# wow, I never realized just how biased my news sources are **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 9, 2016, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-i-never-realized-just-how-biased-my-news-sources-are/771261 "2016-11-09T19:35:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![rbroome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2016, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-i-never-realized-just-how-biased-my-news-sources-are/771261/41 "2016-11-10T13:16:45Z")
> [@Iggy](#): > > And Gary Johnson got 0? Jill Stein? The Sweet Meteor O’Death? > > They may not be reporting those numbers in the headlines, but by the numbers I saw overnight Johnson was pulling anywhere from 3 to 6% in each state, pretty much nationwide. Easy to imagine then that neither Clinton nor Trump would reach 50% +1 in the popular vote in a closely contested race. Those percentages are of the total votes cast for Clinton + Trump, not the total number of votes cast. Whoever generated them should have been clear as to what was being reports. Clinton got more votes than Trump, neither won a majority of the votes cast. ---
**Author:** ![Pixel\_Dent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bc8723/32.png) [@Pixel\_Dent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pixel_Dent)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2016, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-i-never-realized-just-how-biased-my-news-sources-are/771261/42 "2016-11-10T17:06:26Z")
> [@Sigene](#): > > What about the Johnson votes… I suspect removing him from the picture would have made trumps win even bigger This is something I’ve been tracking for the last few months. It’s hard to say but every indication was that Johnson was taking slightly more from Clinton than from Trump. ---
**Author:** ![Pixel\_Dent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bc8723/32.png) [@Pixel\_Dent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pixel_Dent)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2016, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-i-never-realized-just-how-biased-my-news-sources-are/771261/43 "2016-11-10T17:11:12Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Actually, Wikipedia does show the state by state totals for each of the four major candidates. I think, for example, that in Pennsylvania if some of the votes for Gary Johnson and Jill Stein had voted for Clinton, she would have won those twenty electoral votes. Maine just voted to use Ranked Choice Voting for all their future elections of U.S. Senate, House, and the governorship, as well as the Maine Senate and House of Representatives. This system eliminates the spoiler effect of third party candidates. It would be nice if all the states used it for the presidential election. In this system if a voter picked Stein 1st, Clinton 2nd and neither Clinton nor Trump had a majority then the Stein vote would automatically get turned into a Clinton vote. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2016, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-i-never-realized-just-how-biased-my-news-sources-are/771261/44 "2016-11-10T18:18:47Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > I’ve not bothered to search for the thread, but quite recently my ignorance was fought as to the biased nature of the American press. In short, the American press is actually known for its bias, with different papers and TV channels having different biases. Fox is the obvious example. I’m not sure how this is a surprise to any adult human being but there is going to be a natural bias in interpretation in any organization; that is just the nature of any occupational culture. Refusing to acknowledge bias results in laughably Orwelling trademarks such as “Fair and Balanced”. I don’t think many educated journalists would deny having a personal bias, and many openly condone advocacy of a position. That being said, there is also the somewhat unappreciated bias on pretty much everyone at the level of national media in not even comprehending the kind of desperation and alienation felt by the large number of voters in so-called “Flyover Country” for whom any voice outside of urban-dominated political culture is appealing, even that of a candidate that stands in direct opposition to the values they suppose to be dear. > [@dracoi](#): > > In a way, that goes back to how average people understand statistics. We hear 10% and mentally revise it to 0% because it’s so unlikely, but if every election had one candidate at a 10% chance of winning, you’d expect the underdog to win about once every forty years. I’ll let someone crank out those numbers, but I don’t think that’s far off from reality. A 10% chance of winning an individual election gives about a 65% likelihood of one win out of 10 elections. (W = 1-(1-p)[SUP]n[/SUP], where p is the likelihood of winning a single election and n is the number of elections.) This notion that “its time to modify the scientific methodology to more closely represent reality,” misses the point that many of these estimates were actually not that far from predicting a win by Trump, and it was the people reading them, (“Oh, Nate Silver only gives Trump at 26% chance of winning? No sweat!”) were not understanding the implications. Given the large segment of the population that fundamentally disliked Trump at levels higher than any other presidential candidate since the beginning of modern polling, it was ridiculous that the odds were even that favorable. The only thing that permitted Trump to even remain that close despite every effort to seemingly sabotage his own campaign with legendarily offensive public statements was that the primary opposition candidate was also disliked at