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-   -   UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit (http://archives2.twoplustwo.com/showthread.php?t=401391)

UATrewqaz 12-19-2005 02:20 PM

UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
Found this on Drudge

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

A study by some people in the UCLA political science department concluded that most major media outlets have a left wing bias.

18 of 20 major outlets studied were found to lean left, 2 leaning right.

Read/Discuss

thatpfunk 12-19-2005 02:24 PM

Re: UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
UA,
It would be nice to have an intelligent discussion on this topic. However in this forum, good luck.

I posted the results from Princeton's Review of Ethics in Journalism here a while back. The conservastives who disagreed with it simply said that Columbia University is biased. The libs said it should be trusted.

I imagine you will get the opposite response.

12-19-2005 02:30 PM

Re: UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
It could be good thread. First, though, I propose this be a sucker free thread - no posting of claims without non-wiki sources to support.

lehighguy 12-19-2005 02:34 PM

Re: UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
Most major news outlets have a bias towards missing the point and providing low content. Which side they fall on isn't as important.

12-19-2005 02:49 PM

Re: UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
The media is not liberal or conservative, it is corporate. They are all owned by huge conglomerates. GE, a major defense contractor owns NBC.

How exactly did they define conservative and liberal anyway?

OMGWTFLOLBBQ!!! The study says the Wall Street Journal is the MOST liberal media outlet. Good bye credibility! The method is obviously flawed.

BCPVP 12-19-2005 02:59 PM

Re: UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
[ QUOTE ]
How exactly did they define conservative and liberal anyway?

OMGWTFLOLBBQ!!! The study says the Wall Street Journal is the MOST liberal media outlet. Good bye credibility! The method is obviously flawed.

[/ QUOTE ]
Pretty obvious you didn't read past the first paragraph...

Troll eslewhere, would you?

JackWhite 12-19-2005 03:10 PM

Re: UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
[ QUOTE ]
The media is not liberal or conservative, it is corporate. They are all owned by huge conglomerates. GE, a major defense contractor owns NBC.


[/ QUOTE ]

Give me the evidence that these corporations dictate to reporters what they report. Dan Rather said that he reported what he thought was important and that corporate leaders never dictated what he said. Was he lying? I have heard many reporters say the same thing. In fact, WP media critic Howard Kurtz once dismissed this concept as "ridiculous." (the concept that corporate executive dictate what is reported)

andyfox 12-19-2005 03:18 PM

Re: UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
Form the study: "The most centrist outlet proved to be the 'NewsHour With Jim Lehrer'."

I've always felt that show "gets it" and, more often than most, gets it right. I agree with your assessment of most major news outlets.

adios 12-19-2005 03:22 PM

Re: UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
The study you reference had been discussed in at least 3 different threads before you made a post about it. I believe Chris Alger was the first to make a post about it and it preceeded yours by months.

12-19-2005 03:28 PM

Re: UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
I did read the first paragraph, that is a terrible way to figure out which is which. It said the drudge report is left of center!

Here is all you need to know about the most liberal news source in america: http://mediamatters.org/issues_topic...lstreetjournal

canis582 12-19-2005 03:32 PM

Re: UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
Who decides what is center?

The NAACP is not a left wing organization. That is like saying everyone to the left of David Duke is a liberal.

BCPVP 12-19-2005 03:34 PM

Re: UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
[ QUOTE ]
Who decides what is center?

[/ QUOTE ]
READ THE [censored] ARTICLE!

DVaut1 12-19-2005 03:42 PM

Re: UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Who decides what is center?

[/ QUOTE ]

READ THE [censored] ARTICLE!

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, why some think tanks were considered liberal, while others conservative, was not included in the explanation of the methodology (at least from what I read).

It's clearly an important component of the study; I think it's clear what column to put the Heritage Foundation and AEI into, and conversely, what column to put the Center for American Progress into -- but I'd be curious how the study dealt with the Cato Institute and the Brookings Institution, for instance, as neither has a particular partisan bent. And I'm definitely hesitant to call the NAACP a think tank.

