How to Measure Media Bias on a Regular Basis?

Intrade ^ | Feb 8, 2009 | Intrade

[Kevmo]

John Delaney wrote:

To measure the immediate impact of dozens of presentations and workshops by 2,500 business and 42 political leaders we have constructed the Intrade World Crisis Index.

Our admittedly unsophisticated sentiment index priced at 50.0 at the official opening of the meeting is comprised of eight equally weighted markets that measure the likelihood of recessions, depressions, increased unemployment, lower stock markets, and greater international tensions.

A higher post meeting index means our markets predict a more disastrous 2009 than before. A lower post-meeting index means our markets predict global leaders have reduced the probability that 2009 will be the disaster we previously thought.

You can see the updated Intrade World Crisis Index here http://www.intrade.com/widgets/crisis/WorldCrisisIndex.html

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ko wrote:

I'm not all that interested in the Davos thing, but this Intrade WC index does interest me. Such indices may have a bright future. One I'd like to see is a media bias index.

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05/02/2009 17:34:39 Subject: The Intrade World Crisis Index will tell us whether the Davos World Economic Forum Matters! jbeyer

Junior

Joined: 11/10/2008 03:32:14 Messages: 75 Offline

How would you propose to calculate a media bias index? ___________________________________________________

ko wrote: Here's a place to start. Calculating a media bias index is as straight forward as the Intrade World Crisis Index. The issue is whether Intrade wants to do it. If they do, I'd be willing to do some footwork (for a percentage, hah hah )

https://bb.intrade.com/intradeForum/posts/list/30/2594.page

31/10/2008 19:41:21

Subject: Relace Contract Suggestions Here ko

Sage

Joined: 03/11/2007 19:01:54 Messages: 1291 Offline We need contracts that regularly measure media bias and pay out according to such measurements.

In the Tank: A Statistical Analysis of Media Bias--pervasive, institutionalized, measurable

FrontPageMagazine.com ^ | October 31, 2008 | John Perazzo

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=D7971545-30B0-4C9C-85BD-E671BBCBE0FF

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jbeyer wrote:

The Intrade World Crisis Index is essentially the average of eight different Intrade contracts, each of which corresponds to an economic indicator. What values would you aggregate into your media bias index? In your linked post, you talk about things such as "86 percent voted for Democrat Hubert Humphrey over Republican Richard Nixon". But those numbers aren't measured frequently, nor do they change frequently.

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ko wrote:

Then we use numbers that are measured frequently. The problem isn't finding the measurements, the problem is whether Intrade wants to use the numbers. And no, I will not go down the rabbit hole until I hear there's interest from Intrade.

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John Delaney, CEO of Intrade wrote:

ko,

I am interested to hear what you think.

We did this "index" quickly, I am sure it can be improved on and I would hope that a better index could be traded.

Appreciate all thoughts.

John ___________________________________________________

ko wrote:

John, color me surprised. I didn't think you'd be interested. I have heard that the Cato Institute tracks media bias on a weekly basis but I can't find the article. It's from the Wikipedia entry on media bias.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_bias Look in the references -- # 5, 6, and 7.

# ^ www.cato.org Weekly Network Bias rankings # ^ Media Bias, the paper is now published on the Quarterly Journal of Economics

I've also heard that the Media Research Center tracks it daily.

Here's what I'd do if I were in your shoes. I'd call the heads of the 2 biggest Media Watchdog Groups, one liberal and one conservative. I'd tell them that I'm going to generate a media bias index and would like their input and involvement. If they balk, you go on your own. But they'd have a vested interest in staying involved. So, I'm thinking that a panel of 9: 3 liberals from Media Matters or FAIR, 3 conservatives from AIR or Media Research Center, and yourself + 2 Intrade employees (or 3 panelists from Intrade/Intrade forum). The panel meets to decide a specific methodology by which media bias would be tracked and measured (and paid out) and they would meet just before payout each term (maybe quarterly) to decide the media bias score.

Once a year the panel would review the methodology and consider improvements. The aim would be to generate a final mechanical media bias measurement that is independent of any panel; I'm not sure that is available quite yet but some additional digging would probably generate data in that vein.

If there's a number that is regularly published by any watchdog group, that would be the starting point for this index.

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Notes from web searches on "measuring media bias" :

On The political Left. Here are just a few Organizations.

Media Matters FAIR (a.k.a) Fairness Accuracy In Reporting

On the Political Right Air (a.k.a) Accuracy In Reporting Fox News, CNN and other media groups continuously being accussed of political Bias by Media Watchdog Groups.

Fair and Balanced - measuring media bias http://mindblog.dericbownds.net/2008/10/fair-and-balanced-measuring-media-bias.html One hears charges from both left and right about media bias, with FOX News frequently cited as the most extreme case. Tim Groeling has done interesting work to objectively measure the bias shown by television media, in a paper (PDF here) http://dericbownds.net/uploaded_images/groeling.pdf to be published in the December issue of Presidential Studies Quarterly. He simply collected the in-house presidential approval polling by ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX News and compared these with the actual broadcasts of such polls on evening news shows from 1997 to early 2008. As an example, CBS was 35 percent less likely to report a five-point drop in approval for Bill Clinton than a similar rise in approval and was 33 percent more likely to report a five-point drop than a rise for George W. Bush. FOX News was 67 percent less likely to report a rise in approval for Clinton than a decrease and 36 percent more likely to report an increase rather than a decrease for Bush.

