The Opposition Meme
By Mitch Berg
The fever-swamp fringe of the American Left subsists on a number of ongoing memes, the most head-scratchingly bizarre being that they are an oppressed minority among the media.
As evidence, they point to Fox News – one cable network in an array of four broadcast and at least four major cable news sources – and whinge “They’re biased”, incredibly ignoring Eason Jordan’s CNN, Dan Rather’s CBS, and, worst of all, the late Peter Jennings’ ABC.
Which would be bad enough, except it’s not true in the first place.
Five news outlets — “NewsHour With Jim Lehrer,” ABC’s “Good Morning America,” CNN’s “NewsNight With Aaron Brown,” Fox News’ “Special Report With Brit Hume” and the Drudge Report — were in a statistical dead heat in the race for the most centrist news outlet. Of the print media, USA Today was the most centrist.
An additional feature of the study shows how each outlet compares in political orientation with actual lawmakers. The news pages of The Wall Street Journal scored a little to the left of the average American Democrat, as determined by the average ADA score of all Democrats in Congress (85 versus 84). With scores in the mid-70s, CBS’ “Evening News” and The New York Times looked similar to Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., who has an ADA score of 74.
Most of the outlets were less liberal than Lieberman but more liberal than former Sen. John Breaux, D-La. Those media outlets included the Drudge Report, ABC’s “World News Tonight,” NBC’s “Nightly News,” USA Today, NBC’s “Today Show,” Time magazine, U.S. News & World Report, Newsweek, NPR’s “Morning Edition,” CBS’ “Early Show” and The Washington Post.
The study’s a little over a year old – and got virtually no publicity outside the blogosphere and talk radio.
Says Brian Anderson, citing the study in a LATimes Op-ed:
The propaganda charge is unfair, at least when it comes to the network’s presentation of news. In the 2004 presidential race, Fox pollsters consistently underestimated President Bush’s support. In its final preelection poll, Fox had Kerry winning by a couple of points, one of the only polls to show the Democrat on top. I’m not sure a right-wing fifth column would do that.
A recent comprehensive study by UCLA political scientist Tim Groseclose and University of Missouri-Columbia economics professor Jeffrey Milyo found Brit Hume’s “Special Report” — Fox’s most straightforward news show — more centrist than any of the three major networks’ evening newscasts, all of which leaned left…And although it’s true that the network’s opinion shows (as opposed to its news shows) are, as they’re supposed to be, noisily opinionated, it’s equally true that Fox’s biggest star, O’Reilly, is no mainstream Republican. He regularly charges the oil companies with price-gouging and attacks big business for squashing the little guy. And who can say what host Greta Van Susteren’s politics are? She mostly zeroes in on lurid murder mysteries and scandals..There’s no doubt, of course, that Fox News is more conservative than CBS or CNN. But, after all, that was its founding mission…
Fox’s real ethos is not Republican but anti-elitist — a major reason it connects with so many Americans and annoys so many coastal elites. “There’s a whole country that elitists will never acknowledge,” Ailes once observed. “What people resent deeply out there are those in the ‘blue states’ thinking they’re smarter.”
The other meme – that two out of three Fox viewers believe that Iraq was behind 9/11 – is cited as hard fact by legions of credulous leftybloggers, talk radio callers, and commenters. Of course, it’s not; even the original “study’s” authors, the Program on International Policy Attitudes, says that the study wasn’t broad enough to be interpreted as a basis in fact; correlation (however arrived at) doesn’t equal causation. And, oddly, the study didn’t ask, say, CBS viewers how many believed the Memogate allegations were true, or how many CNN viewers believe that WMDs were the sole reason for invading Iraq.
I somehow suspect that poll will never be taken.
January 8th, 2007 at 10:52 am
God, where to begin…
First Mitch, they establish their “centrist” position based on flawed methodology.
“Groseclose and Milyo based their research on a standard gauge of a lawmaker’s support for liberal causes. Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) tracks the percentage of times that each lawmaker votes on the liberal side of an issue. Based on these votes, the ADA assigns a numerical score to each lawmaker, where “100” is the most liberal and “0” is the most conservative.
Their “source” to establish a baseline is inherently biased so we already know the results will be invalid.