record-breaking levels combined with a total lack of effective effort to reach out to potentially influential demographics to the point of picking a running mate that would only appeal to her existing base. In other words, the Clinton campaign’s incompetence in even building a comfortable margin among potential voters explicitly rejected by Trump managed to overcome the sheer offensiveness of that side. And when the majority of voters are left with the options of wanting to vote for either candidate, the attempt to poll based upon the hypothesis that there is consistent preference _for_ a candidate has an inherent problem in representing voter intent, especially if there is the expectation that polled individuals represent their local demographic based upon shared values or policy issues supported by the candidate. In this case, given the results of the popular vote, with a shockingly narrow margin (the last time the popular vote was less than a 0.5% difference was Kennedy-Nixon), not only is the result within the error of margin, it is actually controlled by shifts that are probably too dynamic for polls (which take days to conduct and longer to correctly interpret) to represent. This is not to suggest that there aren’t systematic problems with how the polls are conducted that tend to bias them against the distributed, non-urban, and widely distributed demographic that elevated the Trump campaign beyond reasonable expectation, but there may not be a practical way to assure a representative data set to the degree of granularity to represent fine demographics other than aggressively resampling, especially when it appears that many Trump voters were largely silent outside the rural areas where there was visible majority support. The majority of predictions about which candidate would carry what states were accurate, and with a couple of exceptions the shifts occurred in states where the balance was already known to be close. This just happened to be an election where relatively few voters had a strong preference and the lack of voter concurrence with either major candidate fed a large degree of volatility. Those railing against third party candidates, by the way, need to consider the implications of why so many people are willing to “throw away” their votes on candidates with no realistic chance of winning (or in the case of Johnson, voting for someone who has a demonstrated history of complete idiocy) rather than making the compromise and voting for the candidate that was nearest to their position. In essence, there is a significant contingent of well-educated voters (third party candidates tend to represent a higher per capita college-educated voters) who feel completely unrepresented by either main party candidate. One party completely failed to field a viable candidate, and the other allowed their agenda to be hijacked by a professed scamster, and neither were sufficiently appealing to the bulk of voters to demonstrate a strong preference. In the case of Clinton, her ties to the very banking interests that were associated with the 2007-08 financial meltdown completely alienated many of the voters that would otherwise vote for a “progressive” Democratic candidate. In the case of Trump, his oft-abusive and inflammatory statements appealed to the collective anger despite having no real stated policy or practical experience whatsoever. This is a failure of the “two party system”, period. If there is a genuine unacknowledged bias in the media, it is that only the two major parties and the platforms they espouse matter. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2016, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-i-never-realized-just-how-biased-my-news-sources-are/771261/45 "2016-11-10T18:48:34Z")
I couldn’t even listen to NPR the last few weeks before the election. All they would report about Trump is whatever crazy thing he said that day, report on who is shunning Trump because of what he said, then repeat the history of how Trump came out a surprise frontrunner in the primaries etc. Every day. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2016, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-i-never-realized-just-how-biased-my-news-sources-are/771261/46 "2016-11-10T19:12:24Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > If you read the fine print on those polls, they typically poll like 1,500 people give or take. > > Yeah, science and math and statistics and shit, but I have a hard time believing you can a sample that small and be SURE you got all your little special sub groups adequately sampled. Actually, a survey sample of a large population (~150,000) is [usually limited to 1500](http://www.clacksweb.org.uk/document/1707.pdf) (PDF): > [@](#): > > Generally it is accepted that a sample of 1,500 is the upper limit of any sample size. Beyond this sample size the returns on precision diminishes greatly against the extra cost involved in collecting and processing the information It’s a case of diminishing returns. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2016, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-i-never-realized-just-how-biased-my-news-sources-are/771261/47 "2016-11-10T19:42:49Z")
> [@Doctor\_Jackson](#): > > Actually, a survey sample of a large population (~150,000) is [usually limited to 1500](http://www.clacksweb.org.uk/document/1707.pdf) (PDF): > It’s a case of diminishing returns. I know that. That’s why I said science and shit. BUTT you gotta make sure get all those subgroups. 1500 is probably all you need for a uniformish block of of say repubs or dems. But if you survey millions of them at the 1500 level and your sampling procedure happens to mis some important sub group due to poor design or bad luck …well, things won’t go so well. ---
