Posted on 11/12/2003 5:36:44 AM PST by Pharmboy
The release of former CBS reporter Bernard Goldberg's book, "Bias," first prompted our examination of the degree to which the news media deviate from objective coverage. Mr. Goldberg wrote of how, during Bill Clinton's impeachment trial, Peter Jennings consistently labeled Republican loyalists as "conservatives" or "very determined conservatives." Meanwhile, the ABC News anchor did not refer to Democratic loyalists as "liberals," treating Mr. Clinton's allies, instead, as mainstream lawmakers. So we asked ourselves, was the media's tendency to label particular senators isolated to the Clinton impeachment trial? Or is there a more pernicious generality? After a study of New York Times and Washington Post articles published between 1990 and 2002, we conclude that the problem is endemic.
We examined every Times and Post article that contained references to a senator. Specifically, we set out to reveal the treatment of the 10 most liberal and 10 most conservative senators from each congressional session. We used the Poole-Rosenthal ratings -- developed by the University of Houston's Keith Poole to illustrate a senator's ideological extremity -- to determine which senators to study. Using a reliable news database, we deployed a constant search term to uncover when news writers labeled senators conservative or liberal. For five successive congressional sessions during this time period, we documented when Times and Post reporters directly labeled Republican loyalists "conservatives" and Democratic loyalists "liberals" in their news stories. (We excluded editorials.)
The first finding of our study is consistent with the results found for media stories on institutions such as corporations, Congress or universities, namely, that most of the time the story is straightforward -- as in "senators X, Y, and Z visited the European Union Parliament." However, when there were policy issues at stake we found that conservative senators earn "conservative" labels from Times reporters more often than liberal senators receive "liberal" labels.
For instance, during the 102nd Congress, the Times labeled liberal senators as "liberal" in 3.87% of the stories in which they were mentioned. In contrast, the 10 most conservative senators were identified as "conservative" in 9.03% of the stories in which they were mentioned, nearly three times the rate for liberal senators. Over the course of six congressional sessions, the labeling of conservative senators in the Washington Post and New York Times occurred at a rate of two, three, four and even five times as often as that of liberal senators (see chart nearby). It appears clear that the news media assumes that conservative ideology needs to be identified more often than liberal ideology does.
STICKY LABELS
Classification of United States senators as liberals or conservatives
New York Times Washington Post
Congress % Lib % Con % Lib % Con
102nd 3.87 9.03 2.04 6.00
103rd 3.18 10.80 2.48 7.31
104th 3.08 8.03 1.90 5.40
105th 5.54 11.95 2.13 6.28
106th 3.71 12.73 2.28 5.52
107th 4.43 6.67 3.68 7.21
Sources: David Brady and Jonathan Ma
The disparity in reporting was not limited to numbers. Times reporters often inject comments that present liberals in a more favorable light than conservatives. For instance, during the 102nd Congress, Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa was described in Times stories as "a kindred liberal Democrat from Iowa," a "respected Midwestern liberal," and "a good old-fashioned liberal." Fellow Democrat Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts received neutral, if not benign, identification: "a liberal spokesman," and "the party's old-school liberal." In contrast, Times reporters presented conservative senators as belligerent and extreme. During the 102nd Congress, Sen. Jesse Helms was labeled as "the most unyielding conservative," "the unyielding conservative Republican," "the contentious conservative," and "the Republican arch-conservative." During this time period, Times reporters made a point to specifically identify Sen. Malcolm Wallop of Wyoming and Sen. Robert C. Smith of New Hampshire as "very conservative," and Sen. Don Nickles of Oklahoma as "one of the most conservative elected officials in America."
We have detected a pattern of editorialized commentary throughout the decade. Liberal senators were granted near-immunity from any disparaging remarks regarding their ideological position: Sen. Harkin is "a liberal intellectual"; Sen. Barbara Boxer of California is "a reliably outspoken liberal"; Sen. Paul Simon of Illinois is "a respected Midwestern liberal"; Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York is "difficult to categorize politically"; Sen. Kennedy is "a liberal icon" and "liberal abortion rights stalwart"; and Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey is a man whose "politics are liberal to moderate."
