Media Bias Is Real, Finds UCLA Political Scientist

http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=6664

A news report talking about news bias...

The criteria used by this study is somewhat arbitrary.

You know that study is rigged

Your avatar rocks. :shock: :shock:

how?

well this should be obvious but ill give you one example. since the "bias" is "quite moderate", if you could in any way demonstrate that the current congress is right of center of average american values then the study would be invalidated. given the presidents and congress' huge unpopularity and conservatism, that they are right of center shouldnt be to hard to show.

None of these surprise me. Neither did the fox news finding.

And SAM, it shouldn't surprise you that there's bias in the news. I don't think anybody can say there's no bias in anything. That's impossible. Everyone brings their own bias into whatever they report, regardless of where they stand on the political spectrum.

The question I have, however, is why so many professors and journalists and other "academic elites" (for lack of a better term) identify themselves as "liberal." There's gotta be a good reason for that.

[quote="custom36"][quote]
The question I have, however, is why so many professors and journalists and other "academic elites" (for lack of a better term) identify themselves as "liberal." There's gotta be a good reason for that.[/quote]

as a liberal i would be tempted to give the quick response that it's because
they are intelligent and educated, and are therefore able to see the more nuanced and correct position with regard to a particular issue.

if you want a less inflammatory way to say this, intelligent and educated people tend to see things in a similar way, just like any other cohort might.


if you are conservative i suppose you can disagree with this obvious explanation, but to pretend that there is some mysterious reason why
professors might be liberal is disingenuous.

[quote="custom36"][quote]
The question I have, however, is why so many professors and journalists and other "academic elites" (for lack of a better term) identify themselves as "liberal." There's gotta be a good reason for that.[/quote]

Here's something interesting...

When it comes to economic issues, journalists SCORE TO THE RIGHT of the general public.

But when it comes to social issues, journalists SCORE TO THE LEFT of the general public.

Anyone wanna try and suss out the answer here? Without spewing politically-driven garbage?

It's easy. Journalists are economically conservative, because things like-say- NAFTA (or free trade) for example don't threaten them. You can't ship journalism jobs overseas or across borders... free trade just lowers prices for them. So, hey! Go free trade!!

On social issues, there's always been a correlation between education and liberalism (or self-perceived/self-evaluative liberalism). They don't lean to the left because they're journalists, and they're not hired because they lean to the left. It's a kind of sample bias, but it's perfectly relevant.

And this study is kinda crap, because of this:
"Since Groseclose and Milyo were more concerned with bias in news reporting than opinion pieces, which are designed to stake a political position, they omitted editorials and Op‑Eds from their tallies. This is one reason their study finds The Wall Street Journal more liberal than conventional wisdom asserts."

I mean, are you kidding me? Okay, sure. But, uh, who cares, now?

wang

There is a huge difference in the "News" which is supposed to be unbiased and "editorials" that are supposed be biased. They are completely different animals and should be treated as such.

Here is a perfect example.
The whole time that the Presidents poll numbers were dropping they were reported as front page news and big stories on the TV news but now with the numbers rising you don't here a thing. Hmmm

His miserable approval numbers are newsworthy because they are unprecendented for a second term president. Getting the approval rating up to 40% from 35% is not newsworthy. It's still unbelievably pathetic.

Consider that Clinton's approval rating was over 65% the day he left office (after he had been impeached by the goofy R's in Congress).

Try 47% acording to the Washington Post and his low numbers are no where near "unprecendented" for a mid second term.

I am not the person you want to have this argument with.

Yes, they are the worst for any second term president at this stage. Here are the numbers.

Clinton: 59 percent approval versus 35 percent disapproval

Reagan: 56 percent versus 37 percent disapproval

Nixon: 57 percent versus 34 percent

Johnson: 69 percent versus 21 percent

Eisenhower: 65 percent versus 20 percent

Truman: 57 percent versus 24 percent

from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2005Apr11.html

And as for the actual current approval rating, let's take an average, shall we? First column is approval. The average is 42.0 So, no, it isn't 47. And 47 would still be the worst of any second term president in the modern polling era, except for Nixon post-Watergate. Even Johnson's was 49% when he left office at the peak of resistance to the Vietnam War.

CNN/USA Today/Gallup 12/16-18/05 41 56 3 -15

ABC/Washington Post 12/15-18/05 47 52 1 -5

FOX/Opinion Dynamics RV 12/13-14/05 42 51 7 -9

Diageo/Hotline RV 12/12-13/05 50 47 3 +3

NBC/Wall Street Journal 12/9-12/05 39 55 6 -16

CNN/USA Today/Gallup 12/9-11/05 42 55 3 -13

Cook/RT Strategies 12/8-11/05 42 55 2 -13

Pew 12/7-11/05 38 54 8 -16

Gallup 12/5-8/05 43 52 5 -9

AP-Ipsos * 12/5-7/05 42 57 -15

CBS/New York Times 12/2-6/05 40 53 7 -13

Quinnipiac RV 11/28 - 12/4/05 40 54 7 -14

Time 11/29 - 12/1/05 41 53 5 -12