You keep positing that this is a figment of paranoid conservative minds.
I posted this to you last week and you'ven yet to reply.
Message 13568620
Facts are so inconvenient. I saw a speech on CSPAN where Haley Barbour (admittedly a former RNC chairman) cite a statistic that a survey of journalists revealed that 90 percent were registered Democrats and 70 percent consider themselves "liberal."
And, again, I ask you to respond to the following:
Here are statistics which I'm sure you'll find as persuasive as they are inconvenient...
Courtesy of May 4 Media Reality Check
----------------------
"NationalJournal.com Finds Liberal Bias: CNN Editor
Denounces As 'crock' Discovery of Great Gap Between Liberal and
Conservative Labeling." The text of the May 3 Media Reality Check
fax report prepared by the MRC's Tim Graham about a story posted
by National Journal, best known for its Hotline political news
service:
Eron Shosteck writes a media column called "Pencil Necks" for
National Journal.com. Last week, he made an unusual declaration:
"Writing about the political print press without addressing the
eternal question of bias is like trying to avoid a confrontation
with the obstreperous drunkard at your intimate dinner party."
Shosteck decided to evaluate media bias by doing a Nexis database
search of "English-language news" for certain politically loaded
terms. He found liberal favoritism:
-- Partisans. The term "partisan Republican'...has turned up 85
times in the English-language news media over the past 90 days. By
contrast, the term 'partisan Democrat' has turned up only 58 times
in the same time period." That's a ratio of 1.5 to 1.
-- Extremists. "A Nexis search of 'extreme right' over the past 90
days was 'interrupted' because it exceeded 1,000 documents, which
seems to bog down Nexis' data retrieval system. So we narrowed
down our investigation time-frame. A Nexis search of 'extreme
right' over the past month scored 212 mentions; a Nexis search of
'extreme left' over the past month yielded 58 items. This search
reveals that the print media label right-wingers 'extreme' nearly
four times more often than they label left-wingers 'extreme.'"
-- Hard Right/Left. "Nexis search for print media uses of 'hard
right' over the past 90 days: 683. Nexis search for print media
uses of 'hard left' over the past 90 days: 312. Again, the media
are apt to label an individual or group 'hard right' more than
twice as often than they are apt to label an individual or group
'hard left.'"
-- Far Right/Left. "Nexis search of 'far right' over past week:
267 (past 90 days and 30 days yielded more than 1,000 documents).
Nexis search of 'far left' over past week: 130....the media are
more than twice as likely to label a conservative person or group
as 'far right' than they are to label a liberal person or group
'far left.'"
Shosteck concluded: "When conservatives kvetch about the media
being more apt to use negative labels for their leaders, special
interest groups and public policy positions than they are for
liberal leaders, special interest groups and public policy
positions, conservatives are not just spouting empty rhetoric. The
raw numbers, free of any manipulation, back up conservatives'
claims."
-- Reaction. After each ideological discrepancy, Shosteck argued
that there are an equal number of extreme figures on the left as
there are on the right. Media figures did not agree.
In an e-mail to Jim Romenesko's MediaNews Web site
(www.poynter.org/medianews), CNN Interactive Technology Editor D.
Ian Hopper complained: "The National Journal 'investigation' was a
crock. In a Democratic administration, coming after an
impeachment, of course we'd read quite a bit about the 'far
right.' The 'left' is winning, so they don't need to be so vocal.
I seriously doubt we'll see a similar check for time periods
during the Reagan-Bush administration."
Take this, CNN. The September 1991 issue of MRC's MediaWatch
documented the use of "left wing" and "right wing" terms in The
Washington Post during 1990. Post reporters used "right-wing" 394
times, "left-wing" only 87. On extreme terms (extreme, far, hard,
etc.), the numbers were 106 on the right, 24 on the left.
Hey, AB, if you want more proof, just pipe up. I've got plenty more... |
