[Psudo]

A study on press coverage of the US Presidential campaign has been released by Harvard University. It's all interesting stuff, but I want to focus on the parts that indicate differences in coverage based on political party and media sector.

Quote:

[under Election Topics] The coverage of Democrats was more personal. The coverage of Republicans was more about ideas.
[. . .]
[under Tone] While Hillary Clinton may have gotten the most press, she did not get the most favorable. That distinction, among major candidates, went to Barack Obama.

On the other end of the ledger, Republican John McCain, the once possible GOP front runner, generated by a wide margin the most negative coverage of any serious contender.
[. . .]
Taking all the presidential hopefuls together, the press overall has been more positive about Democratic candidates and more negative about Republicans.
[. . .]
In other words, not only did the Republicans receive less coverage overall, the attention they did get tended to be more negative than that of Democrats. And in some specific media genres, the difference is particularly striking.
[. . .]
[under The Media Sectors] Network evening news closely reflected the overall media when it came to dividing time between Democrat and Republican candidates (49% vs. 28%).

There's also an amusing table on Talk Radio bias, in which conservative talk radio is never more than 67% positive for Republicans and never more than 87% negative for Democrats, while liberal talk radio is 100%/0% on every candidate except Hillary Clinton in favor of Democrats and against Republicans. However, liberal talk radio also had a much smaller pool of stories about which to collect data, so that may be somewhat misleading.

I'm probably cherry-picking quotes to some extent, but I'm thinking Republicans are getting short shrift from the media. These points are what I found most interesting: despite 1) more Republican candidates than Democrats, there was 2) less press coverage of Republicans than Democrats and 3) more negative coverage of Republicans than Democrats. And, somewhat tangentially, 4) liberal talk radio is more obedient to party lines (read "biased") than conservative talk radio.

I fully recommend you read the entire article. It's long, maybe 20 pages if printed, but every bit of it is interesting and informative. Also, it'll help you filter out the inevitable bias in my collection of excerpts.

[BartSimpson]

It's nothing any Republican couldn't tell you.

I think it was Harvard or Princeton that did a newsroom poll after the 2000 election and they found that an overwhelming majority of television and newspaper newsroom staffs identified themselves as Democrat and that an overwheming majority of those identified themselves as liberal - not moderate, but liberal.

After that poll was released, to their credit, a few newspapers like my local paper, The Sacramento Bee, did make an effort to balance their editorial pages by adding conservative and moderate columnists.

However, the liberalism on the front page is unabated and thus conservative readership and viewership with the mainstream media has fallen off precipitously.

With the television media the liberal bias is just as overt and the worst example of it was CBS' Dan Rather promulgating the fake documents about George Bush a year or so ago. Interestingly, the forgeries were exposed by a forum member from Free Republic.

Which seems to me a passing of the baton from the old media to the new media.

[CanadianJeff]

Yep the Republicans and any right wing party has been getting the short end of the stick for years in the media. Frankly I wouldn't mind seeing a few more right wing or centre line programs on the air.

But honestly it doens't amaze me that left wing programs have taken the lead. I think that if you were to look back the left wing side of the government would have been faster to jump all over the freedom of speach (seeing as how their name litterly means freedom) to get out what they felt was the correct message. The Conservatives have always been slower to adapt to change (again the name) and by the time they got around to mainstream media the left had a very solid base in the field.

Again this is all just speculation on my part. But personally that's my theory as to why the media is so leftist.

Honestly though if the right wing is going to get on the air....please for the love of all things that are good do NOT do the fox news style of broadcasting.

Some examples:

http://www.poetv.com/video.php?vid=8472 (playstation pornable OMG!!)

another video game misconception of fear

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orpgUPNSRPI (the DS molesters!!)

or putting people like this one the air....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4QcyEjMydk
(to clairfy putting her on the air AT ALL is going to further her agenda)

Sorry but I really really can't stand Fox news sometimes.

[BartSimpson]

The leftist rise to power in several disciplines goes back to WW2.

Communists and socialists were security risks and were unfit to be drafted or allowed into the military so they stayed home and quite often filled teaching positions that were, at the time, not considered critical to the war effort. Journalism, which was a blue collar pursuit into the 1970's - became a degree as the leftist teachers became professors and moved into the universities and introduced journalism programs in the 1960's.

The 1960's being what they were - the generation that took those journalism classes tended to think of themselves as revolutionary leftwingers and when they became reporters they viewed themselves as being called to change society with their reporting. In the 1970's you may recall Lou Grant, a TV show about a crusading liberal newsroom contrasted against the blue collar, bumbling and inept Carl Kolchak of The Night Stalker to illustrate the popular biases of the time.

