Now with dozens and even hundreds of websites/channels/etc. that people can get their news from, programs target specific audiences and their personal biases. The more targeted a program is, the more "biased" it appears. Fox News is hyper conservative because it is targeting conservative viewers so it can make money, not because it is trying to create a Jesus-topia.

Fox News still sucks, but more for their lack of journalistic integrity then the fact that they skew so heavily to the right.

 

[shira]

What a bunch of crock.

Why do people conclude that if the news media write stories that are disproportionately critical of conservative positions, that that indicates liberal bias?

What if the objective truth is that conservative positions are nonsense, that George Bush is an idiot, and that the war in Iraq is a lost cause? Is it "liberal bias" to report these things?

 

[Craig234]

There's a group of ideologues who want to spread lies. To do so, they attack the truthellers. It's why you see the right wing go after colleges and the news media so hard.

It's called 'gaming the ref'. By constantly saying 'liberal media' and complaining about it, it makes people notice *any* examples that could possibly be considered 'liberal' disproportionately, and sympathize with the 'underdogs' on the right.

Ironically, the power of the right to spread the 'liberal media' myth so well proves its inaccuracy - they have the media power to get that message out.

The media has multiple influences, including 'selling' which causes a lot of celebrity 'news' coverage and sensationalism, the biases of its owner(s) (which has far more effect than any orientation of the lowly reporters who write as told about what they're told, and the owners are overwhelmingly republican), and more.

Some niche publications are explicitly politically 'biased', such as National Review or the Wall Street Journal editorial page. Note, for example, how the biggest 'sin' the NR article accuses Fox of is 'treating conservatives fairly', as opposed to the many egregious journalistic wrongs it's done.

 

[rockyct]

lol, since when is this idea new? AM took off when it found an ultraconservative base and ran with it. Fox News did this to a lesser effect but had the genius of saying they were in fact in the center. This of course is interesting considering that the network Fox channel has taken the path of incredibly racy and violent programming. That alone shows that networks don't care what they are reporting, just that they want their ratings go up.

Of course, maybe, just maybe, the reason why the media shows a lot violence in Iraq...is because there is actually a lot of violence in Iraq <gasp> and wouldn't you know, the Iraq Study Group says the government underreports violence in Iraq. Amazing isn't it?

 

[Jhhnn]

Thank you, Craig234. I didn''t have the terminology to describe the situation, now I do. "Gaming the Ref"- entirely accurate and apropos...

 

[Strk]

I think the only major bias is coming from the people who continue to claim Bush and the current GOP are conservative.

 

[fskimospy]

Bush and Co. ARE conservative. Considering political standards evolve over time. (ie. what is liberal now is not the same as it was a hundred years ago) Since that's what the vast majority of policy/opinion makers said conservatism is.... that's pretty much what it is now.

 

[BMW540I6speed]

"The Press" -- Media as a whole -- in this country is a lot more than the Big Corporate Outlets Which Resemble Pravda. It's always great fun to skewer the Corporate Media for whoredom and worse, and very often they are deserving of a right good thrashing.

However. Even back in the Golden Age of the Founders, there were the equivalent of Big Media/Pravda outlets, and uppity/snarky/hold their feet to the fire outlets. There were suck ups and there were firebrands.

For reasons that aren't quite clear, the blogosphere -- left and right -- have taken it upon themselves to continuously heap scorn on the Big Flailing Pravda Media for their outrageous devotion to Truthiness and their failure to hold Republicans to account (unless there is naughty sex involved, and then only if it's gay sex). Yet strangely they tend to ignore most of the non-suckup media most of the time, just like the Pravda media does. In other words there is abundant media in this country that is still free enough to thwack bad guys and point out the Emperor is naked, and they do it day in and day out, with little notice and often less thanks.

That has been the typical case in this country. Big Media=Pravda-esque. Small and Independent Media=Kick Ass.

The Pravda Media does not see any reason to be skeptical of [Republican] Government claims in the absence of compelling counter claims. Since no claim can be compelling enough, apparently, to move the Pravda media to be skeptical of [Republican] Government assertions, they are limited to he said/she said reportage.

