Posted by
Georgiaboy on Thursday, October 19, 2006 8:22:09 PM
Conservatives have been talking about the liberal media bias for years. We accept it as self-evident fact. Most people probably agree, but some liberals still hold out that the media is actually slanted to the right! Not just Fox News either. Now we know that they are just delusional, but here is a rigorous scientific study with objective evidence to refute their crazy claims. I think the only reason libs think the news is biased to the right is because they are so liberal that the news is more centrist than them. Thus, they think it is biased against them. Looking through the study a few things are pretty evident. First, the common knowledge about the media is correct. If you were to ask any conservative to give a rough ranking on the right to left scale of prominent media institutions, they would get it correct. It really is simple. CBS is more liberal than ABC. NY Times is more liberal than USA Today. Fox News and the Washington Times are more conservative (and centrist!) than most of the others. Nothing new here.
The study compared the media to a hypothetical centrist member of Congress. They determined an ideological rating by counting the number of times that a liberal cited liberal think tanks compared to conservatives ones and vice versa. So, the more liberal think tanks you cite, the more liberal you are. They controlled for many factors and if you doubt the validity of the study, go read it yourself. I don't want to bore you with the gory details.
So here are the rankings.
Newspapers: Right-Washington Times, USA Today, Washington Post, NYT, news pages of Wall Street Journal-Left. USA Today was most centrist and if you read both the W. Times and Post you would get balanced coverage.
TV: Right-Fox News special report, Newshour w/Jim Lehrer, CNN newsnight, Good Morning America, ABC nightly, NBC nightly, CBS nightly. Fox News and Jim Lehrer were at the center. CBS was way out in loony land. They have about the same ranking as Joe Lieberman.
Now keep in mind. This is talking about ideological slant, not veracity of facts. Basically, who did they portray more favorably. For example, CBS would try to spin the current economy numbers to look bad. They don't necessarily lie, but they give a disproportionate weight to what liberals have to say.
Conclusions: Keep on watching Fox. They really are fair and balanced. If you want a newspaper, get the Washington Times or USA Today.