As the 1980's came on the last of the old blue collar reporters retired and ceded the newsrooms to kids who came up in liberal colleges and universities. The publisher and editor posts often went to MBA's who usually had NO reporting experience and little grasp of what they were managing.

In days of yore a reporter, editor, and publisher started out at a paper in an entry level job like a delivery boy or sweeping up in the print shop and they were very much in touch with common people and the blue collar.

Now they're coddled students with resumes who tend to not be able to relate to the blue collar guys in the print shops.

Ironic, it is, that the major newspapers often have labor problems because the publishers, editors, and reporters of today have no clue what's important to the print shop labourers. I must say I do enjoy a delicious sense of irony when I see union picketers outside a liberal news establishment.

For all their blather about the rights of labour they are woefully out of touch with what labourers actually want. Truly, this exemplifies them as the elitists they are denounced as by the right.

But there you go - that's how the news media went liberal.

I wrote a paper on this and if I can get my old Win98 machine to spin up I'll recover it and post it here.

[Zipperfish]

BartSimpson wrote:

The leftist rise to power in several disciplines goes back to WW2.

Communists and socialists were security risks and were unfit to be drafted or allowed into the military so they stayed home and quite often filled teaching positions that were, at the time, not considered critical to the war effort. Journalism, which was a blue collar pursuit into the 1970's - became a degree as the leftist teachers became professors and moved into the universities and introduced journalism programs in the 1960's.

The 1960's being what they were - the generation that took those journalism classes tended to think of themselves as revolutionary leftwingers and when they became reporters they viewed themselves as being called to change society with their reporting. In the 1970's you may recall Lou Grant, a TV show about a crusading liberal newsroom contrasted against the blue collar, bumbling and inept Carl Kolchak of The Night Stalker to illustrate the popular biases of the time.

As the 1980's came on the last of the old blue collar reporters retired and ceded the newsrooms to kids who came up in liberal colleges and universities. The publisher and editor posts often went to MBA's who usually had NO reporting experience and little grasp of what they were managing.

In days of yore a reporter, editor, and publisher started out at a paper in an entry level job like a delivery boy or sweeping up in the print shop and they were very much in touch with common people and the blue collar.

Now they're coddled students with resumes who tend to not be able to relate to the blue collar guys in the print shops.

Ironic, it is, that the major newspapers often have labor problems because the publishers, editors, and reporters of today have no clue what's important to the print shop labourers. I must say I do enjoy a delicious sense of irony when I see union picketers outside a liberal news establishment.

For all their blather about the rights of labour they are woefully out of touch with what labourers actually want. Truly, this exemplifies them as the elitists they are denounced as by the right.

But there you go - that's how the news media went liberal.

I wrote a paper on this and if I can get my old Win98 machine to spin up I'll recover it and post it here.

Be a great theory--if reporters chose what goes in papers. They don't. Publishers do.

[sasquatch2]

Zipperfish

Quote:

Be a great theory--if reporters chose what goes in papers. They don't. Publishers do.

Quote:

The publisher and editor posts often went to MBA's who usually had NO reporting experience and little grasp of what they were managing.

Yeah right! Sort of reinforces Bart's theory, though. MBA's do not originate in right-wing think tanks----they emerge from the very same place CO2 AGW did----which is not apolitical.

Which explains to a large extent the MSM support for an agenda that commen sense discards as BS.

[WesterCharcoal]

"When they meen Talk radio, they meen Conservative Talk Radio. And when they meen Conservative Talk Radio, they meen RUSH."

Wow, it must really scare Liberals to see Havard indirectly state Rush Limbaugh as being the least biased source of information in the media.



User was banned for this post.

[ridenrain]

Why do we ignore the recent admission from the BBC?
This is exactly what is happening to the CBC but we're still in denial.

Quote:

It was the day that a host of BBC executives and star presenters admitted what critics have been telling them for years: the BBC is dominated by trendy, Left-leaning liberals who are biased against Christianity and in favour of multiculturalism.

A leaked account of an 'impartiality summit' called by BBC chairman Michael Grade, is certain to lead to a new row about the BBC and its reporting on key issues, especially concerning Muslims and the war on terror.

It reveals that executives would let the Bible be thrown into a dustbin on a TV comedy show, but not the Koran, and that they would broadcast an interview with Osama Bin Laden if given the opportunity. Further, it discloses that the BBC's 'diversity tsar', wants Muslim women newsreaders to be allowed to wear veils when on air.

...

Political pundit Andrew Marr said: 'The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It's a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people. It has a liberal bias not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias.'

Washington correspondent Justin Webb said that the BBC is so biased against America that deputy director general Mark Byford had secretly agreed to help him to 'correct', it in his reports. Webb added that the BBC treated America with scorn and derision and gave it 'no moral weight'.

