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The point was that the "study" WAS a survey. Exactly, my good man. A study comprises more controls than a survey, because a survey is a single point of data, whereas a study would incorporate multiple ones, as well as error controls, and positive and negative controls in order to draw a conclusion.
Go ahead and read the OP and tell us what the "controls" should have been. Easy ones have already been noted repeatedly in this thread; Take ZERG_RUSSIAN's recent post, for instance.
A sample, off the top of my head methodology could be; Collect representative (first develop methodology to obtain representative) samples of media bias throughout the world, comparative to other streams of media (ie. local print/local radio/local tv/ word of mouth/lectures/etc). Then compare streams of bias throughout countries in groups, ie. Western Democracies v World Aggregate, across media forms . Then compare the chronological difference between media bias during different eras (feel free to use American presidential terms). Then compare America's overall media bias to the aforementioned group media biases, across time, Ie: Is America's media more 'right' or more 'left' than media in the average western democracy. Then break down the media leaning across different forms of media: is the blogosphere super leftwing whereas radio is rightwing? Etc. Then track those changes over time, to determine whether or not the effect is cyclical, or if the bias is permanent and entrenched in the system with the aim of proposing a remedy.
Additional points if you provide confidence intervals to 95% like you're supposed to in real science.
you have not presented ANY problems with the data.
Yes he has.
Obama is a socialist terrorist v McCain is for laissez faire capitalism are not accusations of equal 'negative' weight. His point is MASSIVELY understated.
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I think I'll take this time to make my exit as well.
I think we can all agree that the media is somewhat biased, both liberally and conservatively in it's respective parts, but I think the evidence presented is sufficient to say that there IS some liberal leaning in the mass media, and this DOES seep into reporting on a fairly large scale. Mass media is something that I know is not easily defined, but most major national TV news and print media do have a liberal bias, though this has changed somewhat from the time of the data that we presented.
Perhaps I'll return later when I have more time and the discussion has changed a bit.
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On December 07 2008 08:03 HnR)hT wrote:Show nested quote +On December 07 2008 07:47 cz wrote:On December 07 2008 07:43 HnR)hT wrote:On December 07 2008 07:35 cz wrote:On December 07 2008 07:31 HnR)hT wrote:On December 07 2008 07:10 cz wrote:On December 07 2008 07:09 HnR)hT wrote:
We use our eyes and ears... So you are suggesting that they are pursuing an invalid, unwarranted campaign to change people's point of view? What is your reasoning behind this? I don't know if it can be called a "campaign" and to what degree it is consciously done, but if you watch cnn for a few minutes or read just about any NYT article even tangentially related to a political issue, you'd come across implicit liberal assumptions everywhere, and conservatives constantly portrayed in a negative light. During this past election season you could go to cnn.com and there were *guaranteed* to be a bunch of stories implicitly if not outright pro-Obama. For example, when you write/say "Americans are about to make Historic Decision" (which has become a cliche already) I think it's pretty obvious whose side you are on and which candidate you want your reader/audience to vote for. Well now we're just at step 1. Your subjectively claiming that 1) The media is biased in favor of liberal ideas and 2) That bias is unjustified and not in accordance with reality. You have to establish both of those, and your anecdotal evidence is not enough for #1. You didn't prove that they AREN'T biased, either. I'm not about to conduct a scientific investigation or go digging for examples to justify my own impression, which formed and was reinforced over many years. The studies cited in this thread about journalists' liberal bias is one piece of such evidence, however. Right. So we're at step 1, just like I said. And if you aren't about to objectively substantiate your opinion then it remains just that, anecdotal and subjective. It seems your tactic is to demand that others do the serious homework that it takes to carefully present evidence for every claim that they make (no matter how much time it would take and no matter that it may not be possible under the circumstances), while you just sit on your ass and criticize their lack of proof. There was even solid factual evidence in this thread given by Savio that journalists tend to be largely liberal. What else do you want? Ten more such studies? A case by case analysis of a statistically significant sample of news stories from particular outlets?
No number of studies will ever convince him. He will argue that they were written in the wrong color of ink and think that that is a reasonable objection.
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No number of poorly designed studies will ever convince him.
Fixed.