Next, the researchers use both the media’s and lawmakers references to think tanks and policy groups to determine on which side of their already flawed centerline the media outlet falls. They use media records for the media and floor speeches for the lawmakers and use a qualitative comparative approach to determine is a media outlet is biased. If a lawmaker mentions a policy group positively in a speech and a media outlet mentions the policy group, there is a bias according to the researchers because it mirrors the opinion of the lawmaker that cited the policy group.
If FOX News mentions the ACLU enough times, they get a more liberal rating
That’s pure crap.
Next, there’s the background of the researchs themselves. From Media Matters:
None of the outlets that reported on the study mentioned that the authors have previously received funding from the three premier conservative think tanks in the United States: the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI), The Heritage Foundation, and the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. Groseclose was a Hoover Institution 2000-2001 national fellow; Milyo, according to his CV (pdf), received a $40,500 grant from AEI; and, according to The Philanthropy Roundtable, Groseclose and Milyo were named by Heritage as Salvatori fellows in 1997. In 1996, Groseclose and Milyo co-authored a piece for the right-wing magazine The American Spectator, titled “Lost Shepherd,” criticizing the then-recently defeated member of Congress Karen Shepherd (D-UT) and defending her successor, Enid Greene (R-UT); when the piece was published, Greene was in the midst of a campaign contribution scandal and later agreed to pay a civil penalty after the Federal Election Commission found (pdf) that she violated campaign finance laws.
You can’t use a quantative approach to this type of study because establishing the parameters for tallying results are based entirely on opinion.
Also, this study you cite Mitch had been thoroughly and completely debunked right after it was released.
January 8th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
God, where to begin…
By wiping the phony, weary, condescending “resignation” out of your voice?
The study was never “debunked”, merely attacked – although the talking points you’re parroting don’t distinguish the two – and the attacks have been answered. I’ve read the research criticizing it; most of it, itself, is from parties with a dog in the fight (Pew? Puhleeeze), certainly moreso than the original researchers.
As to attacking the researchers’ backgrounds – well, it may be satisfying in a sort of intellectually-lazy way, but it really has nothing to do with the issue at hand.
More germane, Doug – since actual discussion seems to interest you less on this subject than most – look back on your contributions to these various “Fox” threads; note the sneering, preening condescenscion oozing through the voice you use. Like so many critics of Fox, it’s not so much the facts at hand because (ironically given your second-to-last graf above) it is largely a subjective discussion. Now, trying to quantify qualitative arguments is tricky (and I do it for a living), but the mere fact that it is difficult and frequently badly-done does not, in and of itself, render the attempt invalid.
Fox is the news voice of the American center and near-right. That, alone, is probably all it takes for this nation’s elites (and their hangers-on) to detest it.
By the way, outside of waiting rooms at doctors, garages and such, I have never watched it. It’s also been probably five years since I watched CNN, for that matter.
January 8th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
I did a quick search & it looks like the original paper is here: http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/groseclose/Media.Bias.8.htm
The methodology is interesting. The lawmaker’s — and the media — were guaged not merely on the mention of a liberal group, but on citing it, that is, expressing its view on a policy issue. It was assumed that an ADA score of 50.1% represented a center point. It would have been a nice comparison if the authors of the paper had used ACU rankings in a parallel study.
In the opening paragraph there is a discussion of previous attempts to quantify media bias. It will come as no surprise to anyone on the right (or an honest evaluator on the left) that journalists are far more liberal than the average American.
I can think of three possible reasons that the left attacks studies like this so vehemently: either their idea of where the political center is is skewed because it’s so much further to the right then they are; they believe that if the media were truly centrist their policies would have greater acceptance by the electorate; or last that their ideas aren’t opinion, they’re fact, and so a news media that doesn’t appear to “toe the line” on liberal issues is right wing by definition.
January 8th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
Mitch whined,
“By wiping the phony, weary, condescending “resignation” out of your voice?”
No comment necessary.
The study you cite has enough flaws in it’s methodology as to render it’s conclusions invalid.
Mitch said,
“the mere fact that it is difficult and frequently badly-done does not, in and of itself, render the attempt invalid.”
But it does make the conclusions drawn invalid. Saying that your conclusions are valid because you made a good faith effort to enter into the research impartially isn’t going to cut it.
And if you do qualitative analysis for a living as you claim, feel free to design and execute your own study in media bias. I’d be interested to see your approach considering I did that type of work professionally from about 1983 – 2001 and still dabble when I do advertising and marketing side jobs.
