Media Bias in The New York Times in the Labeling of Interest Groups, 1992-2001

xm177e2/LEXIS-NEXIS | 3/21/02 | xm177e2

[xm177e2]

Media Bias in The New York Times National News Desk As Evidenced by the Labeling of Interest Groups, 1992-2001

By xm177e2

The survey was done with LEXIS-NEXIS. Articles must include "National Desk" in their full text (so only articles from the National news desk of the New York Times are included in this analysis), and must not include the words "News Analysis" (as those are basically editorials). Unlike certain other purported studies of media bias, this survey analyses only actual news articles, and not other parts of the paper (such as letters to the editor).

"Total"--total number of articles to contain the interest group's name.
"# Liberal"/"# Conserv"--the number of articles containing the interest group's name, as well as having "liberal!" or "conserv!" within ten words.
"% Liberal"/"%Conservative"--the percentage of articles in the newspaper which contain "Liberal!" or "Conserv!" within ten words of the interest group's name.
"# Left-Wing"/"# Right-Wing"--the number of articles to contain the group's name, as well as "left-wing!" or "right-wing!" within ten words.
"!" in LEXIS-NEXIS searches is a wildcard character. "Liberal!" will pick up "Liberal," "Liberals," "Liberalism," etc.

Left-Wing Groups:	Total:	# Liberal:	% Liberal	# Left-Wing:
Alliance for Justice	23	10	43	0
American Civil Liberties Union	951	6	01	1
Brookings Institution*	344	5	01	0
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities**	105	46	44	0
Citizens for Tax Justice	35	14	40	0
Congressional Progressive Caucus	3	0	00	0
Democratic Leadership Council	134	8	06	0
Emily's List	44	2	05	0
Greenpeace	62	0	00	0
Human Rights Campaign	120	0	00	0
Handgun Control, Inc.	74	1	01	0
Million Mom March	26	1	04	0
Natl. Abortion Rights Action League	59	0	00	0
Natl. Assn. for the Advancement of Color	591	6	01	0
National Education Association	143	1	01	0
National Organization for Women	149	1	01	0
People for the American Way	100	39	39	0
Planned Parenthood	279	5	02	0
Rainbow-PUSH Coalition***	71	1	01	0
Sierra Club	323	7	02	0
Southern Poverty Law Center	94	2	02	0
Violence Policy Center	33	0	00	0
Right-Wing Groups:	Total:	# Conservative:	% Conservative	# Right-Wing:
American Enterprise Institute	151	39	26	0
Cato Institute	63	21	33	0
Christian Coalition	538	151	28	6
Citizens Against Government Waste	12	1	08	1
Citizens for a Sound Economy	18	5	28	0
Concerned Women for America	14	5	36	0
Empower America	39	28	72%	0
Family Research Council	176	92	52%	0
Federalist Society	27	23	85%	1
Focus on the Family	68	25	37	0
Gun Owners of America	12	2	17	0
Heritage Foundation****	180	119	66%	1
Hoover Institution*****	45	8	18	1
Hudson Institute	57	31	54%	0
Institute for Justice	68	38	56%	0
Media Research Center	14	8	57%	1
Manhattan Institute	30	11	37	0
National Rifle Association	585	34	06	1
National Right to Life Committee******	197	12	06	0
National Right to Work Committee	2	0	00	0
National Taxpayers Union	31	7	23	1
Rutherford Institute	66	23	35	2

All to score over 50% were boldened.

* I also ran searches under the incorrect name, "Brookings Institute," which is used five times.
** The incorrect name "Center for Budget and Policy Priorities" appears 16 times.
*** Also added in instances of "Rainbow Coalition"
**** A few of these mentions were not the Heritage Foundation, but other groups whose names end with "Heritage Foundation," such as the "Hunting and Shooting Sports Heritage Foundation," the "Wyoming Heritage Foundation," the "Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation," and the "Mesorah Heritage Foundation," so they were deleted. The numbers reflect only articles about the Heritage Foundation.
***** "Hoover Institute" occurs seven times, these have been added into the results
****** Full name is "National Right to Life Committee, Inc."