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On December 07 2008 08:31 Savio wrote:Show nested quote +On December 07 2008 08:03 HnR)hT wrote:On December 07 2008 07:47 cz wrote:On December 07 2008 07:43 HnR)hT wrote:On December 07 2008 07:35 cz wrote:On December 07 2008 07:31 HnR)hT wrote:On December 07 2008 07:10 cz wrote:On December 07 2008 07:09 HnR)hT wrote:
We use our eyes and ears... So you are suggesting that they are pursuing an invalid, unwarranted campaign to change people's point of view? What is your reasoning behind this? I don't know if it can be called a "campaign" and to what degree it is consciously done, but if you watch cnn for a few minutes or read just about any NYT article even tangentially related to a political issue, you'd come across implicit liberal assumptions everywhere, and conservatives constantly portrayed in a negative light. During this past election season you could go to cnn.com and there were *guaranteed* to be a bunch of stories implicitly if not outright pro-Obama. For example, when you write/say "Americans are about to make Historic Decision" (which has become a cliche already) I think it's pretty obvious whose side you are on and which candidate you want your reader/audience to vote for. Well now we're just at step 1. Your subjectively claiming that 1) The media is biased in favor of liberal ideas and 2) That bias is unjustified and not in accordance with reality. You have to establish both of those, and your anecdotal evidence is not enough for #1. You didn't prove that they AREN'T biased, either. I'm not about to conduct a scientific investigation or go digging for examples to justify my own impression, which formed and was reinforced over many years. The studies cited in this thread about journalists' liberal bias is one piece of such evidence, however. Right. So we're at step 1, just like I said. And if you aren't about to objectively substantiate your opinion then it remains just that, anecdotal and subjective. It seems your tactic is to demand that others do the serious homework that it takes to carefully present evidence for every claim that they make (no matter how much time it would take and no matter that it may not be possible under the circumstances), while you just sit on your ass and criticize their lack of proof. There was even solid factual evidence in this thread given by Savio that journalists tend to be largely liberal. What else do you want? Ten more such studies? A case by case analysis of a statistically significant sample of news stories from particular outlets? No number of studies will ever convince him. He will argue that they were written in the wrong color of ink and think that that is a reasonable objection.
The way in which the colors are presented inevitably skews the reader's perception!!!!1 OBVIOUSLY it should be presented in color-neutral form to avoid biasing people towards their favorite color. I like blue so logically my bias will be towards the liberal democrat side!
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K it's been fun but I'm going to go take a shit
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On December 07 2008 08:07 cz wrote:Show nested quote +On December 07 2008 08:03 HnR)hT wrote:On December 07 2008 07:47 cz wrote:On December 07 2008 07:43 HnR)hT wrote:On December 07 2008 07:35 cz wrote:On December 07 2008 07:31 HnR)hT wrote:On December 07 2008 07:10 cz wrote:On December 07 2008 07:09 HnR)hT wrote:
We use our eyes and ears... So you are suggesting that they are pursuing an invalid, unwarranted campaign to change people's point of view? What is your reasoning behind this? I don't know if it can be called a "campaign" and to what degree it is consciously done, but if you watch cnn for a few minutes or read just about any NYT article even tangentially related to a political issue, you'd come across implicit liberal assumptions everywhere, and conservatives constantly portrayed in a negative light. During this past election season you could go to cnn.com and there were *guaranteed* to be a bunch of stories implicitly if not outright pro-Obama. For example, when you write/say "Americans are about to make Historic Decision" (which has become a cliche already) I think it's pretty obvious whose side you are on and which candidate you want your reader/audience to vote for. Well now we're just at step 1. Your subjectively claiming that 1) The media is biased in favor of liberal ideas and 2) That bias is unjustified and not in accordance with reality. You have to establish both of those, and your anecdotal evidence is not enough for #1. You didn't prove that they AREN'T biased, either. I'm not about to conduct a scientific investigation or go digging for examples to justify my own impression, which formed and was reinforced over many years. The studies cited in this thread about journalists' liberal bias is one piece of such evidence, however. Right. So we're at step 1, just like I said. And if you aren't about to objectively substantiate your opinion then it remains just that, anecdotal and subjective. It seems your tactic is to demand that others do the serious homework that it takes to carefully present evidence for every claim that they make (no matter how much time it would take and no matter that it may not be possible under the circumstances), while you just sit on your ass and criticize their lack of proof. There was even solid factual evidence in this thread given by Savio that journalists tend to be largely liberal. What else do you want? Ten more such studies? A case by case analysis of a statistically significant sample of news stories from particular outlets? Yes, I do criticize where I see criticism as valid. Why is that a problem? Do you see this more as an emotional, personal conflict between two people rather than an inquiry into what is happening and whether it is correct and justified? Also Savio's data, if you are referring to his party affiliation of journalists thing, is once again not indicative of your conclusion. It only shows party affiliation, not whether or not that affiliation seeps into reporting as bias registrable to the public. Furthermore it's also out of date, though I'm not sure how important that is. It is up to you, though, to establish that that data given by Savio can be used to conclude that the media is biased. Then you have to establish that that bias is unjustified and incorrect.