While references to liberal senators in the Times evoke a brave defense of the liberal platform (key words: icon and stalwart), the newspaper portrays conservatives as cantankerous lawmakers seeking to push their agenda down America's throat. Descriptions of conservative senators include "unyielding," "hard-line" and "firebrand." A taste of Times quotes on conservatives during the period of 1990-2000: Sen. Nickles is "a fierce conservative" and "a rock-ribbed conservative"; Sen. Helms is "perhaps the most tenacious and quarrelsome conservative in the Senate, and with his "right-wing isolationist ideology" he is the "best-known mischief maker." Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona is "a Republican hard-liner"; Sen. Robert C. Smith is "a granite-hard Republican conservative"; Sen. Gramm takes "aggressively conservative stands" and has "touched on many red-meat conservative topics," as "the highly partisan conservative Texan"; Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas is "hard-core conservative," "considerably more conservative . . . less pragmatic," "hard-line conservative . . . one of Newt Gingrich's foot soldiers," and "a hard-charging conservative"; Sen. Tim Hutchinson of Arkansas is "a staunch conservative"; and Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho is "an arch-conservative."
This labeling pattern was not limited to the Times. Liberal and conservative senators also received different treatment from the Washington Post. Distinctly liberal senators were described as bipartisan lawmakers and iconic leaders of a noble cause. In the 107th Congress, Sen. Paul Sarbanes of Maryland was described as "one of the more liberal senators but [with] a record of working with Republicans." Sen. Harkin was bathed in bipartisan light: "a prairie populist with a generally liberal record, although he's made a few detours to more conservative positions demanded by his Iowa constituents." Of Carol Moseley-Braun of Illinois, the Post said: "Though a liberal at heart, she is more pragmatic than ideological." Other liberals were lionized or cast in soft focus: "Sen. Kennedy is a hero to liberals and a major irritant to conservatives, plus an old-style liberal appeal to conscience"; Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota "was one of the few unabashed liberals left on Capitol Hill and an ebullient liberal"; Sen. Moynihan was "a liberal public intellectual."
In contrast, the Post portrayed conservative senators unflatteringly. Republican loyalists were often labeled as hostile and out of the mainstream. In the 107th Congress, Senators Gramm and Nickles were dismissed as a "conservative Texan" and "conservative Oklahoman" respectively. Post reporters regarded Sen. Smith as an idiosyncratic conservative, militantly conservative, and a conservative man in a conservative suit from the conservative state of New Hampshire. Other Republicans were characterized as antagonists: Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma is "a hard-line GOP conservative"; Sen. Kyl is "a combative conservative"; Sen. Helms is "a cantankerous, deeply conservative chairman," "a Clinton-bashing conservative," "the crusty senator from North Carolina," "the longtime keeper of the conservative flame," and "a conservative curmudgeon."
Our preliminary results for other papers -- USA Today, the San Diego Union Tribune, the Los Angeles Times -- reveal similar patterns to those described above. The major exception is The Wall Street Journal and even here the labeling of conservatives to liberals is a little less than 2 to 1. The effect of these findings on senators' re-election, fund raising and careers is little understood, but the relationship is complicated. However, one can conclude fairly from this survey that conservative senators, consistently portrayed as spoilers, are ill-served by the political reporting in two of the leading general-interest newspapers of the United States. Liberals, on the other hand, get a free pass. If this is not bias, pray what is?
Mr. Brady is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor of political science at Stanford, where Mr. Ma is a senior in economics.
FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. NOT FOR COMMERCIAL USE. COPYRIGHT THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Ah ... spelling error, make that casualties.
I agree that bias in the broadcast media is a much more serious issue
. . . so you will probably enjoy a thread entitled
Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate
Wow. "militantly!" As any good Reuters man can tell you, Smith is obviously a terrorist! In our US Senate!
Wow. "militantly!" As any good Reuters man can tell you, Smith is obviously a terrorist! In our US Senate!