The searches for "Conservative"/"Liberal" are simple w/10s, "Conserv!" and "Liberal!" The searches for "Right-Wing"/"Left-Wing" are simple w/10s, "Right-Wing!" and "Left-Wing!" An article could be counted twice, if both "Liberal" and "Left-Wing" were within ten words of the name of the group (or both "C" and "RW")

Obviously, some groups are not going to be labeled as often as others. I left out the "American Conservative Union," because it's blatantly obvious from the name it's a conservative group. Likewise, the "Congressional Progressive Caucus" is clearly a progressive, left-wing group, so it's not an example of foul play that labels are not often attached to it. Also, groups like the DLC really aren't so liberal, that's a centrist group compared to the others. Likewise, "Greenpeace" is more likely to be referred to as an "environmental" group than as a "left-wing" group. But then there are groups like "People for the American Way," which do not obviously reflect one side or the other… and this is where the bias is stunningly obvious.

[xm177e2]

Here is the link to Geoff Nunberg's claims that the media is biased towards conservatives. His methodology is HIGHLY UNSOUND, he does not just analyze the hard news articles of the newspaper, but EVERY WORD written in them! Letters to the editor, editorials, political columns, news analysis--you name, it's in there. And that's where most of the epithets in a newspaper are hurled--you're far more likely to find "mean-spirited conservatives" or "left-wing extremists" in a letter to the editor than a hard news story.

Ever since conservatives began rallying against media bias, a strange cottage industry has sprung up on the left, dedicated to proving the media is really biased to the right. But only hard news articles should be examined for bias--if you throw the entire newspaper in the hopper, you're not going to get useful results. Garbage in, garbage out.

[xm177e2]

Part Two of Two (I changed my mind and decided to do it tonight)

I don't remember if the last one blocked out news analysis articles, but this one does, which makes it scientifically valid (the only input is actual news articles, as opposed to other things)

[xm177e2]

Link to Part One (not as good as this)

[xm177e2]

Note that Heritage is labeled a conservative group nearly 2/3s of the time! No liberal group comes close! And some of the other conservative groups are labeled even more often than that. I don't disagree with labelling--what I disagree with is the not labelling of liberal groups.

[GeronL]

big bump!!

[farmfriend]

Pet peeve bump.

[xm177e2]

Could you ping people to this thread?

[vbmoneyspender]

nice work. how long did it take to do it?

[GeronL]

I don't think JohnHuang2 is here yet, maybe Kat and Saber are around??

[GeronL]

OK, he just got here

[xm177e2]

I worked on it for several days last year, but I found all of the data all over again for the survey in this post in about three hours (between when I posted this one and when I posted the last one). But I came up with the methods I used to collect the data last year, that took longer, and there was some trial and error.

[toenail]

Good work.

I'd be interested to see the numbers per year of the following terms [if you get bored]:

pro-life
anti-abortion
anti-choice
pro-death [I'm guessing "0"]
pro-choice
pro-abortion
abortionist
abortion doctor
pro-natalist
anti-natalist
right to choose [in article where 'abortion' is found]
right to life [same]
abortion rights

[JohnHuang2]

[xm177e2]

Thank you.

[JohnHuang2]

You're than welcome -- I look forward to reading this. Thanks.

[JohnHuang2]

Oops, typ-o alert:

You're more than welcome -- I look forward to reading this. Thanks.

[prognostigaator]

Good work...

Another interesting media bias issue with the media is that when they refer to the Democrat majority in the Senate ,is that they never mention that it is only a one vote majority,but most always refer to it as the 'majority', leading the unlearned viewer or reader that there is an overwhelming majority there..

However, when the media refers to the Republican majority in the House, they refer to the 'slim' Republican majority there, [which is true percentage wise] .

Of course Mr. Daschle , in his news conferences as Senate Majority Leader acts as though he has a 10 or more vote majority in that body.

Not one 'reporter' ever reminds him that because of the Jeffords defection,[who was voted in as a Republican,thus representing the actual 'will of the people'] , that in truth and fact the Democrats in the Senate actually represent a minority of the American electorate.

[prognostigaator]

Give me back one of your pennies, JH2.

[lentulusgracchus]

Excellent work -- BTTT for your good work!

PINGing......

[xm177e2]

Okay, I'll run a quick analysis of that question (by the same standards as this thread, the NYT from 92-01, national desk news articles only):

Republican Majority: 760
Slim Republican Majority: 6
Narrow Republican Majority: 9

Democratic Majority: 193
Slim Democratic Majority: 3
Narrow Democratic Majority: 0

Sorry, that doesn't really pan out in this instance.