Sullivan - THAT LIBERAL MEDIA: It's worth downloading and reading this study on media bias. mason.gmu.edu
Its merit is that it tries to find an objective measure of right/left positioning by checking citations of various think tanks. This is somewhat limiting, but not nuts. 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. (Drudge, by the way, comes out a centrist not because of his own page's text, but due to the text of all the links he cites. But it shows he cites outlets of all persuasions, even if some, presumably, are linked in order to mock them). 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, twelve percent voted for Bush, nearly double the rate of journalists. In the Eighth Massachusetts district, which includes Cambridge, nineteen percent voted for Bush, more than triple the rate of journalists. In the 14th California district, which includes Palo Alto, 26 percent voted for Bush, more than four times the rate of journalists.
Of course, what the author doesn't realize is that journalists are uniquely virtuous individuals and never let their internal views dictate the content, placement or subject-matter of stories. Never happens. |