**Author:** ![Sigene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df788c/32.png) [@Sigene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigene)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2016, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-i-never-realized-just-how-biased-my-news-sources-are/771261/48 "2016-11-11T02:05:12Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > This is a failure of the “two party system”, period. If there is a genuine unacknowledged bias in the media, it is that only the two major parties and the platforms they espouse matter. > > Stranger I totally agree with bias and really do wish the media would recognize it. I also agree on your comment about the unappreciated bias of the media on the ‘flyover’ states. THey really should set up headquartes in Joplin Missouri and hire people who are from and will remain in these flyover areas. ---
**Author:** ![tim-n-va](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim-n-va/32/3001_2.png) [@tim-n-va](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim-n-va)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2016, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-i-never-realized-just-how-biased-my-news-sources-are/771261/49 "2016-11-11T02:30:00Z")
[Electoral Vote](http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2016/Pres/ec_graph-2016.html) This site show trends, one with and one without statistical ties. Clinton ended up with very close to her total ignoring statistical ties. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2016, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-i-never-realized-just-how-biased-my-news-sources-are/771261/50 "2016-11-11T06:41:39Z")
> [@don\_t\_ask](#): > > [Counterpunch](http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/11/09/the-cataclysm-notes-on-election-day-and-the-politics-of-exhaustion/) which bills itself as “The Fearless Voice of the American Left Since 1993” has no time for either of the major parties and offers a different view of world affairs. They have repeatedly discussed the media bias in favor of Clinton. > > In the linked piece “The Cataclysm: Notes on Election Day and the Politics of Hubris” editor Jeffrey St. Clair notes: > > > [@](#): > > > > Of the cable networks, Fox News proved to be the most entertaining and informative to watch through the campaign. If they weren’t exactly “fair and balanced,” their anchors were at least more fair and balanced than CNN and MSDNC. They openly debated the merits of Trump, sometimes fiercely. OMG! They’re actually giving the devil his due! :eek: 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2016, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-i-never-realized-just-how-biased-my-news-sources-are/771261/51 "2016-11-11T16:14:14Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > I know that. That’s why I said science and shit. > > BUTT you gotta make sure get all those subgroups. 1500 is probably all you need for a uniformish block of of say repubs or dems. But if you survey millions of them at the 1500 level and your sampling procedure happens to mis some important sub group due to poor design or bad luck …well, things won’t go so well. The real issue is that, beyond Confidence Levels and Margins of Error, the public has no real way to determine to what degree the sample pool was truly random. It’s the randomness of the sample that makes the “science and shit” work. ---
**Author:** ![svd678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@svd678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/svd678)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-i-never-realized-just-how-biased-my-news-sources-are/771261/52 "2016-11-12T16:44:04Z")
One pollster I heard wondered if people who intended to vote for Trump avoided participating in polls, or wouldn’t admit it - any later info?..Is MSDNC a mispelling of MSNBC? ---
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-i-never-realized-just-how-biased-my-news-sources-are/771261/53 "2016-11-12T17:30:11Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > The “liberal media bias” had nothing to go by but the polls, and there are dozens of them, and they all used recognized scientific methodology, and as far as I know, not a single one of them came up with a different result. > > By the way, the last figures I saw this morning showed the total vote about 150,000 higher for Hillary than for Trump. So, the majority of the voters, as the polls predicted, DID vote for her. Actually, there were a couple polls (LA Times for example) that predicted a Trump win. Those polls were roundly dismissed as far as I can tell because a) they didn’t match other polls and b) no one wanted to believe it. I suspect that the reason people didn’t look more closely at the polls showing a Trump win was that the idea of a Trump win, to the media and pollsters at least, was so silly that they just assumed the polls were wrong and dropped it. Throw in that many of the polls are related to media outlets that many Trump voters don’t trust and it is pretty easy to see why the polls failed so badly. Slee ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-i-never-realized-just-how-biased-my-news-sources-are/771261/54 "2016-11-12T17:37:02Z")
To be fair, even Donald Trump didn’t think he would win. ---
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-i-never-realized-just-how-biased-my-news-sources-are/771261/55 "2016-11-12T19:19:42Z")
