Wednesday, June 23, 2004

Media bias -- the truth that won't go away

A new study of media bias is startling for what it reveals about the media compared to some liberal havens -- i.e., the media may even be more Bush-hating than Berkeley, California or Cambridge, Massachusetts. The study examined thinktanks that the media quotes or uses as sources because those groups have their own biases that can support or negate a certain slant in a story and compared those quotes with the sources Congress uses.

Here is Andrew Sullivan's take (go to his website and scroll down):

The authors see which think-tanks are cited by which newspapers and media outlets and they compare them with citations by members of Congress. In a very closely divided House, this makes some sense. And the results are that the press isn't just slightly to the left of the American middle - but wildly out of sync . . . Then there's this arresting passage:

These statistics suggest that journalists, as a group, are more liberal than almost any congressional district in the country. For instance, in the Ninth California district, which includes Berkeley [read: UC-Berkeley], twelve percent voted for Bush, nearly double the rate of journalists. In the Eighth Massachusetts district, which includes Cambridge [read: Harvard U.], nineteen percent voted for Bush, more than triple the rate of journalists. In the 14th California district, which includes Palo Alto [read: Stanford U.], 26 percent voted for Bush, more than four times the rate of journalists.

Of course none of this matters, because as Sullivan notes (sarcasm in original): journalists are uniquely virtuous individuals and never let their internal views dictate the content, placement or subject-matter of stories.

Yeah, right. And the BBC is more pro-Israel than the Jerusalem Post.

While you're at, I own a bridge that you can get a good price for . . .

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