Either way, I have some disagreements with placing altogether too much weight on how often networks cite think tanks -- but I don't find it an absolutely useless measure, either.

canis582 12-19-2005 04:02 PM

Re: UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Who decides what is center?

[/ QUOTE ]
READ THE [censored] ARTICLE!

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh yes, read the article, but don't have any critical thoughts while you do so. Just accept it like a good sheeple.

You aren't a christian fundamentalist by any chance, are you?

sam h 12-19-2005 04:05 PM

Re: UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
[ QUOTE ]
After adjustments to compensate for disproportionate representation that the Senate gives to low‑population states and the lack of representation for the District of Columbia, the average ADA score in Congress (50.1) was assumed to represent the political position of the average U.S. voter.

Groseclose and Milyo then directed 21 research assistants — most of them college students — to scour U.S. media coverage of the past 10 years. They tallied the number of times each media outlet referred to think tanks and policy groups, such as the left-leaning NAACP or the right-leaning Heritage Foundation.

Next, they did the same exercise with speeches of U.S. lawmakers. If a media outlet displayed a citation pattern similar to that of a lawmaker, then Groseclose and Milyo's method assigned both a similar ADA score.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think there are a lot of problems with this method.

I don't doubt that journalists, especially print journalists and broadcast news journalists, tend to have left-leaning politics in general. But there is a lot more to the political orientation of a news outlet than who you cite. What you cover is probably the biggest issue.

12-19-2005 04:08 PM

Re: UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
One of the ways the media shows it leans to the left, is when something tragic happens to a black person, women, etc. The first group the media interviews are the ones that lean way to the left, NAACP, NOW, etc, for insite and dialogue on the event. In fact I dare ask anyone to name (R) black organizations. My belief is that the media leans to the left, especially the print media. I saw a poll of journalists that about 70% voted for the (D) ticket. That in itself is not grounds for biasesness, but would you still believe that were true if it were reversed.

Wes ManTooth 12-19-2005 04:11 PM

Re: UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Who decides what is center?

[/ QUOTE ]
READ THE [censored] ARTICLE!

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh yes, read the article, but don't have any critical thoughts while you do so. Just accept it like a good sheeple.

You aren't a christian fundamentalist by any chance, are you?

[/ QUOTE ]

doubt it

canis582 12-19-2005 04:16 PM

Re: UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
"My belief is that the media leans to the left"
Does this belief come from am talk radio by any chance?

"In fact I dare ask anyone to name (R) black organizations."
http://bushniggas.ytmnd.com/

BCPVP 12-19-2005 04:20 PM

Re: UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Who decides what is center?

[/ QUOTE ]
READ THE [censored] ARTICLE!

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh yes, read the article, but don't have any critical thoughts while you do so. Just accept it like a good sheeple.

[/ QUOTE ]
Is that what I said? The article explains its metrics and where they got them. If you and fold preflop had read the whole article, you would have seen that.

[ QUOTE ]
You aren't a christian fundamentalist by any chance, are you?

[/ QUOTE ]
no

Cyrus 12-19-2005 04:26 PM

Let\'s look at their method
 
[ QUOTE ]
They tallied the number of times each media outlet referred to think tanks and policy groups, such as the left-leaning NAACP or the right-leaning Heritage Foundation.

[/ QUOTE ] This is IMHO a deeply flawed criterion.

Suppose I write an article that's starting from a decidedly "leftist" point of view and is extremely critical of the Bush government. Suppose further that the point of the article is to refute, through logic and facts, the arguments of the Bush administration about Iraq. In my article I will use only citations from conservative, pro-Bush sources, the very ones that propagate those arguments, and I will also use "hard" data & facts from neutral sources, such as History.com or the CIAfactbook.com, to refute them.

Well, according to the UCLA criterion, my article would have been classified as ultra-conservative!

