Left wing media bias

[Willie99]

Campaign Journalists
New York Times columnist John Tierney surveyed 153 campaign journalists at a press party at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. Although it was not a scientific sampling, Tierney found a huge preference for Democratic Senator John Kerry over incumbent Republican President George W. Bush, particular among journalists based in Washington, D.C. He found that journalists from outside Washington preferred Kerry by a three-to-one margin, while those who work inside the Beltway favored Kerry’s election by a 12-to-1 ratio.
KEY FINDINGS:

• Tierney found a strong preference for the liberal Kerry: “When asked who would be a better president, the journalists from outside the Beltway picked Mr. Kerry 3 to 1, and the ones from Washington favored him 12 to 1. Those results jibe with previous surveys over the past two decades showing that journalists tend to be Democrats, especially the ones based in Washington.”

• To see why journalists preferred Kerry, “we asked our respondents which administration they’d prefer to cover the next four years strictly from a journalistic standpoint.” More than half the journalists thought Bush was the better news subject: “The Washington respondents said they would rather cover Mr. Kerry, but by a fairly small amount, 27 to 21, and the other journalists picked Bush, 56 to 40....The overall result was 77 for Bush, 67 for Mr. Kerry.”

• “We tried to test for a likeability bias. With which presidential nominee, we asked, would you rather be stranded on a desert island? Mr. Kerry was the choice of both groups: 31 to 17 among the Washington journalists, and 51 to 39 among the others. ‘Bush's religious streak,’ one Florida correspondent said, ‘would drive me nuts on a desert island.’”

 

[Willie99]

TV and Newspaper Journalists
In March and April 2005, the University of Connecticut’s Department of Public Policy surveyed 300 journalists nationwide — 120 who worked in the television industry and 180 who worked at newspapers and asked for whom they voted in the 2004 presidential election. In a report released May 16, 2005, the researchers disclosed that the journalists they surveyed selected Democratic challenger John Kerry over incumbent Republican President George W. Bush by a wide margin, 52 percent to 19 percent (with 1 percent choosing far-left independent candidate Ralph Nader). One out of five journalists (21 percent) refused to disclose their vote, while another six percent either didn’t vote or said they did not know for whom they voted.

 

[Willie99]

Of course, all of the above leads to this

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1001/campaign-media


The favorite channel of many lefties around here (MSNBC) had the following results (very close, but not exact)

Obama 70% favorable 15% negative

McCain 15% favorable 60% negative

it wasn't a 100% point swing like the numbers I just posted, but it was a 92 or 93% swing. I've posted the link two times, didn't find it right now.

 

[Preussen]

Political donations may be the most accurate assessment, since the reporters may be scared to let their bias known through polling.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19113485/

MSNBC.com identified 143 journalists who made political contributions from 2004 through the start of the 2008 campaign, according to the public records of the Federal Election Commission. Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left: 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes. Only 16 gave to Republicans. Two gave to both parties.

From the very article you linked to;

...
Many of the donating journalists cover topics far from politics: food, fashion, sports. ...
...the donors ... are a tiny fraction of the roughly 100,000 staffers in newsrooms across the nation.

Does not look too convincing, does it? Neither are, btw, the statistics from the 70's you dug up.

Willie, I'm not in a position to judge the American Media. I do agree with Pubguy that Kiln's OP does not mean much, and I also could well imagine that the majority of journalists lean Liberal, seeing that most journalists are 'intellectuals', and intellectuals tend to be left of the centre. However, the decisive question is - to what extend can and do journalists let their political opinion influence their published articles/shows? I still believe (or should I rather say: hope?) that most serious journalists are honourable enough to try to avoid bias in their pieces, and especially in today's world of corporated media I do think that journalistic freedom is by no means unlimited. For example, is there anyone who truly believes that GE would allow the media outlets under its control to pursue an agenda contrary to its interests? So even by successfully showing that a majority of journalists is rather Liberal it does not mean the media exerts such a Liberal influence as you apparently attribute to it.