Former BBC business editor Jeff Randall said he complained to a 'very senior news executive', about the BBC's pro-multicultural stance but was given the reply: 'The BBC is not neutral in multiculturalism: it believes in it and it promotes it.'

Randall also told how he once wore Union Jack cufflinks to work but was rebuked with: 'You can't do that, that's like the National Front!'

Quoting a George Orwell observation, Randall said that the BBC was full of intellectuals who 'would rather steal from a poor box than stand to attention during God Save The King'.

There was another heated debate when the summit discussed whether the BBC was too sensitive about criticising black families for failing to take responsibility for their children.

Head of news Helen Boaden disclosed that a Radio 4 programme which blamed black youths at a young offenders', institution for bullying white inmates faced the axe until she stepped in.

But Ms Fitzpatrick, who has said that the BBC should not use white reporters in non-white countries, argued it had a duty to 'contextualise' why black youngsters behaved in such a way.

Andrew Marr told The Mail on Sunday last night: 'The BBC must always try to reflect Britain, which is mostly a provincial, middle-of-the-road country. Britain is not a mirror image of the BBC or the people who work for it.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/a ... ge_id=1770

[stratos]

Zipperfish wrote:

BartSimpson wrote:

The leftist rise to power in several disciplines goes back to WW2.

Communists and socialists were security risks and were unfit to be drafted or allowed into the military so they stayed home and quite often filled teaching positions that were, at the time, not considered critical to the war effort. Journalism, which was a blue collar pursuit into the 1970's - became a degree as the leftist teachers became professors and moved into the universities and introduced journalism programs in the 1960's.

The 1960's being what they were - the generation that took those journalism classes tended to think of themselves as revolutionary leftwingers and when they became reporters they viewed themselves as being called to change society with their reporting. In the 1970's you may recall Lou Grant, a TV show about a crusading liberal newsroom contrasted against the blue collar, bumbling and inept Carl Kolchak of The Night Stalker to illustrate the popular biases of the time.

As the 1980's came on the last of the old blue collar reporters retired and ceded the newsrooms to kids who came up in liberal colleges and universities. The publisher and editor posts often went to MBA's who usually had NO reporting experience and little grasp of what they were managing.

In days of yore a reporter, editor, and publisher started out at a paper in an entry level job like a delivery boy or sweeping up in the print shop and they were very much in touch with common people and the blue collar.

Now they're coddled students with resumes who tend to not be able to relate to the blue collar guys in the print shops.

Ironic, it is, that the major newspapers often have labor problems because the publishers, editors, and reporters of today have no clue what's important to the print shop labourers. I must say I do enjoy a delicious sense of irony when I see union picketers outside a liberal news establishment.

For all their blather about the rights of labour they are woefully out of touch with what labourers actually want. Truly, this exemplifies them as the elitists they are denounced as by the right.

But there you go - that's how the news media went liberal.

I wrote a paper on this and if I can get my old Win98 machine to spin up I'll recover it and post it here.

Be a great theory--if reporters chose what goes in papers. They don't. Publishers do.

Actualy editors have a far greater say in what goes into a paper and how the artical is writen.

[BartSimpson]

Zipperfish wrote:

BartSimpson wrote:

The leftist rise to power in several disciplines goes back to WW2.

Communists and socialists were security risks and were unfit to be drafted or allowed into the military so they stayed home and quite often filled teaching positions that were, at the time, not considered critical to the war effort. Journalism, which was a blue collar pursuit into the 1970's - became a degree as the leftist teachers became professors and moved into the universities and introduced journalism programs in the 1960's.

The 1960's being what they were - the generation that took those journalism classes tended to think of themselves as revolutionary leftwingers and when they became reporters they viewed themselves as being called to change society with their reporting. In the 1970's you may recall Lou Grant, a TV show about a crusading liberal newsroom contrasted against the blue collar, bumbling and inept Carl Kolchak of The Night Stalker to illustrate the popular biases of the time.

As the 1980's came on the last of the old blue collar reporters retired and ceded the newsrooms to kids who came up in liberal colleges and universities. The publisher and editor posts often went to MBA's who usually had NO reporting experience and little grasp of what they were managing.

In days of yore a reporter, editor, and publisher started out at a paper in an entry level job like a delivery boy or sweeping up in the print shop and they were very much in touch with common people and the blue collar.

Now they're coddled students with resumes who tend to not be able to relate to the blue collar guys in the print shops.

Ironic, it is, that the major newspapers often have labor problems because the publishers, editors, and reporters of today have no clue what's important to the print shop labourers. I must say I do enjoy a delicious sense of irony when I see union picketers outside a liberal news establishment.

For all their blather about the rights of labour they are woefully out of touch with what labourers actually want. Truly, this exemplifies them as the elitists they are denounced as by the right.

