Did Pew also survey the political affiliation of the publishers and editors, the folks who actually decide what stories get planted on the (literal and metaphorical) front pages?
I’m having a problem understanding your argument. If there is to be a bias at all, where does it come from if not from the internal bias of the reporter or institution for which he reports? Are you saying that there might be some kind of accidental bias that manifests out of nothing?
I’ve read the report, and still don’t see any breakdown of the political affiliation of the publishers/editors/folks in charge contained therein. The old canard that “the media is liberal because journalists identify themselves as liberal” is meaningless without this data.
I don’t know what report you read, but the one I linked to breaks it down this way:
Of the national executive financial officers, 16% are liberal, 60% are moderate, 19% are conservative, and 5% refused to answer or didn’t know. Of the local executive financial officers, 11% are liberal, 76% are moderate, 11% are conservative, and 2% are very conservative.
Of the national senior executives (editors-in-chief, etc.), 2% are very liberal, 25% are liberal, 59% are moderate, 4% are conservative, and 10% refused to answer or didn’t know. Of the local senior executives, 24% are liberal, 60% are moderate, 11% are conservative, 1% are very conservative, and 4% refused to answer or didn’t know.
Of course the bias comes from the reporter or institution. What I had intended to say (which is somewhat garbled I see as the do in my last sentence should have been don’t) is that a reporter who recognizes his own personal bias and therefore is always analyzing what he does to see if it is leaking into his reporting is more valuable than someone who thinks they are unbiased and therefore allows their biases to go unchecked.
So, a high percentage of people who identify as conservative in an organization does not necessarily mean that it will skew the news that direction.
It can even go in the opposite direction - a medium sensitive to allegations of bias may overcompensate, giving opposing views even more weight than they deserve.
Perhaps, but not for the reason you’re stating. It is unreasonable to posit that a biased man can check his own bias, because his bias is the filter through which he’s checking. That’s why NPR doesn’t seem particularly biased to biased leftists, and Fox News doesn’t seem particularly biased to biased rightists.
True… but that sort of bias is tough to ferret out, because many of its manifestations pass unnoticed. In the other thread, the “Not enough minorities” comment, for example. At first blush, OF COURSE anyone can see that not enough minorities are represented. It’s obvious.
It’s onyl when someone else - someone who doesn’t have the same basic assumptions – comes along does the question arise.
I don’t know how anyone can sit and watch FoxNews and then listen to NPR and even put them on the same level. FoxNews is painfully tailored to push Republican talking points at a sub-USA Today level of appreciation. NPR definately reflects a bias of its audience and funders and employees of an urbanite liberalism, but there is none of the careful scripting and coordination with any sort of coherent liberal or Democratic message, and it generally restricts itself to some fairly high journalistic standards of balance.
But more importantly, NPR’s news and interview shows have featured intelligent conservatives for years now in one of the only forums they have to actually lay out their views in a way that not even FoxNews really does. And instead of the way that FoxNews packages its few and occasional liberal voices within its spin (basically just as sounding boards for them to rail against later with the last word), they generally go unpackaged, faced only with the normal journalistic codas instead of careful dissections and later featured as a punching bag on Hannity. No one on NPR runs around saying that it’s Cato guests are buffoons, traitors, or anything like the sort. That’s par for the course on FoxNews, which interjects its conservative pundits to give “analysis” on even straight news stories.
Me too. With Fox, the bias is more transparent. It’s woo-hoo for the good guys! With NPR, it’s often in the tone — e.g., a singsong reference to Bush’s Social Security privatization plan; in the choice of one word over another — e.g., a Republican Party agenda, but a Democratic Party timetable; or in the cadence of speech — e.g., the Republicans in Congress seemed … addled by the criticism. NPR also seems to devote more time to expressing the Democratic view in stories where both views are given — frequently opening with the D, inserting a brief R, and then closing with the D. The R tends to get buried, and has less emphasis.
Again, you seem to want this as a quid pro quo. It’s not going to happen. They are separate entities and should be treated as such.
And have you read the link provided by Hentor the Barbarian? You can hop in the wayback machine to page 1 to see it. The spin is heavy but there is information there to be argued.
:anticipating Bricker’s remarks. And hey, he would have a point on this:
Actually, all this proves is that Brit Hume has an overt bias…and that he is an idiot. He also looks like an elephant seal. Also, Brit Humes show is a news discussion show (pseudo-editorial if I remember correctly). Anything he says can be contextualized in the editorial format and thusly does not reflect upon the journalism department or the whole of fox news.
The point is that all this is, is a piece of bias. It does not cover the whole of the Fox News Network. However it is a far larger piece than Bricker has in the NPR thread.
Fox news has made a lot of hay by pointing at their ratings; problem is that for the ratings they do include their pseudo news shows, even when talking about ratings, they are not fair and balanced.
Look, I’m only saying exactly what Bricker is going to say when he comes in here. One piece of evidence is not proof. The fact that they are whores when it comes to ratings and attention proves only that they are ratings whores.
You can also expect a hijack on whether or not Moveon.org is actually the heart of the democratic party because that would make his statement correct and then it isn’t biased and yadda yadda yadda.
Also, the link to the video in your first link is highly edited. Is there a spot where I can find an unedited video?