And as to your final statistic - from that very study:

Among the findings:

• Coverage of Obama began in the negative after the conventions, but the tone switched with the changing direction of the polls. The most positive stories about him were those that were most political -- focused on polling, the electoral map and tactics.
• For McCain, coverage began positively, but turned sharply negative with McCain's reaction to the crisis in the financial markets. As he took increasingly bold steps in an effort to reverse the direction of the polls, the coverage only worsened. Attempts to turn the dialogue away from the economy through attacks on Obama's character did hurt Obama's media coverage, but McCain's was even more negative.

This does not sound like agenda-driven reporting to me, rather that most of the media eventually came to the conclusion that Obama simply was the better candidate.
You cannot claim that the Republicans were treated unfairly just because there were more negative stories about McCain, or at least not until you show that the positive stories about Obama and/or the negative stories about McCain misrepresented the truth. For example I bet that Hitler got a lot worse coverage than, say, Gorbatchev, but obviously this is no indication that the media loves Russia and hates Germany.

 

[Willie99]

Pruessen, I would suggest you observe the obvious, I'm the only one to cite any type of external source, study, link whatever in this discussion.

Your agenda is obvious, I concur.

 

[Preussen]

Your agenda is obvious, I concur.

Tell me, what is, in your opinion, my agenda?

 

[barman]

Political donations may be the most accurate assessment, since the reporters may be scared to let their bias known through polling.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19113485/

MSNBC.com identified 143 journalists who made political contributions from 2004 through the start of the 2008 campaign, according to the public records of the Federal Election Commission. Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left: 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes. Only 16 gave to Republicans. Two gave to both parties.

Between print media, local and network television there are easily 10-20,000 Americans who could accurately be defined as journalists.

I suppose 143 gives us a teeny tiny thumbnail of something. But actuarial polling demands at least 600 responses and preferably 1500+ before we can presume a +/- error rating of under 10%

All good though. Smart, more well educated righties are not likely to be fooled by the dastardly bias of lefty journalists anyway.

 

[Willie99]

actually, the sample size is larger than the samples they use in presidential elections polls, with a significantly smaller population.

the one mitigating factor might be that it's not scientific. I guess you can ignore the actual reporting that seems to coincide with polling numbers, and suggest that the libbies are just more inclined to be polled.

 

[Willie99]

Tell me, what is, in your opinion, my agenda?

to conclude that the conclusion of the researchers is biased. Catch 22

 

[Preussen]

to conclude that the conclusion of the researchers is biased. Catch 22

Wrong. I mean, did you even read what the conclusions are? A quote:

One question likely to be posed is whether these findings provide evidence that the news media are pro-Obama. Is there some element in these numbers that reflects a rooting by journalists for Obama and against McCain, unconscious or otherwise? The data do not provide conclusive answers. They do offer a strong suggestion that winning in politics begets winning coverage, thanks in part to the relentless tendency of the press to frame its coverage of national elections as running narratives about the relative position of the candidates in the polls and internal tactical maneuvering to alter those positions. Obama's coverage was negative in tone when he was dropping in the polls, and became positive when he began to rise, and it was just so for McCain as well. Nor are these numbers different than those we have seen before. Obama's numbers are similar to what we saw for John Kerry four years ago as he began rising in the polls, and McCain's numbers are almost identical to those recorded eight years ago for Democrat Al Gore.

I think these conclusions make a lot of sense.

My "agenda", if you want to call it that, is to show that the repeated assertions of the righties in this forum that the media reports have an obvious Liberal bias is not supported by the material provided (so far).


Btw I'm not sure if your use of the phrase Catch 22 is correct.

 

[Kiln]

actually, the sample size is larger than the samples they use in presidential elections polls, with a significantly smaller population.

Maybe the polls they do at Faux News! One needs around 1000 respondents (and that assumes they each answer everything completely) from a properly weighted sample (it's the different weighting that produces different results: for instance, Zogby tends to weight Conservatives more than other pollsters) to have a statistically accurate picture of somethig like a Presidential election, and even then you have a sampling error of +/- 3% with a confidence interval of 95%. Don't you, like, work with numbers and stuff? Shouldn't you know this? Didn't you have to take Statistics 101 at your state subsidized Universty?