Which is why they found Matt Drudge to be ...a lefty! [ QUOTE ]
Our data for the Drudge Report was based almost entirely on the articles that the Drudge Report lists on other Web sites. Very little was based on the stories that Matt Drudge himself wrote.

[/ QUOTE ]

Lastly, the UCLA study found the news pages of The Wall Street Journal to be "a little to the left of the average American Democrat", on the basis of think tanks and news sources that the WSJ is citing. But could it be simply that the Wall Street Journal is using what it considers as being the more reputable and reliable sources - for its news reportage?

tomdemaine 12-19-2005 05:10 PM

Re: UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
The concept of a liberal bias is difficult to quantify no matter what metrics you use as your decisions will always be influenced by your own opinions. Noone can ever claim to be wholly unbiased your biases are part of what makes you you. That said I believe that while the majority of media outlets are corporatist and corporate owned, the actual journalists on the ground are mostly center-leftists and that a center-left mindset may lend itself to a journalistic (or acadmeic but that is another debate) life. Where this falls down is that, while left thinking journalists are probably the majority the right thinking ones have much more the courage of their convictions and shout loud enough fot two. I doubt "the right" would trade all the new york times' in the world for one fox news or Rush Limbaugh for getting the point across.

Benman 12-19-2005 05:39 PM

Re: UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
All the teeth-gnashing over the so called liberal media bias drives me up the wall. Where is it written that a reporter, or newspaper, must occupy exactly the median center of American politics in order to be credible? Every single person and instituion in this country is somewhat to the left or right. SO FREAKIN' WHAT? Who cares? I'm liberal. The Wall Street Journal is a conservative paper. Guess what? I think it's a fine paper. The New York Times is a liberal paper. Yes I admit that. It's also a good paper too. You people who get all whipped into a frenzy over the liberal press drive me absolutely bonkers. Have you lost all common sense? Get over it. Are you telling me that if the NYT has a front page story about the latest goings on in say Rwanda, and that's a topic you care about, are you saying that you won't read or trust the article just because you figure it was written by some east coast lefty? Do you really feel that way? Do you realize how brainwashed you've become by low-content talk show bloviates? Sorry, this really gets me worked up.

UATrewqaz 12-19-2005 05:45 PM

Re: UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
The particular biases of the media do not really affect the thinking individuals in our society, as they are easily spotted and properly noted in our minds.

Since you're probably more intelligent than the average schmo, as are most of the posters on this forum, the bias, regardless of which way it is, does not particularly affect us.

History has proven however that propaganda can be a very powerful tool, as there are many people in our world who are not deep thinkers and tend to be more sheep-like, believing what they think they "should" ("should" coming from their parents, peers, their pastor/priest/religious leader, and at times media).

tomdemaine 12-19-2005 05:51 PM

Re: UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
[ QUOTE ]
The particular biases of the media do not really affect the thinking individuals in our society, as they are easily spotted and properly noted in our minds.

Since you're probably more intelligent than the average schmo, as are most of the posters on this forum, the bias, regardless of which way it is, does not particularly affect us.

History has proven however that propaganda can be a very powerful tool, as there are many people in our world who are not deep thinkers and tend to be more sheep-like, believing what they think they "should" ("should" coming from their parents, peers, their pastor/priest/religious leader, and at times media).

[/ QUOTE ]

The intelligence of any mob = the intelligence of the stupidest member / the total number of members [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

12-22-2005 11:17 AM

Re: UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
This study rated the ACLU as slightly conservitive (which is accurate),

"Center for Responsive Politics, a group whose primary purpose is the maintenance of databases on political contributions, scored a 66.9, making it highly "liberal."

and

"Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a defense policy think tank whose board of directors is currently chaired by former Representative Dave McCurdy (D-OK), scored a 33.9, making it more "conservative" than AEI and than the National Taxpayers Union."

BluffTHIS! 12-22-2005 01:18 PM

Re: UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
[ QUOTE ]
Form the study: "The most centrist outlet proved to be the 'NewsHour With Jim Lehrer'."

