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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.

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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.