But there you go - that's how the news media went liberal.

I wrote a paper on this and if I can get my old Win98 machine to spin up I'll recover it and post it here.

Be a great theory--if reporters chose what goes in papers. They don't. Publishers do.

And, as I pointed out, reporters, editors, and publishers are all coming from the same liberal arts universities. In years past it was the rare editor or publisher who had a college degree. Now it's the exception.

The news business used to be considered a trade and now it is a profession.

And, by the way, I got an A+ on that paper from my liberal political science professor at Boston College.

[BartSimpson]

WesterCharcoal wrote:

"When they meen Talk radio, they meen Conservative Talk Radio. And when they meen Conservative Talk Radio, they meen RUSH."

Wow, it must really scare Liberals to see Havard indirectly state Rush Limbaugh as being the least biased source of information in the media.



User was banned for this post.

I'm not defending this guy, but he got banned for this?

I must be missing something here - anyone care to clue me in on it?

[Zipperfish]

BartSimpson wrote:

Zipperfish wrote:

BartSimpson wrote:

The leftist rise to power in several disciplines goes back to WW2.

Communists and socialists were security risks and were unfit to be drafted or allowed into the military so they stayed home and quite often filled teaching positions that were, at the time, not considered critical to the war effort. Journalism, which was a blue collar pursuit into the 1970's - became a degree as the leftist teachers became professors and moved into the universities and introduced journalism programs in the 1960's.

The 1960's being what they were - the generation that took those journalism classes tended to think of themselves as revolutionary leftwingers and when they became reporters they viewed themselves as being called to change society with their reporting. In the 1970's you may recall Lou Grant, a TV show about a crusading liberal newsroom contrasted against the blue collar, bumbling and inept Carl Kolchak of The Night Stalker to illustrate the popular biases of the time.

As the 1980's came on the last of the old blue collar reporters retired and ceded the newsrooms to kids who came up in liberal colleges and universities. The publisher and editor posts often went to MBA's who usually had NO reporting experience and little grasp of what they were managing.

In days of yore a reporter, editor, and publisher started out at a paper in an entry level job like a delivery boy or sweeping up in the print shop and they were very much in touch with common people and the blue collar.

Now they're coddled students with resumes who tend to not be able to relate to the blue collar guys in the print shops.

Ironic, it is, that the major newspapers often have labor problems because the publishers, editors, and reporters of today have no clue what's important to the print shop labourers. I must say I do enjoy a delicious sense of irony when I see union picketers outside a liberal news establishment.

For all their blather about the rights of labour they are woefully out of touch with what labourers actually want. Truly, this exemplifies them as the elitists they are denounced as by the right.

But there you go - that's how the news media went liberal.

I wrote a paper on this and if I can get my old Win98 machine to spin up I'll recover it and post it here.

Be a great theory--if reporters chose what goes in papers. They don't. Publishers do.

And, as I pointed out, reporters, editors, and publishers are all coming from the same liberal arts universities. In years past it was the rare editor or publisher who had a college degree. Now it's the exception.

The news business used to be considered a trade and now it is a profession.

And, by the way, I got an A+ on that paper from my liberal political science professor at Boston College.

Publishers don't come from liberal arts universities. They are business people out to make money. That is how capitalism works. The publisher owns the paper. No degree is required to own a newspaper. I don't think Conrad Black was much of a liberal, by any stretch. Neither is Rupert Murdoch. Because publishers are in the business of making money, the successful ones tend to print stuff that people will buy. Because that sells papers...which sells advertising...which makes more money.

The problem is that poeple are basically biased, and being people, they don't have the option of machine-like perfectly objective observers. If you are right, you tend to see something neutral as biased to the left and vice versa.

Seeing as you slag liberal arts professors so much, I wouldn't think you'd attach much importance to an A+. That just means that you reguritated whatever he spoonfed you in a way that was pleasing to him.

Besides, Bart, you're nothing but a

User banned for this post.

[neopundit]

WesterCharcoal wrote:

Wow, it must really scare Liberals to see Havard indirectly state Rush Limbaugh as being the least biased source of information in the media.

Funny, I didn't come to that conclusion from the study.

[WesterCharcoal]

BartSimpson wrote:

WesterCharcoal wrote:

"When they meen Talk radio, they meen Conservative Talk Radio. And when they meen Conservative Talk Radio, they meen RUSH."

Wow, it must really scare Liberals to see Havard indirectly state Rush Limbaugh as being the least biased source of information in the media.



User was banned for this post.

I'm not defending this guy, but he got banned for this?

I must be missing something here - anyone care to clue me in on it?

I'm not sure, but it could be a Self-deprecating Joke.

[CanadianJeff]

well that's one way to describe yourself.