I've always felt that show "gets it" and, more often than most, gets it right. I agree with your assessment of most major news outlets.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree andy, that PBS's News Hour is relatively centrist in their reportage and analysis, though not necessarily in what they choose as topics to report on in depth, although that is just a gut feeling.

And outside of Fox, I do feel most media outlets lean left. The question is why would they? And I think that might have something to do with both the vast majority of university journalism departments themselves being run by left leaning proffessors (no big surprise), and the type of students those programs attract.

Also, I believe Cyrus is very wrong about the legitmacy of the criterion used, namely what type of sources are used. As a conservative catholic, there is one sure tipoff to me of a biased report that intimates that a substantial number of catholics disagree with the church's teaching on abortion. And that is if they quote the lying *@#! that runs Catholics For A Free Choice. This is because that organization is not a membership organization at all, but just a mouthpiece funded by liberal endowments to oppose the catholic church on abortion. So that organization really speaks for no catholics, although there are of course many who do disagree with the church's teaching on that matter.

So when various media outlets over the years have used that as a source, I know that they are left biased to the point of not caring about legitimate sources. The same thing can be said regarding consitutional legal questions whe a media outlet always uses Lawrence Tribe for its analysis.

Riverman 12-22-2005 01:33 PM

Re: UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
The thing that really upsets me is that amid the right's 20 year campaign to hammer away at what it sees as media bias they have scared news organizations into providing "balanced" coverage in cases where there is really no need to "balance" anything. An example:

Valerie Plame case: Bush originally says "Anyone involved in outing an undercover agent will not be a part of my administration." So then it becomes pretty damn clear that Rove was involved, and he changes his statement to "Anyone who committed a crime will not be a part of my administration." There is no liberal element to pointing out that he "flip-flopped," and the facts are not up for dispute. Still, major news will put some republican operative, spewing talking points, on to "balance" the coverage.

Another thing that really bothered me is election coverage. At this point it is pretty clear that both the 2000 and 2004 elections had irregularities if not outright cheating in favor of the republican party in Florida and Ohio respectively. Where is the coverage? The MSM went along with the its over lets move on line, even though there is significant evidence of outright corruption (at least in Ohio). Where was the "balanced" discussion on the legitimacy/wisdom of the Supreme Court stepping in to decide Bush v. Gore, particularly when justices who were on record as being strong supporters of "states rights" usurped the authority to decide the election result in Florida?

DVaut1 12-22-2005 01:37 PM

Re: UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
[ QUOTE ]
Also, I believe Cyrus is very wrong about the legitmacy of the criterion used, namely what type of sources are used. As a conservative catholic, there is one sure tipoff to me of a biased report that intimates that a substantial number of catholics disagree with the church's teaching on abortion. And that is if they quote the lying sl*t that runs Catholics For A Free Choice. This is because that organization is not a membership organization at all, but just a mouthpiece funded by liberal endowments to oppose the catholic church on abortion. So that organization really speaks for no catholics, although there are of course many who do disagree with the church's teaching on that matter.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think this is a strong reason as to why I'm NOT in strong favor of using 'think-tank citations' as the matrix by which media sources ought to be rated -- often times journalists won't (through carelessness, ignorance, laziness, etc.) bother doing a thorough investigation regarding who and what they cite...and will often cite any organization interested in providing a quote; does journalist X bother investigating the membership rolls/donation records/lobbying history of Advocacy Group Y, or Think Tank Z? I'd guess that sometimes they do (and some of the best political reporters are of course aware of such things anyway, without a formal vetting) -- but I'd suspect a substantial number don't.

And, as you pointed out - the methodology cited in the study wasn't clear (perhaps I missed it) as to how advocacy groups/think tanks were differentiated, if at all; for instance, I think we can all agree that calling the NAACP a think tank is a stretch -- it's an advocacy group that has a clear agenda; and yet it seems the UCLA study classified the NAACP as a think tank.