The data I gave showed 2 things:
1. The media's personal political views are much more liberal than the general public's. That doesn't prove bias in their reporting, but....
2. Since 1988, the media has given a significantly larger percentage of positive stories for the democratic candidate and negative stories for the Republican.
Taken together I think these mean something serious.
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On December 07 2008 08:15 Savio wrote:Show nested quote +On December 07 2008 07:42 QibingZero wrote:On December 07 2008 07:31 HnR)hT wrote:On December 07 2008 07:10 cz wrote:On December 07 2008 07:09 HnR)hT wrote:
We use our eyes and ears... So you are suggesting that they are pursuing an invalid, unwarranted campaign to change people's point of view? What is your reasoning behind this? I don't know if it can be called a "campaign" and to what degree it is consciously done, but if you watch cnn for a few minutes or read just about any NYT article even tangentially related to a political issue, you'd come across implicit liberal assumptions everywhere, and conservatives constantly portrayed in a negative light. During this past election season you could go to cnn.com and there were *guaranteed* to be a bunch of stories implicitly if not outright pro-Obama. For example, when you write/say "Americans are about to make Historic Decision" (which has become a cliche already) I think it's pretty obvious whose side you are on and which candidate you want your reader/audience to vote for. This is a laughable theme being spread by a very vocal minority (both around the US and in this thread). "A Harvard University analysis in early November revealed that 77 percent of Americans say the press is politically biased; of that group, 5 percent said it skewed conservative." That leaves 95% seeing the bias being liberal. That is your "very vocal minority". 
Oh joy. Again you pick out a single sentence from my post and attempt to fight it by it's lonesome. Anyhow, since you'd like that little quote debunked as well, let's think about this.
The study in question is very difficult to find information on. In fact, in no mention of it could I find the claim espoused by this single writer. That's suspect, but it's also beside the point. The study was strictly talking about media coverage during this election. And naturally, people felt the media was biased in favor of Obama, because he received more positive coverage. Again, I disagree with using the term 'bias' used in this situation, for reasons I've already stated in this thread. Is it bias to call a dog a dog? Is it bias to say Sarah Palin is an inarticulate, unqualified partisan?
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On December 07 2008 08:12 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote:Show nested quote +On December 07 2008 08:04 sith wrote:On December 07 2008 08:01 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote:On December 07 2008 07:55 sith wrote:On December 07 2008 07:49 cz wrote:On December 07 2008 07:47 sith wrote:On December 07 2008 07:43 cz wrote:On December 07 2008 07:42 sith wrote:On December 07 2008 07:40 cz wrote:On December 07 2008 07:38 sith wrote:
[quote]
We've already provided statistics and various sources that show a liberal slant, but you seemed to dismiss those as "flimsy data", that doesn't "take magnitude into account". I realize the burden of proof rests on the accuser, but perhaps you would like to provide ANY evidence for your claims of complete media objectivity? I'm not claiming objectivity. I'm not making any claims. If you aren't making any claims, that includes any claims that our evidence or claims are incorrect. You can't argue and not take a side, that's cheating. Well I'm disputing the extrapolation of your data, yes. If you want to call that a claim you can. Cool, so lets argue about the validity of data that neither of us gathered, shall we? Or how about you stop pussyfooting around and take a side or stop talking. I don't have to "take a side" to show the holes in your data and reasoning. My reasoning and data is not the issue here. The issue is you KNOW you cannot win this argument. We are arguing that the media is liberally biased, you are arguing with us, however if you took the opposing side, that the media is completely objective, you know you would surely lose, because I think you know as well as I the media is NOT objective. So instead you're just deciding to not take a stance. How does this sound? THE MEDIA IS LIBERALLY BIASED. Insult my reasoning/data all you want, but if you want to argue that it's not, you're going to have to do a little better than "i don't have to take a side". Actually, the opposite view that we're taking is that the media is NOT liberally biased. Nobody said that it's completely objective. That's just absurd. Well there are three viewpoints here. You're either liberally biased, completely objective, or conservatively biased. You can't be "a little bit biased". We're arguing for the liberal slant, so you have either 1 of two things you can say in defense, either it's completely objective, or it has a conservative viewpoint. And if you want to argue that the majority of the media is conservative be my guest 1) The media pays no attention to how basically every other civilized country in the world has free healthcare. 2) The media pays no attention to how basically every other civilized country in the world has free education. 3) The media does not cover genocides, atrocities, the loss of civil rights, etc. with the fervor that a more liberal news source, i.e. BBC news, does. 4) The media is inherently linked to the corporate sphere through advertising - it's why you NEVER see reports on buying used cars.
