but it apparently is "More Fair and Balanced" than any of its main competitors.

From the abstract of an academic study later published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics (one of the Top 3 Economics journals)...

"Our results show a strong liberal bias. All of the news outlets except Fox News’ Special Report and the Washington Times received a score to the left of the average member of Congress.  Consistent with many conservative critics, CBS Evening News and the New York Times received a score far left of center.  Outlets such as the Washington Post, USA Today, NPR’s Morning Edition, NBC’s Nightly News and ABC’s World News Tonight were moderately left.  The most centrist outlets (but still left-leaning) by our measure were the Newshour with Jim Lehrer, CNN’s NewsNight with Aaron Brown, and ABC’s Good Morning America.  Fox News’ Special Report, while right of center, was closer to the center than any of the three major networks’ evening news broadcasts. "

how to measure political orientation.  That could make even your head hurt.

this part, " Meanwhile, we estimate that the average New York Times article is ideologically very similar to the average speech by Joe Lieberman (D-Ct.)." Funny that a liberal bias now means endorsing John McCain for president and agreeing with George W. Bush on just about everyting.

Citations ran through 2002, but Congressional ideology estimates are based on ADA (a liberal think tank) scores through 1999. The Joe Lieberman of today is not the same as the Joe Lieberman pre-9/11. And his ADA scores reflect that.

If you can only handle the simple stuff, stick to the opening sections.

"Survey research has shown that an almost overwhelming fraction of journalists are liberal.  For instance, Elaine Povich (1996) reports that only seven percent of all Washington correspondents voted for George H.W. Bush in 1992, compared to 37 percent of the American public.[2]  Lichter, Rothman and Lichter, (1986) and Weaver and Wilhoit (1996) report similar findings for earlier elections.   More recently, the New York Times reported that only eight percent of Washington correspondents thought George W. Bush would be a better president than John Kerry.[3]  This compares to 51% of all American voters. David Brooks notes that for every journalist who contributed to George W. Bush’s campaign, 93 contributed to Kerry’s.[4]


These statistics suggest that journalists, as a group, are more liberal than almost any congressional district in the country."

Can't get much simpler than that. Of course, simplicity does not always mean accuracy. Hence the need for the more complicated analysis, which for the most part, corroborates the above findings.

how outdated and irrelevant this study is then.

Using a citation measure that ran through to just 5 years ago is now outdated and irrelevant? So then I guess you admit that there WAS media bias as recent as 5 years ago but somehow has now just miraculously disappeared?

The study was written in 2004, using data up through just two years prior. That's the data that was available when the project began. As with any in-depth study, its take time to collect the data, do the analysis, write the paper, present at conferences and distribute to colleagues to solicit for comments, submit to a journal, wait months for a response, make revisions based on the comments, re-submit, wait for acceptance (or rejection and then start all over again at a new journal), then have the paper sit in queue for eventual publication. Which happened just in the past year.

Based on your logic, every empirical study ever published on any topic is automatically outdated and irrelevant by the time its published. Or is it only for the studies that reach conclusions you don't like?

irrelevant is that it conflates activist organizations with think tanks. Not to mention the fact that any study that places The Drudge Report in the political center is obviously full of shit.

So then the answer is yes. Its irrelevant because you don't like the results.
Why is it important to distinguish between "activist organizations" versus "think tanks"? As long as they have an ideological agenda they are trying to push, its all the same for the purposes here.

now put out that spliff and get some exercize

activist organization is to bring attention to itself and its cause. A think tank does not necessarily try to call attention to itself, rather influence policy through policy papers. Also, it is odd that they consider the NAACP as a Think Tank. Seems to me that the complaint then is that they did not get responses from the Klan for balance. I guess I see your point then. Maybe for balance the Times should also get a response from neo-Nazi groups whenever they talk about Israel as well.

And if you are going to actually argue that Drudge is not a partisan then there is little point continuing since you are either delusional or a liar.