 

[Mistermj]

Maybe the polls they do at Faux News! One needs around 1000 respondents (and that assumes they each answer everything completely) from a properly weighted sample (it's the different weighting that produces different results: for instance, Zogby tends to weight Conservatives more than other pollsters) to have a statistically accurate picture of somethig like a Presidential election, and even then you have a sampling error of +/- 3% with a confidence interval of 95%. Don't you, like, work with numbers and stuff? Shouldn't you know this? Didn't you have to take Statistics 101 at your state subsidized Universty?

Zogby tends to weight Conservatives more than other pollsters

That would make Zogby better than the other polls...which historically have grossly underweighted polling of Republican's.

All the pollster has to do to justify it is say it's his best "judgement" of the actual voting ratio...which of course is really not scientific...no matter if you poll 1000 or 10 million.

 

[Willie99]

Maybe the polls they do at Faux News!

why do sooooo many loonies like this brilliant type of argument?

stats 101, hehehehehehe

from some guy who posts nothing but biased opinions, and studies that find only conservatives tend to find reasons to support the conclusions they desire, okie dokie

LOL

 

[Kiln]

from some guy who posts nothing but biased opinions, and studies that find only conservatives tend to find reasons to support the conclusions they desire, okie dokie

LOL

WTFRUTA? Your credibility has been iffy since I first saw you post, partially because you make stuff up that contradict the facts.

Some new research just out from Berkeley asserts that when people read research results that conflict with their own existing opinions, they not only doubt the conclusions' truth but they question the researchers' objectivity.
So, for instance, if you think Barack Obama is a post-partisan, bipartisan wunderkind change agent and you read something somewhere that suggests otherwise, you'll be incapable of reconsidering your viewpoint and will instead perceive bias in the messenger. Or vice versa about George W. Bush.
Have you ever heard of anything so ridiculous?
In other words, researchers have somehow hocus-pocus magically determined that when they scientifically do a study as professionals, using standard protocols and long-accepted procedures of social science research, and highly intelligent readers discover the findings conflict with their existing beliefs, the readers refuse to objectively re-examine their own beliefs.
That would somehow be too scary or threatening or something.
Instead, the readers proceed to question the research findings. And then they question the finders' objectivity. Because the readers couldn't possibly be wrong or unobjective.
Here's a cockamamie quote from one of the study's co-authors:
"Findings that support our political beliefs are seen as objective facts about the world," said Robert MacCoun, a UC Berkeley professor of public policy, law and psychology. "But study outcomes that conflict with our views are more likely to be seen as expressions of an ideological bias by the researcher."
MacCoun suggests the results of their random telephone survey of 1,050 adults in California (well, there's some bias right there) raise implications for modern-day social science researchers whose stupid findings like this may not be taken seriously because of a built-in public bias to stick with our rigid existing beliefs about how smart we each already are even without any new information.
MacCoun was assisted by an equally silly co-author, Susannah Paletz. They'll publish their findings any day now in the journal Political Psychology.
Next thing you know, these Bay Area wonders will try to convince us that this applies to people who write and read politics blogs, that somehow writers and readers tend to see in blog items what they want to see and believe and that confirms their own thoughts, and they then reject the rest as hokum inserted by biased bloggers or university researchers.
What a load! Everybody with any intelligence knows those Berkeley researchers with their goatees (not Susannah) and turtleneck sweaters and liberal lattes are obviously the biased ones. They couldn't find an objective fact if FedEx delivered it overnight.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/02/research-bias.html

 

[Kiln]

That would make Zogby better than the other polls...which historically have grossly underweighted polling of Republican's.

All the pollster has to do to justify it is say it's his best "judgement" of the actual voting ratio...which of course is really not scientific...no matter if you poll 1000 or 10 million.

For the love of mercy, please stop making shit up when you can find the answer. It's a sign of pathological laziness. It took me about nine seconds to find the actual numbers. Obama won 52-46. fivethrityeight.com got it dead on. Zogby (along with a few others) overestimated Obama's victory, pegging him at 54 (though still within the margin of error, so not too bad at all). Fox underestimated, with their last polls showing Obama with 50%.