I don't think any of your first 3 points are true.
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On December 07 2008 08:13 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote:Show nested quote +On December 07 2008 08:10 sith wrote:On December 07 2008 08:06 Hawk wrote:On December 07 2008 07:58 sith wrote:On December 07 2008 07:55 Hawk wrote:On December 07 2008 07:51 sith wrote:On December 07 2008 07:47 Hawk wrote:On December 07 2008 07:41 sith wrote:On December 07 2008 07:37 Hawk wrote:On December 07 2008 07:31 HnR)hT wrote:
[quote]
I don't know if it can be called a "campaign" and to what degree it is consciously done, but if you watch cnn for a few minutes or read just about any NYT article even tangentially related to a political issue, you'd come across implicit liberal assumptions everywhere, and conservatives constantly portrayed in a negative light. During this past election season you could go to cnn.com and there were *guaranteed* to be a bunch of stories implicitly if not outright pro-Obama. For example, when you write/say "Americans are about to make Historic Decision" (which has become a cliche already) I think it's pretty obvious whose side you are on and which candidate you want your reader/audience to vote for. Are you serious?? That's not biased at all. How many times has a non-white been either party's choice for president? There's also Palin, who could have been the first female VP. It's clearly historic, regardless of what side you're on. That was just a single example. Here are a bunch more. It was a single, shit example that proved nothing. And the website is laughable. First thing I click on (http://www.mrc.org/cyberalerts/2008/cyb20081205.asp#2) bitches about Barbara Walters selecting Obama as her most fascinating person. That's an opinion... in her own segment. It's not trying to be newsy. Remind me again what the issue here is? It took 15 seconds to find that link. I googled liberal media bias examples and it was the first one that came up. Obviously you did the same thing *cough cough looked at the first link on the page*. I'm also not the one running around going HUR HURRR THE MEDIA HAS A LIBERAL BIAS!!! and then providing a totally fine statement (it IS a historical election) and then a link that claims bias in a lady's opinion on her own show that wasnt presenting any type of news as all. Is there bias? Yeah, and it comes from both sides. But most people are too fucking retarded to differentiate between an opinion article/show and a news piece that's oozing with bias. And no one here has provided anything biased thats pretending to be news. Well if we're going to go about it that way there really is nothing that's biased in the media is there? I mean after all, it's just Charlie Gibson's opinion, isn't it? And the journalists in the newspapers have opinions too, everyone is off the hook! I'm arguing that collectively, that "the press and most people that make it up" is biased. Hi, do you know what an Op Ed is? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Op_edThose people get paid to write opinions. Op ed isn't reporting the news. If a news article contains opinions (or omits facts to make someone/something look better/worse) then it's biased. And that's something everyone should get pissed about. Bitching about someone's opinions in an op ed, column, or opinion show just means you don't agree with them. Big woof. If this is the case, then it's a matter of the public being fucking retarded. It's still part of the "media". I'm arguing the media is liberal. FOX news is part of the "media" too, you know. That's a bad way to prove a point.
The conservative bias of Foxnews was included in the studies that found an overall net liberal bias among the major networks.
