[e-mail] says Drudge + Most News Media Leans LEFT - HA!

[Triana]

She states that "Drudge leans left". Is this the absolute best piece of right-wingnut propaganda we've heard all day? OH SO MUCH more at the link below. And let's not forget to CALL and EMAIL this head-up-her-butt beyotch and set her straight about the "liberal media" eh? DRUDGE leans LEFT? Bwahahahaaaa!
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Date: December 14, 2005
Contact: Meg Sullivan ( [e-mail] )
Phone: [phone]

While the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal is conservative, the newspaper's news pages are liberal, even more liberal than The New York Times. The Drudge Report may have a right-wing reputation, but it leans left. Coverage by public television and radio is conservative compared to the rest of the mainstream media. Meanwhile, almost all major media outlets tilt to the left.

These are just a few of the surprising findings from a UCLA-led study, which is believed to be the first successful attempt at objectively quantifying bias in a range of media outlets and ranking them accordingly.

"I suspected that many media outlets would tilt to the left because surveys have shown that reporters tend to vote more Democrat than Republican," said Tim Groseclose, a UCLA political scientist and the study's lead author. "But I was surprised at just how pronounced the distinctions are."

"Overall, the major media outlets are quite moderate compared to members of Congress, but even so, there is a quantifiable and significant bias in that nearly all of them lean to the left," said co‑author Jeffrey Milyo, University of Missouri economist and public policy scholar.

-UCLA-

http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=6664

[Trillo]

1. If the comparison is to lawmakers

then how are results skewed IF one ASSUMES there is, and has been, election fraud for many decades, even centuries?

[progdonkey]

2. to state the bleeding obvious...

the study is utter bullshit. First of all, averaging the ADA score to arrive at the "average voter" is ridiculous (as I understand it, from the article), because it implies that every representative is perfectly representative of every single voter in his constituency. A representative with a score of 100 and one with 0 would average out at 50, yet there is nothing there to describe the make-up of the electorate: they may have each won 80% of the vote in their districts, or they could have just barely squeaked by. If the "100" liberal won with a massive victory, and the "0" conservative barely squeaked by, you have an average electorate that is far more liberal than the "50" average from just averaging the ADA scores of their representatives.

Where the hell did the idea to look for parallels between news broadcasts and political speeches come from? When Rep. XYZ gives a speech, he's trying to influence policy and build (or announce his) support of bills; Jim Lehrer, on the other hand, is presenting news analysis. The Rep. may cite the Heritage Foundation because he's a conservative and he wants to show he's in line with conservative thought, or he may be a liberal and he wants to show that even the Heritage Foundation supports his bill; Jim Lehrer would cite the Heritage Foundation primarily to state "this is conservative line on the issue," not to derive support from it.

Not to mention that Groseclose already had a bias towards believing in the "liberal media" (and shows he's an idiot by basing his earlier bias on the old "reporters vote Democrat, therefore coverage is in favor of Democrats," since reporters obviously decide what stories are covered, not the producers toe-ing the corporate line).

[orwell]

3. Who Knows?

What we do know is that media exists to sell products for advertisers. They will lean whichever way the public wind blows. If they need to "manufacture consent" they are quite capable of doing so.

This is why during the social upheavals of the 60's and 70's "they" were all about so-called "anti-establishment values." Now that the pendulum has predictably swung back to the right it is all "patriotism" and "American exceptualism."

It all sells soap, and cars, and home improvements, and wars, and soft drinks, and "Christmas", and...