Claiming the NAACP is an advocacy group ought to be pretty uncontroversial, as anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the organization knows that it has a point of view -- so when a media outlet cites the NAACP, there is, I believe, the implication that such a cited quote is given by someone who works for an advocacy group, not an unbiased party.

Again, I don't necessarily think "think tank citation" is a useless factor that's not worthy of study -- it should just be one factor, IMO, in a mosaic of factors.

Moreover, none of these problems even begin to scratch the surface of the ADA legislator rankings, which I believe were the control in the study -- the ADA rankings are not the best tool for establishing the median position for the average American voter, for a variety of reasons, IMO.

Again, it's not a completely valueless study, but I certainly wouldn't call it exemplary work, either.

12-22-2005 01:46 PM

Re: UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
Bias in the media or Bias in the studiers?:

"One of the authors of the study, Groseclose, was a Hoover Institution 2000-2001 national fellow; Milyo, according to his CV, received a $40,500 grant from AEI; and, according to The Philanthropy Roundtable, Groseclose and Milyo were named by Heritage as Salvatori fellows in 1997."

DVaut1 12-22-2005 01:56 PM

Re: UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
[ QUOTE ]
Bias in the media or Bias in the studiers?:

"One of the authors of the study, Groseclose, was a Hoover Institution 2000-2001 national fellow; Milyo, according to his CV, received a $40,500 grant from AEI; and, according to The Philanthropy Roundtable, Groseclose and Milyo were named by Heritage as Salvatori fellows in 1997."

[/ QUOTE ]

If you're directing that question at me...it doesn't seem so much a case of studier bias; it seems to be the case of a sub-par study -- or at the very least, a study where the far-reaching conclusion reached by the researchers ("Media bias proven") isn't in fact proven by the study.

I suppose we could invent some agenda on behalf of the researchers, and claim that some right-wing groups paid a couple of UCLA professors to concoct a study that could be cited in numerous times in the media (knowing the public-at-large won't investigate the specious methodology) so that the right could make a circular reference to it, and give some 'scholarly weight' to their claim that the media is inexorably biased against them -- but such a claim is, in my mind, as equally unprovable as the conclusion reached by the researchers in the study themselves.

peritonlogon 12-22-2005 03:27 PM

Re: UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
I think the "center" has moved further to the "right" than the media outlets.

12-24-2005 01:56 AM

Re: UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
Obviously the study is not perfect but it seems like an honest attempt to try to find where media outlets stand on the political spectrum. While there are flaws the study generally is pretty accurate.

whiskeytown 12-24-2005 02:18 AM

Re: UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
The study has Drudge listed as leaning left of center -

They say it's because he posts from so many liberal sites, and it's not a reflection on his bias or articles he wrote.

This reminds me of a research project I did where I came up with a scoring system that was flawed and made certain topics come up both 2nd and 3rd in importance, and my teacher told me I needed a better way to define what was 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.

Public research or not, if it reports that Drudge is left of Center, then the factors they are using to determine what is LEFT or RIGHT is wrong. -

so I'm not giving the study much merit....sorry - Drudge is NOT left of center and if they're calling him one of the 18 lefties, then they've made an errored assumption in their research and scoring.

RB

Copernicus 12-24-2005 02:24 PM

Re: UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
LMAO. Like a study was really needed to prove that! Next they will study ACLU positions and declare its a left leaning organization.

canis582 12-24-2005 03:54 PM

Re: UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
The study actually counts the ACLU as a conservative orgainzation.

SheetWise 12-25-2005 04:27 PM

Re: UCLA study concludes left wing bias in media is legit
 
It's absurd to define a left-centrist-right approach to news based upon the 'beliefs' of the 'average' voter -- it assumes that the media is a reaction to beliefs rather than an instrument to inform. What the average voter believes is what they've been led to believe by whatever media they're exposed to. If the media has a responsibility to inform -- a better yardstick would be to find out if what the average voter believes is actually true. Another would be to find out if what the media is informing them of is actually correct. If the facts of an issue are unresolved -- presentation of opposing viewpoints, fairness and balance would be a good place to plant center.


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