Not fake news: Major study finds no "liberal bias" in media -- but there are other problems

[diva77]

Yes, the media is liberal — but there's no "gatekeeping bias." If anything, journalists have become too cautious

by Paul Rosenberg
January 5, 2020 11:00AM (UTC)
https://www.salon.com/2020/01/05/not-fake-news-major-study-finds-no-liberal-bias-in-media-but-there-are-other-problems/

Complaints about press bias are as old as the press itself, but in recent decades, conservatives have pushed one complaint above all other: The media is biased against them because it is overwhelmingly staffed by liberal journalists. A new study, forthcoming in Science Advances, provides the strongest evidence ever that they’re half-right — but only the least important half: Yes, reporters overall are significantly more liberal than the general population. In fact, almost one in six are more liberal than Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, based on who they follow on Twitter. But no, that doesn’t matter — even for the most liberal cohort of them. The title of the study says it all: “There is No Liberal Media Bias in the News Political Journalists Choose to Cover.”

Even though “journalists are dominantly liberal and often fall far to the left of Americans,” the paper itself was emphatically clear in its conclusion:

In short, despite being dominantly liberals/Democrats, journalists do not seem to be exhibiting liberal media bias (or conservative media bias) in what they choose to cover. This null is vitally important — showing that overall, journalists do not display political gatekeeping bias in the stories they choose to cover.

In a way, that’s not that surprising: Journalists place a high value on objectivity and balance. Avoiding ideological bias “rates very high” among journalists, lead author Hans Hassell of Florida State told Salon — 8.5 on scale of 10 in the survey these researchers conducted. As Hassell acknowledged, “A response you give to a survey may be very different from the actual behaviors that you express in the things that you do.”
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[secondwind]

1. Interesting

[Sugarcoated]

2. I've been saying that for years.

...and that the media is corporate.

[Sherman A1]

4. Precisely

Cable Noise is mostly infotainment to fill airtime between ads for drugs we never knew we needed.

[MasonDreams]

3. The bias is conservative. The media is owned by big business.

Advertisers are big business. Big business is way conservative. All these organizations exist for to make money, and only to make money.

It is not a good reason, but it is the reason why:
Air, water, and "food" are poisoning us.
There are 500,000 families going into bankruptcy every year because of medical costs
20+ veteran suicides every day and war is $$$
The media pushes all war. They are bought.
The Afghanistan war stupidity exposed was a flash in the pan. Then back to the their bullshit.

The media gave sniffygrabby enormous amounts of free airtime.

"Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed - everything else is public relations". George Orwell (journalist)

[ThoughtCriminal]

5. Very few ask WHY journalists have more liberal views

The same thing that is happening with scientists and every other profession that deals with objective facts. Right-wing conservatives reject objective reality and replace it with fantasies that meet their ideological requirements.

Also, journalists should not be confused with the talking heads and pundits who are employed to promote the corporate line.

And one more thing: the current definition of "Liberal" is what we used to call "Centrist".

[diva77]

6. Agree 100%