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On December 07 2008 08:35 Savio wrote:Show nested quote +On December 07 2008 08:07 cz wrote:On December 07 2008 08:03 HnR)hT wrote:On December 07 2008 07:47 cz wrote:On December 07 2008 07:43 HnR)hT wrote:On December 07 2008 07:35 cz wrote:On December 07 2008 07:31 HnR)hT wrote:On December 07 2008 07:10 cz wrote:On December 07 2008 07:09 HnR)hT wrote:
We use our eyes and ears... So you are suggesting that they are pursuing an invalid, unwarranted campaign to change people's point of view? What is your reasoning behind this? I don't know if it can be called a "campaign" and to what degree it is consciously done, but if you watch cnn for a few minutes or read just about any NYT article even tangentially related to a political issue, you'd come across implicit liberal assumptions everywhere, and conservatives constantly portrayed in a negative light. During this past election season you could go to cnn.com and there were *guaranteed* to be a bunch of stories implicitly if not outright pro-Obama. For example, when you write/say "Americans are about to make Historic Decision" (which has become a cliche already) I think it's pretty obvious whose side you are on and which candidate you want your reader/audience to vote for. Well now we're just at step 1. Your subjectively claiming that 1) The media is biased in favor of liberal ideas and 2) That bias is unjustified and not in accordance with reality. You have to establish both of those, and your anecdotal evidence is not enough for #1. You didn't prove that they AREN'T biased, either. I'm not about to conduct a scientific investigation or go digging for examples to justify my own impression, which formed and was reinforced over many years. The studies cited in this thread about journalists' liberal bias is one piece of such evidence, however. Right. So we're at step 1, just like I said. And if you aren't about to objectively substantiate your opinion then it remains just that, anecdotal and subjective. It seems your tactic is to demand that others do the serious homework that it takes to carefully present evidence for every claim that they make (no matter how much time it would take and no matter that it may not be possible under the circumstances), while you just sit on your ass and criticize their lack of proof. There was even solid factual evidence in this thread given by Savio that journalists tend to be largely liberal. What else do you want? Ten more such studies? A case by case analysis of a statistically significant sample of news stories from particular outlets? Yes, I do criticize where I see criticism as valid. Why is that a problem? Do you see this more as an emotional, personal conflict between two people rather than an inquiry into what is happening and whether it is correct and justified? Also Savio's data, if you are referring to his party affiliation of journalists thing, is once again not indicative of your conclusion. It only shows party affiliation, not whether or not that affiliation seeps into reporting as bias registrable to the public. Furthermore it's also out of date, though I'm not sure how important that is. It is up to you, though, to establish that that data given by Savio can be used to conclude that the media is biased. Then you have to establish that that bias is unjustified and incorrect. The data I gave showed 2 things: 1. The media's personal political views are much more liberal than the general public's. That doesn't prove bias in their reporting, but.... 2. Since 1988, the media has given a significantly larger percentage of positive stories for the democratic candidate and negative stories for the Republican. Taken together I think these mean something serious.
It could also mean Democrats have done more positive things since 1988 than Republicans, and thus won over more of the people out there who are paid to pay attention to those things!
That idea seems to escape you guys every time it's brought up.
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On December 07 2008 08:17 cz wrote:Show nested quote +On December 07 2008 08:15 Savio wrote:On December 07 2008 07:42 QibingZero wrote:On December 07 2008 07:31 HnR)hT wrote:On December 07 2008 07:10 cz wrote:On December 07 2008 07:09 HnR)hT wrote:
We use our eyes and ears... So you are suggesting that they are pursuing an invalid, unwarranted campaign to change people's point of view? What is your reasoning behind this? I don't know if it can be called a "campaign" and to what degree it is consciously done, but if you watch cnn for a few minutes or read just about any NYT article even tangentially related to a political issue, you'd come across implicit liberal assumptions everywhere, and conservatives constantly portrayed in a negative light. During this past election season you could go to cnn.com and there were *guaranteed* to be a bunch of stories implicitly if not outright pro-Obama. For example, when you write/say "Americans are about to make Historic Decision" (which has become a cliche already) I think it's pretty obvious whose side you are on and which candidate you want your reader/audience to vote for. This is a laughable theme being spread by a very vocal minority (both around the US and in this thread). "A Harvard University analysis in early November revealed that 77 percent of Americans say the press is politically biased; of that group, 5 percent said it skewed conservative." That leaves 95% seeing the bias being liberal. That is your "very vocal minority". Are you suggesting that what the majority of American people believe is what is true? Extrapolating from this data is once again extremely dubious.