Measuring media bias Tim Groseclose and Jeffrey Milyo wrote a paper on "A measure of media bias." Here's the paper, http://www.polisci.ucla.edu/faculty/groseclose/Media.Bias.pdf and here's the abstract to the paper: We [Groseclose and Milyo] measure media bias by estimating ideological scores for several major media outlets. To compute this, we count the times that a particular media outlet cites various think tanks and policy groups, then compare this with the times that members of Congress cite the same groups. Our results show a strong liberal bias: all of the news outlets we examine, except Fox News’ Special Report and the Washington Times, received scores to the left of the average member of Congress. Consistent with claims made by conservative critics, CBS Evening News and the New York Times received scores far to the left of center. The most centrist media outlets were PBS NewsHour, CNN’s Newsnight, and ABC’s Good Morning America; among print outlets, USAToday was closest to the center. All of our findings refer strictly to news content; that is, we exclude editorials, letters, and the like. The Reid/Foley MSM Bias Index Cheat-Seeking Missile's Reid/Foley MSM Bias Index is a straightforward measurement of media bias. If the media were perfectly balanced, the Reid/Foley index would be 0, because stories of Senate Minory Leader Harry Reid's financial scandals would perfectly balance stories of Mark Foley's homosexual lust scandals.

Less coverage of Reid would reveal a leftist bias, just as more coverage of Foley would. Reverse it, and we'd be seeing a conservative bias with more Reid coverage and less Foley coverage.

(As you can see at the outset, the index is flawed. Because Reid is still in office and holds a much higher position than Foley ever held, media coverage should tip towards Reid.)

Reid/Foley Bias Index Surges Left Today's reading: 110 Left* Yesterday's reading: 44 left

Yesterday's ruling by Judge Janet Farris that Dems should get a double-scoop of benefit from Mark Foley's late registration caused a legit news-reporting surge in Foley hits on Nexis today.

On the other hand, the Reid story of his $700,000 in politically induced profits has all but fallen out of the liberal MSM's universe.

Would one GOP elected please call for an ethics investigation of Reid? What's so hard about this?

* How the Index works: Perfect MSM balance yields an index of 0, as stories of Senate Minory Leader Harry Reid's financial scandals balance stories of Mark Foley's homosexual lust scandals. Less coverage of Reid/more coverage of Foley yields a "left" score, indicating leftist bias, with the number preceding "left" indicating the number of times greater Foley's coverage is. Greater Reid/lesser Foley coverage yields a "right" score with a similar multiplier. Reid/Foley Index Turns More Left

http://www.cheatseekingmissiles.com/2006/10/18/reidfoley-index-turns-more-left/ Has Mark Foley decided to very deliberately keep his name in the news and further foul the GOP waters before the election? Quite possibly. His announcement that he is going to announce the priest who allegedly molested him ensures at least two days of media coverage of that part of this tawdry tale.

The “He’s going to announce” announcement pushed up Foley media coverage, and today the C-SM Reid/Foley MSM Bias Index rose to 44 Left from yesterday’s 27 Left.* The true level of bias is actually much greater, since a significant number of the 22 Reid stories turned up by Nexis today were not about his financial scandal, while it appears that nearly all the 934 Foley stories referenced the page scandal. * How the Index works: Perfect MSM balance yields an index of 0, as stories of Senate Minory Leader Harry Reid’s financial scandals balance stories of Mark Foley’s homosexual lust scandals. Less coverage of Reid/more coverage of Foley yields a “left” score, indicating leftist bias, with the number preceding “left” indicating the number of times greater Foley’s coverage is. Greater Reid/lesser Foley coverage yields a “right” score with a similar multiplier.

Public Perceptions of Bias in the News Media: Taking A Closer Look ... File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML resulting Prior Media Bias index ranges from 2 (the belief that the news media is very biased in favor of pro-life/against pro-choice) to 14 (very biased ... www.uky.edu/AS/PoliSci/Peffley/pdf/MediaBiasMidwest2001_4-04-01_.PDF - Similar pages by M Peffley - Cited by 4 - Related articles - All 2 versions

Media Watchdog Groups 25 up, 4 down Organizations that are devoted to finding, diclaiming, and pointing out Media Bias where ever it shows up.

There is a large diverse goups of Media Watchdogs Groups. On The political Left. Here are just a few Organizations.

Media Matters FAIR (a.k.a) Fairness Accuracy In Reporting

On the Political Right Air (a.k.a) Accuracy In Reporting Fox News, CNN and other media groups continuously being accussed of political Bias by Media Watchdog Groups.

Media Research Center, the largest media watchdog organization in America. Established in 1987, the MRC has made "media bias" a household term, tracking it daily and printing the compiled evidence biweekly in its well-known "Notable Quotables."

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09/02/2009 05:26:18 Subject: Re:The Intrade World Crisis Index ko

Sage

Joined: 03/11/2007 19:01:54 Messages: 1296 Online p.s. even if nothing happens with a media bias indicator, Intrade would make waves in the industry just by mentioning the intent. Just think if Rush Limbaugh started mentioning the project on his show and how much volume that could create for Intrade.

[Kevmo]

Political Ref now has a poll up.

politicalref.com > Media Bias > General Discussion > How much bias is there in the Main Stream Media

Poll

Question: How much Media Bias is there in the MainStream Media?

http://politicalref.com/forum/index.php?topic=3.0

[Nateman]

[Kevmo]

What does that mean?

[Nateman]

It means they should stop drinking Obama’s hope and change water.