[sam h]

[ 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.