> [@sleestak](#): > > … > I suspect that the reason people didn’t look more closely at the polls showing a Trump win was that the idea of a Trump win, to the media and pollsters at least, was so silly that they just assumed the polls were wrong and dropped it. > … It is one thing if a poll gives a different result once or twice but if if does so consistently then they should look closely at the methodology underneath each poll. Instead, I agree, that some chose to just categorically dismiss the outlier without doing that examination of how the difference may have arisen. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-i-never-realized-just-how-biased-my-news-sources-are/771261/56 "2016-11-12T23:42:09Z")
Read [this article.](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/safety-pins-solidarity-minorities/) Now let me point out a subtle example of bias: > [@](#): > > In the days following the election, students have reported incidents of intimidation and bullying, including in Vice President-elect Mike Pence’s hometown. In one Michigan middle school, students chanted “build that wall” during their lunch period. A swastika appeared on a storefront in South Philadelphia. > > Video has also surfaced that appears to show an attack on a student who voiced support for Donald Trump. Those statements are not lies. But… some DID happen. There’s no qualifier in the claims: students DID chant; a swastika DID appear. But despite the existence of video, the article says only that it APPEARS to show an attack on a student who voiced support for Donald Trump. Neither claim is a lie. But one set of events is presented confidently as fact, and the other as mere appearance and supposition. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2016, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-i-never-realized-just-how-biased-my-news-sources-are/771261/57 "2016-11-13T00:49:54Z")
Conservative media thought Clinton was going to win also. ---
**Author:** ![CerebrAl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@CerebrAl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CerebrAl)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2016, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-i-never-realized-just-how-biased-my-news-sources-are/771261/58 "2016-11-13T02:21:06Z")
> **[United States Electoral College](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_States))** > > The United States Electoral College is the group of presidential electors required by the Constitution to form every four years for the sole purpose of appointing the president and vice president. Each state and the District of Columbia appoints electors pursuant to the methods described by its legislature, equal in number to its congressional delegation (representatives and senators). Federal office holders, including senators and representatives, cannot be electors. Of the current 538 ele... ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2016, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-i-never-realized-just-how-biased-my-news-sources-are/771261/59 "2016-11-13T03:20:38Z")
There is some media bias but the problem was polling. I don’t think pollsters were trying to do a crappy job. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2016, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-i-never-realized-just-how-biased-my-news-sources-are/771261/60 "2016-11-28T18:33:49Z")
There is an interesting article on [ProPublica.com](http://ProPublica.com) by Eric Umansky entitled [“How Journalists Need to Begin Imagining the Unimaginable”](https://www.propublica.org/podcast/item/how-journalists-need-to-begin-imagining-the-unimaginable), detailing the failure of imagination of journalists who just refused to believe that Donald Trump could be elected even after he won the Republican nomination, and how that failure led to a focus on Trump’s outrageous behavior as just clownish and ridiculous rather than how much it demonstrated an unstable personality ill-suited to the presidency, or as John Stewart infamously called him, [“a man-baby”](https://youtu.be/yXc77rGI3Lw). It is a pretty shameful state of affairs when the so-called “mainstream” broadcast media is not only undermined by their own unwillingness to not just fact check but aggressively pursue blatant dishonesty by a candidate but also by comedic personalities such as Stewart, late night show host Seth Meyers, and _Last Week Tonight_ John Oliver who have done better coverage of the mistruth and mendacity of the candidates despite the fact that they all fiercely and correctly insist that [they are not journalists](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bq2_wSsDwkQ&feature=youtu.be&t=1m38s), and are dependent upon actual, disciplined, non-splashy journalism done at the local, state, and national level by dedicated and experienced ‘beat’ journalists rather than media talking heads repeating each others sound bites and social media hounds re-tweeting unchecked factoids. Umansky ends the piece with this salient comment: _Understand that normal is going to drift and shift and all sorts of things are about to happen and part of our job is to notice and document how it’s happening. We may not be able to influence the course of events, but our job is to at least be able to tell the story._ The ‘story’ can’t just be that Trump just tweeted another ridiculous, outrageous, or incendiary comment; it needs to be how his behavior and that of the people advising him compares to the historical norms and what it means for America’s reputation, economic relations, and political future. And we shouldn’t be relying on comedians to provide critical commentary on the suitability of public figures and the consequences of their actions, even if they are [really, really good at it](https://youtu.be/DnpO_RTSNmQ). Stranger [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-i-never-realized-just-how-biased-my-news-sources-are/771261.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-i-never-realized-just-how-biased-my-news-sources-are/771261.md?page=4)