Under the circumstances, it seems to me to be more efficacious to acknowledge (and report on) the fusion of Government and Corporate Media, point out that they are institutionally incapable of reporting fully or honestly, and dismiss them from serious consideration. Instead of trying constantly to change an institutional media that cannot be changed (at least not from without), build up an alternative media that is closer to the ideal.

I wonder how the corporate media would react if Bush denied the Holocaust. Maybe something like:


[satire]The politically charged controversy over whether Nazi Germany engaged in the large-scale killing of European Jews during World War II, an alleged historical event referred to as the "Holocaust" by those who believe it occurred, became the subject of partisan bickering after a reporter asked President Bush for his view on the subject. Never afraid to take a stand, the president stated firmly that "If the Nazis were really killin' all them Jews, my granddaddy wouldn't have stood for it."

Democrats eagerly pounced on Bush's statement in an effort to score political points by claiming that the "Holocaust" did in fact occur and is well documented. But the president's press secretary countered that some people also believe evolution is well documented, even though the jury is still out. Senator Joseph Lieberman, who is Jewish, said that he personally believes that the "Holocaust" may have occurred, but warned Democrats not to "play politics" with the issue by criticizing the Commander in Chief in a time of war. Lieberman also pointed to Bush's support for Israel as evidence of the president's high regard for Jews, notwithstanding the "honest difference of opinion" regarding the fate of some Jews many years ago.

Also disagreeing with Bush was Sophie Wasserman, 89, who claimed to have personally witnessed the murder of her husband and children in a Nazi "concentration camp" in the German city of Dachau. However, conservative humorist Ann Coulter disputed Wasserman's account. Coulter, using her trademark tongue-in-cheek cleverness, described Wasserman as a "vicious, senile whore" whose husband and children "probably committed suicide to get away from her."[/satire]


Corporate conservatives and liberals in the media have different definitions of truth. To conservatives, liberals' respect for such arbitrary concepts as reason and objective reality is immoral and a weakness to be exploited. Conservatives do have a concept of truth, but it is subjective truth, and the province of authority. Facts and logic (valid or otherwise) are just raw materials that those in positions of power can use to construct the truth, but never form a sufficient basis for lesser people to challenge it. Liberals believe in speaking truth to power, speaking power to truth is the essence of conservatism.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: Jhhnn
Thank you, Craig234. I didn''t have the terminology to describe the situation, now I do. "Gaming the Ref"- entirely accurate and apropos...

My pleaseure, Jhhnn. I did not write the phrase as an original comment; it was actually used by a republican who admitted what they were doing, and has become a standard phrase used in explaining the right-wing media.

People are uncomfortable to listen to two 'sides' and come down saying one is an ill-motivated intentional big liar; they prefer to find some merit to both sides to feel 'comfortably in the middle. Unless they realize one side is taking advantage of that to get them to agree with some pretty radical notions.

Here's the background for the phrase, from the write who has done an excellent job of exposing the 'liberal media' myth, Eric Alterman, link appended:

For the past five decades, Republican politicians, writers, television pundits and think tanks have been remarkably successful at convincing the American people of a "liberal bias" in the media. Using the very same media outlets that they complain don't give their cause a fair shake to lodge their complaints, they know that slamming the other side is little more than a way to get their own ideas across, while drowning out opposing voices. Some have even admitted as much. During the 1992 presidential race, Rich Bond, then chair of the Republican Party, outlined the right's game plan, saying that "There is some strategy to it [bashing the 'liberal' media]. If you watch any great coach, what they try to do is 'work the refs.' Maybe the ref will cut you a little slack on the next one."

Even William Kristol, undoubtedly the most influential Republican/neoconservative writer and publisher in America today, is on record as saying that the "liberal media" canard is often used by conservatives as an excuse to cover up for conservative failures. Despite this, Kristol's magazine, The Weekly Standard, joins its colleagues in the conservative media in trotting out the liberal bias canard virtually every chance it gets.

Good article on the topic