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26 X World Champs · 04-25-05, 08:24 PM

LOL! You publish a study from a website that also has these stories:

Quote:

County School District Reinstates Corporal Punishment, Sees Positive Results

TX Parent Supports School District's Firing of Lesbian Coach

Christ-Centered Campus Ministries Bring Gospel to America's Secular Generation

Canada's Same-Sex Marriage Bill May Face Imminent Defeat

Creationist: Montana T-Rex Bone Supports Biblical Story, Not Darwin's

* Scholar Finds Many Vietnam War Myths Being Taught on U.S. Campuses

* MTV Peddling Smut to Kids, Study Says

* Homosexual Re-Orientation Advocate Reinstated on Magellan's Advisory Panel

OK...now about the paper itself:

Quote:

Tuesday :: Mar 29, 2005
How the Liberal Media Myth is Created - Part 5

UPDATE 4/16/05: This is an updated version of my original post which is archived here. As I was doing a review of some other published literature on media bias on 4/16/05, I discovered that Groseclose-Milyo (G-M) had posted an updated version (HTML, PDF) of their original paper as of 2005-01-03. The revised version of their paper corrects some of lacunae in the original version; however, the most fundamental problems with the original paper remain in this new version. [NOTE: The fact that I missed the latest version in my original critique was purely an unintentional oversight. The updated G-M paper does not in any way invalidate my original critique (indeed, one of the fixes they made shows that one part of my critique was right on target). I have updated my critique here to refer to their revised paper.]

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This is a continuation of a series on how the "liberal media" myth is created. Previous installments covered myth-creation using "tone" of media coverage (Part 1), "catch-phrases" like 'right-wing extremist' v. 'left-wing extremist' (Part 2), "newspaper headlines" (Part 3) and "topics" covered (Part 4). This part highlights an unusual, indirect approach that uses "think-tank" citations.

The focus of this post is a paper titled "A Measure of Media Bias" (HTML, PDF) by Tim Groseclose and Jeff Milyo. I found this paper via Language Log (there has been some back and forth at Language Log between critic Geoffrey Nunberg and the paper's authors), where it was also noted that:

Groseclose and Milyo's study has been approvingly cited by Bruce Bartlett in National Review, by Linda Seebach in the Rocky Mountain News, and by Harvard economist Robert J. Barro in Business Week, not to mention conservative bloggers like Instapundit, Andrew Sullivan, and Matt Drudge, among a number of others, who trumpet its "objectivity."

A single blog post, once again, is insufficient to provide a detailed critique of the paper. So, I'll refer readers who are more curious to my detailed critique over at ICM - Sec. 2.9. Here, I'll reproduce my summary (with links to details) showing why this paper's conclusions are wrong.

The Groseclose-Milyo (G-M) paper (HTML, PDF) attempts to assess media bias using an approach wherein adjusted ADA (Americans for Democratic Action) scores (0-to-100) are used to assess legislator ideology (archconservative-to-archliberal), and separately, the think-tank citations of the legislators are compared to the think-tank citations of the media outlet to then derive the media outlet's "bias". Based on their methodology (presented and discussed in this paper), they claim that:

Our results show a strong liberal bias.

I examined the paper from three perspectives:
1. Is the methodology used for assessing the ideology of think-tanks correct and reliable?
2. Is the methodology used for assessing the ideology of the media correct and reliable?
3. Is the definition of media bias used by the authors correct and reliable?

The answers to each of those questions is NO.

Source: http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/004006.php

So you say that this website is biased left? True! However that does not detract from the facts contained therein.

Check it out....

BTW - That Christian website is a hoot! I swear when I first read it I thought it was the Harvard Lampoon website because the stories are so out there...as far out as those supermarket papers that make us all laugh at the checkout.

Quote:

County School District Reinstates Corporal Punishment, Sees Positive Results
One Ohio community is reaping the benefits of overwhelmingly approving paddling as another form of punishment in schools.