At First Glance: Bias in the Media
Bryan Caplan
Economists have done some sophisticated work on media bias. For example, Tim Groseclose and Jeff Milyo have a neat paper, "A Measure of Media Bias," that compares the think tanks that politicians and the media cite. They find that the major media have citation patterns closer to that of the the typical Democrat than the typical member of Congress:
Although we expected to find that most media lean left, we were astounded by the degree. A norm among journalists is to present “both sides of the issue.” Consequently, while we expected members of Congress to cite primarily think tanks that are on the same side of the ideological spectrum as they are, we expected journalists to practice a much more balanced citation practice, even if the journalist’s own ideology opposed the think tanks that he or she is sometimes citing. This was not always the case. Most of the mainstream media outlets that we examined (ie all those besides Drudge Report and Fox News’ Special Report) were closer to the average Democrat in Congress than they were to the median member of the House.
While I love this paper, I want to propose a much more straightforward test of media bias: Simply by reading the title of the article, can you tell what the reader is supposed to think about the story? This is amusingly easy. For example, here are a few titles from the front page of the Washington Post:
Title: Debate on Climate Shifts to Issue of Irreparable Change; Some Experts on Global Warming Foresee 'Tipping Point' When It Is Too Late to Act
What the Reader is Supposed to Think About the Story: We should listen to these experts and act before it is too late.
Title: Some Palestinians See End of Secular Dream; Election Win by Islamic Group Hamas Clouds Prospects for Arab Nationalism
What the Reader is Supposed to Think About the Story: Palestinians' secular dream should not end.
This isn't always possible. For the article "ABC's Woodruff Injured in Iraq," it's not clear what deeper inference the reader is supposed to draw. "Woodruff shouldn't have gone to Iraq"? No. "The U.S. shouldn't be in Iraq?" That's reaching. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. What's surprising, however, is how often the media's cigars are much more...
econlog.econlib.org
Boaz on Media Bias
Bryan Caplan
You don't have to convince me that liberal media bias is real and large. But Cato's David Boaz points out another amusing example:
[M]ainstream (liberal) media regularly put an ideological label on conservative and libertarian organizations and interviewees, but not on liberal and leftist groups. In a report about states accepting stimulus funds, reporter Kathy Lohr quoted "Jon Shure of the Washington D.C.-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities," "Maurice Emsellem with the National Employment Law Project," and "Tad DeHaven, a budget analyst with the fiscally conservative Cato Institute in Washington, D.C." (Thanks! And I'd say the label is correct, even if I might prefer libertarian.)
Those are all legitimate sources for the story. But only one of them gets an ideological label -- even though the other two groups are clearly on the left...
Back on March 23, I noted but did not blog about references on "Morning Edition" to "the libertarian Cato Institute," the "conservative American Enterprise Institute," and "the Brookings Institution." No label needed for Brookings, of course. Just folks there...
[...]
It's all too typical of the mainstream-liberal media: They put ideological warning labels on libertarians and conservatives, lest readers and listeners be unaware of the potential for bias, but very rarely label liberals and leftists...
Boaz quixotically concludes:
Journalists should be more even-handed: label all your sources ideologically, or none of them. It's stacking the deck to label those on the right but not those on the left.
But what's in it for them?
econlog.econlib.org
Media Bias and the L.A. Times
David Henderson
Bryan Caplan's and David Boaz's comments on media bias remind me of an incident that happened almost two years ago. Ralph Vartabedian called me to get my take on the members of President-elect Obama's economic team, particularly Christina Romer and Larry Summers. I answered his questions. At no time did he ask me my ideology. Here's his article.
So I wrote him the following:
Dear Ralph,
I saw your piece. I'm not a conservative. I notice also that not only did you get my ideology wrong but also that I'm the only economist to whom you ascribed an ideology. What gives, Ralph?
David
He replied:
Dear David,
I thought your comment about Summers and Romer came from a viewpoint of significant concern about what the Obama Administration was going to do, so I used the reference only as an indicator that you are critical of at least Summers. As for the conservative label, I based that on a couple of points...clearly Hoover is known as a conservative organization and I have honestly never known anybody in it who was a liberal. I believe you were on the council of economic advisors under President Reagan, no? You seemed pretty critical of the liberal members of Obama's team and our data base at the Times indicates you are a registered Republican there in the Monterrey area. I can give you a call later today.
Ralph
I replied:
Dear Ralph,
Those are all relevant techniques for figuring out my ideology--if I'm dead. Given that I'm alive, another way is to ask me.
Also, couldn't you use those same techniques to discern the ideology of Blinder and others you cited? And yet you didn't.
Best,
David
Later that day, he did call me. He said he felt apologetic. I persisted and asked him why he didn't ascribe an ideology to the other economists quoted, who clearly had ideologies. He explained that I was the only one quoted who was critical of the Obama team.
"Did you hear what you just said?" I asked. "Only those who are critical are given ideologies."
"Yes, I get it," he said.
That's why I didn't blog on it. I thought maybe he really did get it and I didn't want to reduce my probability of being interviewed again. Twenty months later he still has not called for another interview. My guess is that by simply confronting him about it, I reduced my probability to close to zero.
econlog.econlib.org
So critical of Obama and your identified by ideology, perhaps hinting that your an ideologue, but support him and your just a technical expert with no ax to grind...
That point wasn't lost on the commenters -
mdc writes:
" You seemed pretty critical of the liberal members of Obama's team"
The sub-text here shocks me: being critical of Obama means you're ideological, but being in favour of Obama makes you somehow unbiased/non-partisan? Because Obama is Objectively Correct and has no ideology?!
econlog.econlib.org
Bob Murphy writes:
I think what bothered me the most about his attitude was that he assumed an economist was either "Republican conservative / Democratic liberal."
What if I'm a Maoist? What if I love Murray Rothbard?
It would be as if he wrote, "David R. Henderson, a Protestant," and then you asked why, and he said, "Our records indicate that you don't go to the Catholic Church down your street."
econlog.econlib.org
Jeremy, Alabama writes:
And they say that we live in an echo chamber.
The radical's first job is to assume the position of centrist while damning one's opponents as fringe wierdos.
econlog.econlib.org
H/T Megan McCardle |