Name one conservative talk show host who claims to be "objective". Why does that matter? Becauseobjectivity is impossible, andThe person who claims to have no POV is the one who is the most tendentious. That is, "journalistic ethics" is the biggest fraud going.the closest thing to objectivity is the self-critique of admiting that your POV has a name.
On Iwo Jima, more US Marines earned the Medal of Honor than in any other battle in US history.
In 36 days of fighting there were 25,851 US casualties (1 in 3 were killed or wounded). Of these, 6,825 American boys were killed. Virtually all 22,000 Japanese perished.
At the rate we are losing our soldiers in Iraq to combat deaths, it would take almost 10 years before they equaled the number of Americans killed on 9/11, and almost 20 years before they equaled Americans killed at Iwo Jima (in 36 days). Every death is tragic, but in the end I believe our actions will save lives.
Too bad the networks have such trouble providing perspective when they pick sides, and not too bad viewers are deserting in droves.
| New York Times | Washington Post | |||
| Congress | % Lib | % Con | % Lib | % Con |
| 102nd | 3.87 | 9.03 | 2.04 | 6.00 |
| 103rd | 3.18 | 10.80 | 2.48 | 7.31 |
| 104th | 3.08 | 8.03 | 1.90 | 5.40 |
| 105th | 5.54 | 11.95 | 2.13 | 6.28 |
| 106th | 3.71 | 12.73 | 2.28 | 5.52 |
| 107th | 4.43 | 6.67 | 3.68 | 7.21 |
Cities are a form of community, just as Free Republic is a form of community. Traditionally, news organizations have sliced the market by geography. Newspapers share many sources in national coverage, and provide unique coverage on local. Hence, as you point out, the larger papers are based on larger geographic population centers (aka the "blue counties").
If we then look at the trend in conservative media, we see some things happening. First there is obviously the web. More on that later. Secondly, in many cities, a conservative local press is beginning to emerge, perhaps publishing weekly or monthly. Here in Charlotte we have the Rhino Times, a weekly, and the Charlotte World, a Christian worldview weekly. Both are popular and have, at a minimum raised public consciousness on liberal schemes at a local level. (The local Stratton case in which the homeschooled children of the Stratton family were removed from their home by the local DSS significantly raised awareness of DSS tactics, strategies, the cash flow generating from the social services system and the overall biases of the system.) The two Charlotte papers are in fact parts of small chains. The Rhino Times also publishes in the Greensboro/Winston-Salem market, the there is a Raleigh World, a Piedmont World, a Columbia World and others. Concurrently, sources of National News are growing in effectiveness, largely via the web. These sources range from the Christian Agape press to the Family Research Center, to WorldNetDaily to the Media Research Center and many others. The "urban centers" of these national services are virtual, but "urban" nontheless in the sense that they represent a critical population mass with a cosmopolitan perspective. These two bases, the local and the virtual urban are both growing and building intricate interdependencies, forming new networks in the process. It seems likely that Metcalf's law concerning networks will apply here, and that as a result, these nascent networks will grow in reach, value and profitability. It is likely that we will see many of these organizations begin to merge in the future.
In answer to your question about what can be done, may I suggest the following:
1) Cancel any subscription you have to your liberal local paper. Wean yourself from depending on them for local coverage and discover the small alternative sources of local news. In the process, starve these liberal outlets of both subscription and advertising revenue. Use your "cancellation dividend" to subscribe to and support the local conservative sources.
2) Use public sources of information (local government websites) and personal networks (ie email lists) to disseminate any local news not covered by the local conservative outlets on a timely basis.
3) If your community currently lacks a local conservative source, reach out to one in a nearby community and find out what it would take for them to expand coverage into your community. Round up support and resources if necessary.
4) Act as a watchdog to track and report on local media bias.
5) Become active in your local FreeRepublic chapter.
6) Support your local conservative Think Tank (eg. The John Locke Foundation in North Carolina.)
These actions should help to accelerate the market forces and network effect already at play.
Still, documenting the omissions, commissions and instances of outright bias and lies is an essential way to fight these phonies.
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