I was responding to the assertion that only a very "vocal minority" of people think the media is biased toward liberals. I proved it wrong with data.
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The idea that both democrats and republicans aren't respectively the real 'left' and 'right' seems to evade everyone.
I proved it wrong with data. No, you proved that the vocal minority were successful in making 'liberal media bias' a buzzword.
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On December 07 2008 08:17 QibingZero wrote:
Heh. I've yet to see any of the real arguments against the OP's 'study' being answered in this thread. All I see is incessant conjecture, self-righteous claims of oppression, and cherry picking.
Thank you. I feel exactly the same. There has been NO contrary evidence put forward.
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Yeah, no, none of the baseline fundamental objections with methodology are serious credible attacks against the only piece of evidence brought up. Totally agree. Not cherrypicking what an 'objection' is at all.
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On December 07 2008 08:29 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote:Show nested quote +On December 07 2008 08:25 Savio wrote:On December 07 2008 07:48 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote:On December 07 2008 05:59 Savio wrote:What about the rest of the data sources I cited later? Remember these: According to LA Times survey of journalists: * Self-identified liberals outnumbered conservatives in the newsroom by more than three-to-one, 55 to 17 percent. This compares to only one-fourth of the public (23 percent) that identified themselves as liberal. * 82 percent of reporters and editors favored allowing women to have abortions; 81 percent backed affirmative action; and 78 percent wanted stricter gun control. * Two-thirds (67%) of journalists opposed prayer in public schools; three-fourths of the general public (74%) supported prayer in public schools. Also, this is a little old (1992), but so is the evidence for liberal media bias (dating back to 1988), And according to the ASNE report of 1996, You know, this argument may have held weight in the nineties, but since then, we've had two terms of President Bush. That changes everything about those statistics. What? How does Bush being President make Chris Mathews conservative? Or any media person? If nothing else, his presidency fed the liberal media like sharks at a feeding frenzy. I'm not talking about the media data, I'm talking about the population data. 8 years of Bush had definite repercussions in this last election. Republicans got swept. That was partly due to the media, but I think a lot of it had to do with having a terrible president.
ok
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I usually don't like posting in threads I didn't fully read, but this thread's way too long for me to read it tonight, so I'll just add my two cents.
Liberal or conservative, what annoyed me when I tried to inform myself about your recent election was that every single article I read was highly opinionated.
Maybe this has to do with the selection of articles of the site I was using (realclearpolitics), and your regular media isn't at all like that, but I thought it was terrible journalism that the writers' goal seemed to be to tell me what I should think and not to inform me about the facts as objectively as possible.
Maybe I'm completely wrong on this, but couldn't it be that the reason most of you seem to think the media's biased (whichever way) is because the consensus among the writers seems to be that it's OK to be opinionated in an article that's supposed to tell the readers what's going on?
We have our fair share of biases in Switzerland, on the whole the media's probably slightly left-leaning (liberal's a term used by the moderate right here :p), but in most newspapers the main article will try to give an objective breakdown of the situation and the writer's opinion is confined to a seperate column.
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I think everyone needs to also realize that the media covers the biggest and most audience capturing stories. People hate Bush, they show the negatives. People love Obama, he gets the most air time.
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On December 07 2008 08:29 L wrote: Exactly, my good man. A study comprises more controls than a survey, because a survey is a single point of data, whereas a study would incorporate multiple ones, as well as error controls, and positive and negative controls in order to draw a conclusion. Easy ones have already been noted repeatedly in this thread; Take ZERG_RUSSIAN's recent post, for instance. A sample, off the top of my head methodology could be; Collect representative (first develop methodology to obtain representative) samples of media bias throughout the world, comparative to other streams of media (ie. local print/local radio/local tv/ word of mouth/lectures/etc). Then compare streams of bias throughout countries in groups, ie. Western Democracies v World Aggregate, across media forms . Then compare the chronological difference between media bias during different eras (feel free to use American presidential terms). Then compare America's overall media bias to the aforementioned group media biases, across time, Ie: Is America's media more 'right' or more 'left' than media in the average western democracy. Then break down the media leaning across different forms of media: is the blogosphere super leftwing whereas radio is rightwing? Etc. Then track those changes over time, to determine whether or not the effect is cyclical, or if the bias is permanent and entrenched in the system with the aim of proposing a remedy. Additional points if you provide confidence intervals to 95% like you're supposed to in real science.