January 8th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
Doug snivelled like a little Nancyboy:
But it does make the conclusions drawn invalid.
In and of itself? No – that’s an absurd thing to claim.
And if you do qualitative analysis for a living as you claim
Doug? There’s no “if” about it.
January 8th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
” did that type of work professionally from about 1983 – 2001 and still dabble when I do advertising and marketing side jobs”
Who knew putting on a chicken suit and a sandwich board could be so complicated?
January 8th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Mitch said,
“Doug snivelled like a little Nancyboy”
Uh huh… My son used to get angry and call people names too when he lost but he got over that by the time he got into 4th grade.
Doug? There’s no “if” about it.
Great, I’ll look forward to your media bias research.
January 8th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Doug, it was pretty obvious to those of us with our brain switches in the “on” position that Mitch’s “name calling” was simply him going one-up on your “Mitch whined,” line. Does such reading non-comprehension place you in the 3rd grade?
It’s good, though, that your son has gotten used to losing. Good life practice.
January 8th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
Doug attempted to deflect my vastly-more-capable parry:
My son used to get angry and call people names too when he lost
Which may or may not reflect on you, but it’s irrelevant in all particulars.
My son used to sniff about how dumb everyone but him was…er, wait. No, he didn’t.
I’ll look forward to your media bias research.
When and if it happens, rest assured; it’ll be more than the “look how dumb everyone who disagrees with me is” that you’ve provided to date.
January 8th, 2007 at 5:30 pm
It would, help, Doug, if you explained exactly what it was about the methodology that makes its conclusions invalid. As far as I can tell the study used a standard measure of the ‘liberalness’ of politician (ADA rating) and then tried to apply to the media a technique that would give them the same ADA rating that a politician might receive. I can think of several reasons why the technique might give a skewed result; for example if a newsreader said “The president argues that tax cuts will improve the unemployment rate, while a spokesman for the brookings institute says that a tax cut will hurt rather than help those without jobs” might be counted as a having a liberal slant because only the liberal opinion was referenced to a think tank. (On the other hand the whole premise might be considered literal because the subject of tax cuts was only considered in the light of how it would affect the jobless).
So what exactly are your objections to the methodology? Why did that methodology produce a result that showed the news media to be far more liberal than you think it is? And please don’t offer any links to atrios, kos, or MM. TPM might be good place to start, though.
January 8th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Yossarian said,
“Mitch’s “name calling” was simply him going one-up on your “Mitch whined,” line.”
Which incidently was my response to Mitch’s,
“By wiping the phony, weary, condescending “resignation” out of your voice?
Little Nancyboy indeed…
January 9th, 2007 at 7:52 am
Which incidently was my response t…
Which was, for those who care about facts, a response to your “Oh, God, why must I suffer these fools who question my ofay stereotypes”.
Face it, Doug – even though arrogance and know-it-all-itude is my exclusive franchise on this blog, I still do it with a smile, as opposed to whatever Mapplethorpe’s model had wherever he had it, like…well, we know where this is going, don’t we?
January 9th, 2007 at 10:21 am
Mitch said,
Face it, Doug – even though arrogance and know-it-all-itude is my exclusive franchise on this blog, I still do it with a smile
That’s an easy claim to make when you’re sitting at home alone posting responses but I can asssure you that your tone frequently suggests otherwise. The arrogance and know-it-all-itude certainly comes through. The smile? Not so much.
Like I said in another thread, you are critical of others for doing the exact same thing you are guilty of doing. That’s not a criticism. It’s an observation.
And no, I don’t get the Mapplethorp reference though I’m sure if I hade made it, you would be accusing me of being condescending or patronizing or having a “look how dumb everyone who disagrees with me is” attitude.
January 9th, 2007 at 10:53 am
your tone frequently suggests otherwise.
Your perceptions do not constitute an emergency on my part. There are things in life I take seriously; commets are not among them.
Everyone who disagrees with me is not dumb. Everyone who disagrees with me with a sneer down their nose (speaking in general, not necessarily to you, Doug, inasmuch as you have your redeeming qualities) is fair game.
As I define fair, naturally; it’s my blog.
January 9th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
Mitch said,
“Everyone who disagrees with me with a sneer down their nose”
Also as you define sneer right Mitch?
January 10th, 2007 at 6:23 am
I don’t think a reasonable reader, politics aside, would disagree on the tone.