Thread: Fallacy of Systemic MSM Bias

"Like the the news sample based evidence, what can be said is that, flawed or not, when viewed collectively the widely varying results of these studies still aggregate into a net-neutral conclusion."

Do you have any evidence to back this up? Tons of evidence to the contrary has been posted in this sub-forum.

Originally Posted by mpg

That's what commentary is for. News should be unbiased.

Exactly. I've seen a number of studies that show, while there is a slight liberal bias in most news articles, it's really small, and could be due to sampling errors. In fact, we have fairly unbiased news in the United States. The problem is that people conflate commentary and news, and then pronounce that "News is biased," when it really isn't.

Originally Posted by rocket88

Good luck to you posting that here. There are many here who do not believe that there is such a thing as Liberal bias in any media source.

Corrected for accuracy.

Originally Posted by Nick2253

Exactly. I've seen a number of studies that show, while there is a slight liberal bias in most news articles, it's really small, and could be due to sampling errors. In fact, we have fairly unbiased news in the United States. The problem is that people conflate commentary and news, and then pronounce that "News is biased," when it really isn't.

Yes, Dan Blather is biased. And he is not a commentator.

Originally Posted by Frivolous D

I recently wrote an article for my blog called The Fallacy of Liberal Bias. In it, I took aim at the charge of systemic liberal media bias. I should add, though, that the argument actually cuts both ways and applies equally against charges of systemic conservative bias.

In it, I don't attempt to deny that there is MSM bias. On the contrary, the debate in this forum category (Bias in the Media) pretty well demonstrate that there is plenty of bias to go around. My argument says, in a nutshell:

"Thus, while it’s true that I regularly want to kick in my TV, I take comfort in knowing that all over the country, spanning race, creed, income and political beliefs, millions of other Americans also want to kick in their TV. And I figure that as long as the MSM is pissing off all of us, the system is still working."

I can't understand why anyone would come to the conclusion that todays media is working. If I had two news sources I could access and both of them were misleading and biased, one conservative and the other liberal, I don't consider that working at all. I've argued this issue too many times and believe what I believe about media bias so I am not going to get into another debate. I don't believe the balance to bias is equal by a long shot.

Originally Posted by mpg

"Like the the news sample based evidence, what can be said is that, flawed or not, when viewed collectively the widely varying results of these studies still aggregate into a net-neutral conclusion."

Do you have any evidence to back this up? Tons of evidence to the contrary has been posted in this sub-forum.

MPG, Good call. I knew this was my exposed flank when I published it. There is no study to validate my assumption that instances of bias will "aggregate into a net-neutral conclusion."

What I can say is that I'll match your "tons of studies with my tons of study." This way, we can both suffocate from the evidence.

Originally Posted by Frivolous D

I'll match your "tons of studies with my tons of study."

The tons of studies showing a liberal bias have already been posted. If you have contradicting studies, show us.

Originally Posted by Wake

How many biased liberal outlets are there in the mainstream media compared to conservative outlets?

Hey, I'd like to know, please.

Originally Posted by Wake

Hey, I'd like to know, please.

Wake, be careful. You're talking to yourself again.

Originally Posted by mpg

The tons of studies showing a liberal bias have already been posted. If you have contradicting studies, show us.

Here are some studies either showing conservative bias or demonstrating no bias. There are many more out there but I have a life and you get the idea. I put the "Impact of Individual and Interpersonal Factors" study up front. To paraphrase it crudely, if you spend a lot of time with people who are bitching about the bias in media, you are going to find it, real or not.

The Impact of Individual and Interpersonal Factors on Perceived News Media Bias Quote from abstract, Wiley Online Library: "Results of a national survey show that perceptions of media bias were unrelated to the overall amount of discussion but were positively related to conversations with ideologically like-minded individuals. Moreover, the impact of conversations with similar others was stronger among Republicans than among Democrats, a finding consistent with recent work on news self-coverage of media bias claims."

How the Media Covered the 2012 Primary Campaign: "An examination of President Obama’s coverage suggests the media have been treating him more as a presidential candidate than a chief executive for months. Since November, nearly two-thirds (63%) of the coverage about Obama were framed around political strategy and momentum. In contrast, 21% primarily connected the president with foreign or domestic policy issues, such as Iran or the renewed debate over health care."

The Midterms’ Media Mainstays Regarding the 2010 midterm election: "But the No. 2 campaign newsmaker rose from obscurity to become a household name in a matter of weeks, if not days. Christine O’Donnell, the tea party-backed candidate who won a stunning victory in Delaware’s GOP senate primary, dominated 160 election stories examined by PEJ... Indeed, four of the 10 top election newsmakers are representatives of the tea party movement, which has emerged as a key element in the election narrative. Kentucky GOP senate candidate Rand Paul ranked 4th (at 88 stories) and Nevada Republican Sharron Angle, who has mounted a very stiff challenge to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, ranked 6th (at 80 stories). (Reid is the No. 7 newsmaker, showing up prominently in 74 election stories). And Carl Paladino, the tea party’s GOP candidate for New York governor, is tied for ninth at 52 stories."

Challenging the "Liberal Media" Claim: "On select issues from corporate power and trade to Social Security and Medicare to health care and taxes, journalists are actually more conservative than the general public." & "Journalists are mostly centrist in their political orientation."
"The minority of journalists who do not identify with the "center" are more likely to identify with the "right" when it comes to economic issues and to identify with the "left" when it comes to social issues. "

OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE ON MEDIA BIAS: "...research compares coverage when members of both parties have engaged in the same behavior. The results provide little evidence of partisan media bias, and no support for allegations of a pro-liberal or pro-Democratic bias."

MEDIA BIAS: "We show that, in the absence of spin, competition undoes the biases from ideology. However, in the absence of ideology, competition only promotes the biases from spin." ("Spin" is described as "reflects the outlet's attempt to simply create a memorable story." e.g. apolitical)

Think Tank Sources Fall, but Left Gains Slightly "Centrists led the way with 45 percent of think tank citations, while conservative or right-leaning think tanks got 40 percent... Progressives’ increased share... amounted to 16 percent of total citations."