-- Modified on 3/22/2008 5:43:48 PM

I have no idea about the Drudge Report. I don't read it. But the study's methods are sound (believe it or not), its been peer-reviewed, and published in a top journal. On that basis, I'll accept their findings without letting any pre-conceived biases of my own color my judgement on what their conclusions have to look like to be considered legitimate. If you already know what the conclusions have to be, what's the point?

But they were not specifying NAACP as a think tank per se. You are right, that would be weird. Its just that the database they accessed listed the 200 most prominent think tanks and policy groups (of which NAACP is definitely the latter) but instead of continually writing out "think tank and policy groups" they just shortened it to "think tanks" thereafter. Again, it doesn't matter what you call them. The point is they are both groups attempting to influence policy.

You are splitting hairs regarding think tanks vs other policy groups. And you are wrong to think think tanks do not try to call attention to themselves and only write policy papers. They typically rely on private funding and want advertisements and name recognition. They also lobby, and testify before Congress. Heritage is a good example of this, but same holds true for RAND, Brookings, Southern Poverty Center, etc.

a very different way than NAACP and ACLU. They are not comparable.

above and beyond the fact that they all try to affect government policy.

I don't think you're digging your way out of this one Benddy.

-- Modified on 3/22/2008 11:44:29 PM

"None of the outlets that reported on the study mentioned that the authors have previously received funding from the three premier conservative think tanks in the United States: the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI), The Heritage Foundation, and the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. Groseclose was a Hoover Institution 2000-2001 national fellow; Milyo, according to his CV (pdf), received a $40,500 grant from AEI; and, according to The Philanthropy Roundtable, Groseclose and Milyo were named by Heritage as Salvatori fellows in 1997. In 1996, Groseclose and Milyo co-authored a piece for the right-wing magazine The American Spectator, titled "Lost Shepherd," criticizing the then-recently defeated member of Congress Karen Shepherd (D-UT) and defending her successor, Enid Greene (R-UT); when the piece was published, Greene was in the midst of a campaign contribution scandal and later agreed to pay a civil penalty after the Federal Election Commission found (pdf) that she violated campaign finance laws."

also

"Definition of bias categorized ACLU as conservative

Any quantitative study of this sort must take a complex idea -- in this case, "bias" -- and operationalize it into something that can be measured. But given its rather odd operationalization of "bias," it is perhaps unsurprising that the study's scheme leads to some categorizations no observer -- on the right or the left -- could take seriously, including the following:

National Rifle Association of America (NRA) scored a 45.9, making it "conservative" -- but just barely.
RAND Corporation, a nonprofit research organization (motto: "OBJECTIVE ANALYSIS. EFFECTIVE SOLUTIONS.") with strong ties to the Defense Department, scored a 60.4, making it a "liberal" group.
Council on Foreign Relations, whose tagline is "A Nonpartisan Resource for Information and Analysis" (its current president is a former Bush administration official; its board includes prominent Democrats and Republicans from the foreign policy establishment) scored a 60.2, making it a "liberal" group.
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), bête noire of the right, scored a 49.8, putting it just on the "conservative" side of the ledger.
Center for Responsive Politics, a group whose primary purpose is the maintenance of databases on political contributions, scored a 66.9, making it highly "liberal."
Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a defense policy think tank whose board of directors is currently chaired by former Representative Dave McCurdy (D-OK), scored a 33.9, making it more "conservative" than AEI and than the National Taxpayers Union.
We leave to the reader the judgment on whether anyone could take seriously a coding scheme in which RAND is considered substantially more "liberal" than the ACLU. But this is not the only problem with Groseclose and Milyo's study; they lump together advocacy groups and think tanks that perform dramatically different functions. For instance, according to their data, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is the third most-quoted group on the list. But stories about race relations that include a quote from an NAACP representative are unlikely to be "balanced" with quotes from another group on their list. Their quotes will often be balanced by quotes from an individual, depending on the nature of the story; however, because there are no pro-racism groups of any legitimacy (or on Groseclose and Milyo's list), such stories will be coded as having a "liberal bias." On the other hand, a quote from an NRA spokesperson can and often will be balanced with one from another organization on Groseclose and Milyo's list, Handgun Control, Inc. (Nonetheless, this reference is somewhat confusing, since Handgun Control was renamed the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence on June 14, 2001, and there is no reference to the Brady Campaign in the study or clarification of the name change; therefore, it is impossible to determine from reading the study if Groseclose and Milyo's score reflects post-2001 citations by legislators and the media of the group under its new name.)"