No, L, those are not controls. That is just changing the question that the study is trying to answer. You say they should measure the difference between American and European media coverage when the question was never about how the US compares to EU, but rather whether American news sources cover democrats or republicans more favorably.
And it found that the media consistently covers democrats more positively and republicans more negatively and have done so in every election in the last 20 years.
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On December 07 2008 08:41 QibingZero wrote:Show nested quote +On December 07 2008 08:35 Savio wrote:On December 07 2008 08:07 cz wrote:On December 07 2008 08:03 HnR)hT wrote:On December 07 2008 07:47 cz wrote:On December 07 2008 07:43 HnR)hT wrote:On December 07 2008 07:35 cz wrote:On December 07 2008 07:31 HnR)hT wrote:On December 07 2008 07:10 cz wrote:On December 07 2008 07:09 HnR)hT wrote:
We use our eyes and ears... So you are suggesting that they are pursuing an invalid, unwarranted campaign to change people's point of view? What is your reasoning behind this? I don't know if it can be called a "campaign" and to what degree it is consciously done, but if you watch cnn for a few minutes or read just about any NYT article even tangentially related to a political issue, you'd come across implicit liberal assumptions everywhere, and conservatives constantly portrayed in a negative light. During this past election season you could go to cnn.com and there were *guaranteed* to be a bunch of stories implicitly if not outright pro-Obama. For example, when you write/say "Americans are about to make Historic Decision" (which has become a cliche already) I think it's pretty obvious whose side you are on and which candidate you want your reader/audience to vote for. Well now we're just at step 1. Your subjectively claiming that 1) The media is biased in favor of liberal ideas and 2) That bias is unjustified and not in accordance with reality. You have to establish both of those, and your anecdotal evidence is not enough for #1. You didn't prove that they AREN'T biased, either. I'm not about to conduct a scientific investigation or go digging for examples to justify my own impression, which formed and was reinforced over many years. The studies cited in this thread about journalists' liberal bias is one piece of such evidence, however. Right. So we're at step 1, just like I said. And if you aren't about to objectively substantiate your opinion then it remains just that, anecdotal and subjective. It seems your tactic is to demand that others do the serious homework that it takes to carefully present evidence for every claim that they make (no matter how much time it would take and no matter that it may not be possible under the circumstances), while you just sit on your ass and criticize their lack of proof. There was even solid factual evidence in this thread given by Savio that journalists tend to be largely liberal. What else do you want? Ten more such studies? A case by case analysis of a statistically significant sample of news stories from particular outlets? Yes, I do criticize where I see criticism as valid. Why is that a problem? Do you see this more as an emotional, personal conflict between two people rather than an inquiry into what is happening and whether it is correct and justified? Also Savio's data, if you are referring to his party affiliation of journalists thing, is once again not indicative of your conclusion. It only shows party affiliation, not whether or not that affiliation seeps into reporting as bias registrable to the public. Furthermore it's also out of date, though I'm not sure how important that is. It is up to you, though, to establish that that data given by Savio can be used to conclude that the media is biased. Then you have to establish that that bias is unjustified and incorrect. The data I gave showed 2 things: 1. The media's personal political views are much more liberal than the general public's. That doesn't prove bias in their reporting, but.... 2. Since 1988, the media has given a significantly larger percentage of positive stories for the democratic candidate and negative stories for the Republican. Taken together I think these mean something serious. It could also mean Democrats have done more positive things since 1988 than Republicans, and thus won over more of the people out there who are paid to pay attention to those things! That idea seems to escape you guys every time it's brought up.
Thats a possibility. Do you have any data to back it up?
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EPT![[image loading]](http://www.mediaresearch.org/biasbasics/images2005/MBBChar2D.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.mediaresearch.org/biasbasics/images2005/MBBChar2C.jpg)
