Shai Sachs at MyDD has interesting commentary on the report by Media Matters demonstrating the conservative bias of newspaper op-ed pages.
The report confirmed what media critics like Eric Alterman have charged for a long time: that there is a pronounced right-wing bias in newspaper op-ed pages, in particular, in the ranks of nationally-syndicated opinion columnists. The bias is wide and deep: there are more conservative than progressive columnists in almost every region and state in the nation; three times as many newspapers have a conservative bias as those that have a progressive bias; and conservatives dominate in total readership as well.
. . .
My guess is that the heart of the explanation is a complex combination of subtle or overt bias handed down from the newspaper owners; the conservative makeup of newspaper subscribers or advertisers; and the way the syndicated works are marketed and organized as a business.
The liberal bias is in the news pages; in the stories editors choose to run; in the reporters they assign to stories; in the angles their stories take. It’s in the opinions that show up on the front page, not the ones on the editorial page.
Former Reporter –
They are talking about the OP-ED page – which I understand to be distinct from the editorial page.
Question – could a bias on the Op-Ed page be a reaction to an opposite bias in other parts of the paper? Or a purposeful attempt by the paper to find ‘balance’?
It all depends on where you stand on the spectrum.
If I’m 80% to the left, then 80% of the news articles are going to look right-leaning from my POV. Same in reverse.
Media Matters is laughable in trying to create an objective report on something as subjective as “liberal vs conservitive”.
Yes, there are some people that are pretty clear on one way or another (Coulter and Fraken come to mind), but their rantings are usually just hate-filled cheering for their side. The commentators that actually evaluate each issue personaly can lean one way or another, but are often given a “liberal” or “conservitive” title.
Jacob Sullum at Reason‘s Hit & Run blog explained why this study doesn’t quite support what Media Matters is claiming.
I dont think a ‘conservative’ would normally choose to be a reporter.Focusing on people one by one,and having to detail individual plights makes a person pro-individudal ,anti-institutional and therefore ‘liberal’.I’m speaking for myself at least.I’ve looked at these modern type conservatives,the ones who are runnings things now, generally as pro-instititutions,anti-individual, but that may be an unfair generalization on my part. Individual needs are always getting in the way of their conservative mandates.
I agree that biais is hidden in the choice of subject presented.If we are even discussing the ‘gay problem’ among public school teachers( or others)a la fox news,that’s already a conservative biais,regardless of how many liberals are contributing.
Without necessarily joining in the opinion expressed about the direction of bias on the news pages, I think Former Reporter makes an excellent general point about the problem of bias there as opposed to the op-ed pages. Bias, afterall, is what the op-ed pages are for. I frequently find that strong, well written opinions (some of which I totally disagree with) just the thing to wake me up on (our eternally dark) mornings. A Mollie Ivins always had something interesting to say, so to does a Thomas Sowell.
Alas I find too many daily newspapers run op-ed pages which read like they are trying to suck up to their readership. In one paper towns this leads to sickly sweet pages which would be better used to line a kitty litter tray. In two paper towns, such as Fort Wayne, it gave us until recently the likes of a Leo Morris. Morris ran an editorial page which I would have described as a sort of a print version of Rush Limbaugh, given to sneering at anyone who dared disagree with him. The only thing that separated Morris from Limbaugh wes that he wasn’t as good at it. In any event I rarely hear anyone around Fort Wayne discussing either paper’s opinion on anything. Newspaper op-ed pages don’t carry a tenth the weight they once did.
Where I find bias annoying is when the media try to disguise it as news. I totally agree with Former Reporter that this is done through choice of reporters to cover stories and in the choice of stories to run.
I read the Media Matters “report”. Lots of pretty charts, colors and graphs, but the actual premise is pretty laughable. It’s a great way for Media Matters to counter the “liberal media” argument, even if it is disingenuous(at best). When people refer to the “liberal media” it is in the context of newspaper editorial pages, newspaper reports & reporters, nightly newscasts & anchors, and magazine editorials & reportage (Time-Newsweek etc). Syndicated columnists are a tiny tiny portion of the media machine on a daily basis and to think for a moment that silly report refutes the liberal media bias in this country is preposterous. They even made it more ridiculous by dividing columnists into three categories, conservative, liberal and centrist. That’s a mighty subjective set of results boys.
Media Matters is a liberal organization in business for the purpose of showing a conservative bias in the media… just as the Media Research Center is a conservative organization in business for the purpose of showing a liberal bias in the media.
For my money, both organziations are adept at showing instances where they can correctly point to a bias. For that same money, when talking generally as is the case here, both tend to shade their selections so as to arrive at the results they want to show.
One of the constants of the universe is that, anytime a study like this comes out, conservatives boil of the ground to denigrate its methods, while offering no experimental method of their own to support their contention that “the Media”‘s bias is actually liberal by some objective standard.
Of course, given the fondness “movement” conservatives have for bare assertion over falsifiable hypotheses and empirical research, I suppose the irony is lost on them.
(To the extent that the assertion that “the Democratic Party doesn’t stand for anything” is true, it should make that institution less effective at promulgating ideological propaganda. The growing split between social and economic conservatives in the Republican Party may tell us over the next decade how nice a problem they feel that is to have.)
Moreover, that (for example) Mike Kole perceives Media Matters and Media Research Center as pursuing the same agenda in service of (more or less) opposing ideologies tells us nothing about what the actual overall bias of the mass media is. Even if MM and MRC are evenly-matched foes equivalent in all respects apart from political leanings, we certainly can’t deduce from that the media is split 50/50 between liberals and conservatives.
Another confusion trying to sort out liberal vs conservative is that there is no longer clear distinction between policy and stategy,and that’s the influence of political strategy experts such as Rove and their expert use of the electonic media with instant communication. Are gay marriage , abortion and judicial ( only liberal) activism a threat to honest hard-working Amercians? If not,then they need to be,because the issues will get people out to the polls to vote.We can hear Rove advising: ‘Keep it kind of vague,use innuendo,be persistant and bundle it all into moral values’: For many, many Americans,there is no longer any application of the terms ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ except as relating to social issues and moral values. The conservative political pundits, unfortuntely, have been allowed to define all the terms and moralize all the issues..Any discussion is already on conservative terms.’Liberal’ has been a dirty word for a while. Do you all know that fascism and communism are both leftist philosophies now? Conservatism just couldn’t evolve into anything bad,such as fascism,since it’s basic moral thinking.That’s been the ‘new’ political science teaching.
Yup.
Seriously, wouldn’t something that is a change from what we have today be a liberal idea?
That’s that hard part with the labels. If conservitive means “I want things to stay the same or go back to how they used to be” and liberal means “I want things to change”, then there is a WHOLE LOAD of options on how it can change. They all go in the liberal bucket.
DST is a liberal idea, too (and a far dirtier word than fascism). j/k
Jason,
I guess my point was that since we easily assign who is liberal and who isn’t, we should also discuss what ‘liberal’ means,who uses the term for what purposes,etc.One meaning of liberal is allowing or encouraging individual freedom of action’,but others have visions of failed government programs.I have done French-English translations on occasion and to translate we not only have to know what a word means generally but what is the intent and meaning of the person using it ( which isn’t easy since meaning is embedded in culture) In French for example, ‘une mere liberale’ is best translated to English as ‘permissive mother’ So that’s another side of individual freedom.