Beating a dead horse...More on Media Bias

For those who still do not believe it exists...

From the article, written about the first objective and successful study on media-bias, found in UCLA's Quarterly Journal of Economics:

Media Bias is Real, Finds UCLA Political Scientist

Of the 20 major media outlets studied, 18 scored left of center, with CBS' "Evening News," The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times ranking second, third and fourth most liberal behind the news pages of The Wall Street Journal.

Only Fox News' "Special Report With Brit Hume" and The Washington Times scored right of the average U.S. voter.

The most centrist outlet proved to be the "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer." CNN's "NewsNight With Aaron Brown" and ABC's "Good Morning America" were a close second and third.

That seems just a touch slanted.

The fourth most centrist outlet was "Special Report With Brit Hume" on Fox News, which often is cited by liberals as an egregious example of a right-wing outlet. While this news program proved to be right of center, the study found ABC's "World News Tonight" and NBC's "Nightly News" to be left of center. All three outlets were approximately equidistant from the center, the report found.

I found this to be interesting, as well:

An additional feature of the study shows how each outlet compares in political orientation with actual lawmakers. The news pages of The Wall Street Journal scored a little to the left of the average American Democrat, as determined by the average ADA score of all Democrats in Congress (85 versus 84). With scores in the mid-70s, CBS' "Evening News" and The New York Times looked similar to Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., who has an ADA score of 74.

Most of the outlets were less liberal than Lieberman but more liberal than former Sen. John Breaux, D-La. Those media outlets included the Drudge Report, ABC's "World News Tonight," NBC's "Nightly News," USA Today, NBC's "Today Show," Time magazine, U.S. News & World Report, Newsweek, NPR's "Morning Edition," CBS' "Early Show" and The Washington Post.

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.

Another finding that contradicted conventional wisdom was that the Drudge Report was slightly left of center.

Now, because this is only taking into consideration straight news while omitting op-ed pieces and pundit shows, the networks and papers cited in this article could slant an entirely different way when looked at in whole. For example, as stated, The Wall Street Journal's opinion pieces are largely conservative, especially when taken in context of other media. However, what should really matter to the American public are the NEWS pieces...the ones that purport themselves to be unbiased, not the pundits who claim to be anything but.

Furthermore, another study examined the viewership of the different news networks and came to some obvious conclusions. Of CNN's viewers, a whopping 51% are democrat, while on 13% are republicans. MSNBC showed similar numbers with 45% being dems and 18% being republicans. Where is gets a little more interesting, is Fox's viewership, who claim 33% democrats and 39% republicans. That seems to be a whole lot more balanced than the aforementioned networks.

Now, I do not believe that Fox is always "Fair and Balanced." Not only do they tend to have more conservative pundit shows, but in the shows that claim balance, they generally to have a stronger and more credible personalities on the conservative side. for example, on Hannity and Colmes, Hannity is much more the celebrity and more committed debater. Colmes tends to let a lot slide and often defers to Hannity.

On the flip side, however, O'Reilly (whom I cannot stand and is believed to be a wingnut conservative) really is moderate and at times even populist. He just is very vocal about certain conservative beliefs that drive liberals crazy.

Just a few of O'Reilly's leftist views:

• Opposes the war
• Supports nationalized health care
• Supports minimum wage
• Opposes the death penalty
• Supports race-based preferences
• Supports government control of education

Given these positions alone, can you really call the guy conservative? Even Republican is a stretch.

Overall, I do believe that Fox strives more for balance than the other networks, which just drives liberals crazy. While attending the Communication School at BU, we were shown the "Outfoxed" documentary, lamenting the horrific slanted atrocities presented by the Fox network. Were we presented an opposing viewpoint? Of course not. All of my peers walked away from that class, even further convinced that Fox is the enemy. I even recived some gasps of disapproval and shock from friends when I told then that I do tune into Fox regularly.

And of course, one guy's opinion means nothing as far as the facts go, but it's always interesting when a lib journalist breaks from the fold and notes the injustice.

I have zero issues with any network/paper having as many partisan (on either side) pundit shows/op-ed pieces as they wish. But, can we please at least try for unbiased newscasts? And if that's too much to ask, can we at least call a spade a spade?

Sometimes, I am dumbfounded that there are even any conservatives left.