OpEdNews: The Myth of Liberal Media Bias

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Myth-of-Liberal-Media-by-Larry-Butler-130428-804.html

By Larry Butler (about the author) Permalink
OpEdNews Op Eds 4/28/2013 at 08:38:25

"Liberal media bias" is one of those axiomatic slanders that is self-evident among conservative believers. Seldom do progressives respond in any way more meaningful than a shrug or a headshake. At the risk of refuting the absurd, once again, I must address a popular myth.

Numerous analytical studies have been conducted, flouting the subjectivity of an issue that consists primarily of attitudes. Predictably, disparate and conflicting conclusions are offered by these efforts. Starting a logical investigation with a conclusion inevitably supports the original premise -- a classical case of begging the question. Studies funded by those people and organizations screaming about liberal media bias can be expected to find, well" liberal media bias. Studies funded by those screaming about conservative bias can be expected to find conservative bias -- if there is much such funding out there. Studies funded by media industry insiders can be expected to find no bias at all. But wait a minute -- that's not what they found.

Global News Intelligence consults with media companies to develop intelligence used in competitive markets. Because GNI supplies information to its clients upon which they will build their business strategies, the value of its product depends upon the accuracy of this information. In 2012 GNI was engaged to evaluate media bias in the presidential election, and the 4 th Estate Project was launched. Their evaluation of media bias was based upon two criteria: (1) the number of GOP voices quoted in media vs. the number of Democrat voices quoted; and (2) the percentage of positive and negative sentiments expressed toward each candidate. The results were summarized as an infographic here.

Those results, after processing 717 articles and 15,357 quotes, are summarized as follows: ""newsmakers appearing in the media as partisan Republicans are quoted at a 44% higher rate than partisan Democrats. Additionally, the ratio of positive to negative coverage was 17.1% more critical of Obama than Romney." Bottom line? "Our data does not support the thesis of a liberal media bias as it relates to Election 2012 coverage." This insider study actually revealed a very real conservative media bias.

FULL story at link.

http://www.opednews.com/

[blkmusclmachine]

1. .

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[on point]

2. The people who appear are center to far right. No actual left voices ever appear

[SpearthrowerOwl]

3. heh, I like to think right to far right

I'm currently reading Manufacturing Consent and it's completely fantastic. How anybody claims there are "leftist" views perpetrated by the mass media is beyond me. Usually they try to show some (meager) evidence and put together some terrible underlying dynamic theory that produces the supposed evidence. Usually this underlying dynamic theory is something about radical leftist elites infiltrating the media and hiring only their crony friends or something. It's actually pretty fascinating to listen to one of these people try to explain an underlying mechanism that would allow for liberal views on mainstream corporate media