A pollster has to do considerably more than "say it's his best 'judgement' of the actual voting ratio." S/he has to have evidence to support the intuition. In the world of science, it's not enough to make things up. It shouldn't be OK to do it on this board either, but doesn't look to me like habits will change.

 

[Mistermj]

For the love of mercy, please stop making shit up when you can find the answer. It's a sign of pathological laziness. It took me about nine seconds to find the actual numbers. Obama won 52-46. fivethrityeight.com got it dead on. Zogby (along with a few others) overestimated Obama's victory, pegging him at 54 (though still within the margin of error, so not too bad at all). Fox underestimated, with their last polls showing Obama with 50%.

A pollster has to do considerably more than "say it's his best 'judgement' of the actual voting ratio." S/he has to have evidence to support the intuition. In the world of science, it's not enough to make things up. It shouldn't be OK to do it on this board either, but doesn't look to me like habits will change.

Who said I was talking about fivethirtyeight.com ?

Cherry picking one example and portraying it as proof of the whole...is exactly what Obama was doing last night...pathological laziness indeed.

It's been your MO since day 1 here. I think we can all agree on that.

 

[Kiln]

Who said I was talking about fivethirtyeight.com ?

Cherry picking one example and portraying it as proof of the whole...is exactly what Obama was doing last night...pathological laziness indeed.

It's been your MO since day 1 here. I think we can all agree on that.

You said "Zogby [is] better than the other polls...which historically have grossly underweighted polling of Republican's." I say that you're full of it and then I offer one bit of proof to substantiate my claim that you speak without ever recurring to the available and knowable facts. Instead of proving me wrong by showing what Zogby's numbers were for other elections, what other pollsters came up with, and what the actual results for those elections were--all data that can be found in less than ten minutes with a good search enging like google--you resort to name calling.

So my point is simple: do the leg work before you let your mouth work. You wouldn't bet a game without looking at the numbers, would you? Then why do you let yourself make stuff up when it comes to political "discussion?"

 

[Mistermj]

You said "Zogby [is] better than the other polls...which historically have grossly underweighted polling of Republican's." I say that you're full of it and then I offer one bit of proof to substantiate my claim that you speak without ever recurring to the available and knowable facts. Instead of proving me wrong by showing what Zogby's numbers were for other elections, what other pollsters came up with, and what the actual results for those elections were--all data that can be found in less than ten minutes with a good search enging like google--you resort to name calling.

So my point is simple: do the leg work before you let your mouth work. You wouldn't bet a game without looking at the numbers, would you? Then why do you let yourself make stuff up when it comes to political "discussion?"

I don't make things up for political discussion...thats why.

It was pointed out many times during the election that various popular polls were grossly underestimating Republican ratio's...thus making the polls biased.

Polls are as much "art" as science.

You are acting as if they can be scientific in a cut and dried way.

It's simply not true...a poll is ALWAYS subject to bias on any number of 1000's of variables.

We need some honesty on this issue...thats all.

 

[Kiln]

Polls are as much "art" as science.

That is fundamentally untrue. Unless you also believe that physics or chemistry, or biology is as much art as science, which is fine, but then there's no need to single out statistics. That doesn't mean there isn't some luck, but the field of statistics is founded in and on science.

You are acting as if they can be scientific in a cut and dried way.

Doh! They are scientific when done properly. Statistics is science!

It's simply not true...a poll is ALWAYS subject to bias on any number of 1000's of variables.

We need some honesty on this issue...thats all.

We can agree (I hope) that polls are notpredictive. They merely provide a snapshot in time. That's honest enough, no?

 

[Mistermj]

That is fundamentally untrue. Unless you also believe that physics or chemistry, or biology is as much art as science, which is fine, but then there's no need to single out statistics. That doesn't mean there isn't some luck, but the field of statistics is founded in and on science.


Doh! They are scientific when done properly. Statistics is science!



We can agree (I hope) that polls are notpredictive. They merely provide a snapshot in time. That's honest enough, no?

Let's start with your first quote...your answers are all true for statistics.

We are talking about polls. You act as if they are interchangeable.

Is that really your thinking? Polls = statistics ?