nothing you copied from MediaMattersNot had the slightest thing to do with the point I highlighted. Nothing. Oh and another thing Media Matters? MEDIA MATTERS? NOT!

was a pile of steaming bullshit. Funny that it finds that the media has a liberal bias when it labels right wing groups as liberal.

You post something, then I can pick one or more points that you make and then I respond. You in turn can respond to one or more of my points. I did that, see. Then you responded to my post with some shit that I never even talked about. Now you’re doing it again. If you want someone to care about what you’re writing then you need to pay better attention where you post it.

RWU Out.

journalism?

Can read, can write, can do research?  Once in a while actually knows something?  Shit, I can't imagine why they wouldn't be conservatives!

I don't wanna think what issues he has.

and health care are so often linked.

You gotta know that dude has gotten his ass kicked a lot when he was a kid.

apparently a Think Tank is the same as an activist organization which it is not. So besides blowing smoke out of your ass I don't see any point that you made. The Media Matters article added that the study reached its results by calling right wing groups as liberal. That is called icing on the cake of stinking bullshit the you threw out there.

he wouldn't be a Republican anymore.

I NEVER made the statement that you attribute to me. Not even close. All I said was that they both try to influence government policy.

Posting Challenged? Reading Challenged? There must be a common link.

-- Modified on 3/24/2008 3:01:32 PM

agreeing with me that they are not comparable types of organizations. Interesting debate tactic you have employed here. OK. I'll bite. I will concede your point that I was right. Now that we both have agreed that this study is a steaming pile of bullshit, what was your point again?

My one and single point never changed. You are free to read it again. Oh yea I forgot about your problem. I see it's still going strong as shown by your second attribution to me of something I never said.

single point" is still buried deep inside your ass and I have no desire to search for it. Peace.

I’ll take the time to help you out.

Words mean things. The words I used were very simple and straightforward. I think that possibly your confusion stems from your being too wrapped up in your own argument.

Just because two things (an activist organization and a think tank) are not comparable in one way does not mean that they are not comparable in another way.

You stated that they are not comparable. Their actions in order to influence had been brought up previously so I wasn’t introducing a totally new concept here.

I simply and very straightforwardly pointed out one important similarity between them. Of course their daily activities are different. The methods by which they aim to garner power and influence for themselves are quite different. Nonetheless many of their goals are very similar. They both try to influence government policy. They are quite similar in this regard.

I’ll overlook the places where you attempted to attribute statements to myself, those that I never made.

comparable in the manner that they achieve media attention which was the whole point of the study in the first place. You see your point has nothing to do with the study that you sited. But thank you remaining focused like a LASAR beam on your irrelevant point. It is your mania that keeps you interesting.

While your first sentence is 100% correct, your second sentence once again falls onto the heap of irrelevant, useless and meaningless statements since I NEVER sited (sic) any study. I did although view the one Zisk cited so I guess I did site one.

I was the one having fun pointing out your flat assertions that are not true.

I lament that I could not educate you. I'll have to settle for entertaining you.

100% correct and you WERE talking about the study that is the topic of the thread but I'm wrong. Hokay? I'd have to do some heavy drinking to catch up to your level of inebriation so I will just leave you the following link:

Good luck to you.

include every fuckin' organization in the USA and half of them in the rest of the world.  

So does that equate the GOP to the NAACP to the KKK?   After all, they all use the Roman alphabet in their names.

Yeah, words mean something.  But give you a little time, and you can fix that.

I'm sure a lot of other things have happened to his ass since he was a kid. ROFL

See the way he smiles at the business end of the microphone?

that he and the microphone were well acquainted. rofl

even come close to all that I've simply spilled. And finally, been there done that for probably longer than than you are old.