How Biased Are the Media, Really? (Not much says WaPo; Free Republic mentioned)

The Washington Post ^ | Friday, April 27, 2012 | Paul Farhi

[kristinn]

Charges of media bias have been flying like a bloody banner on the campaign trail. Newt Gingrich excoriated the “elite media” in a richly applauded moment during one of the Republican debates. Rick Santorum chewed out a New York Times reporter. Mitt Romney said this month that he faces “an uphill battle” against the press in the general election.

Meanwhile, just about every new poll of public sentiment shows that confidence in the news media has hit a new low. Seventy-seven percent of those surveyed by the Pew Research Center in the fall said the media “tend to favor one side” compared with 53 percent who said so in 1985.

But have the media really become more biased? Or is this a case of perception trumping reality?

In fact, there’s little to suggest that over the past few decades news reporting has become more favorable to one party. That’s not to say researchers haven’t found bias in reporting. They have, but they don’t agree that one side is consistently favored or that this favoritism has been growing like a pernicious weed.

SNIP

So why the rise in the public’s perception of media bias? A few possibilities:

l  T he media landscape has changed.

There’s more media and more overtly partisan media outlets, too. The Internet has given rise to champions of the left — Huffington Post, Daily Kos, etc. — as well as more conservative organizations such as Drudge and Free Republic. This means your chance of running into “news” that seems biased has increased exponentially, elevating the impression that “bias” is pervasive throughout all parts of the media.

“There’s a kind of self-fulfilling perception to it,” said Robert Lichter, a pioneering media-bias researcher who heads the Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University...

[x]

If you think, that thirty years ago there was a slight or moderate bias towards the left in a clear majority of articles in a paper like the New York Times and now there is a massive bias towards the left in a clear majority of articles in the Times this article makes sense.

The percentage of biased articles may not have changed much, but the level or degree of bias has, to the point where it's assumed that no one could seriously take the other side on the issues the paper cares about. A generation ago, it was assumed that argument was still necessary. Today they simply dismiss opposing viewpoints as ridiculous.

[ADemocratNoMore]

bttt

[Baynative]

"Few people make a distinction between news reporting — which attempts to play it straight..."

ABSOLUTE GARBAGE! From creating their own facts to leaving facts out, slanting articles and quoting unnamed sources the media from top to bottom is a despicable representation of factual information. With very few exceptions, there is no lower echelon of career opportunity than becoming part of this biased and purposeful herd that thinks America needs to be punished for holding to the values that allows for them to practice their cesspool trade.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

and (again) that's the way things are..

". . . some key [events] exacerbated the national debate, fraying trust, and national cohesion just a little more each time . . . The two-party system that had governed America . . . begin to fall apart . . . interest in politics took the place of all other forms of news-related entertainment . . . politicians were the celebrities . . . [Politics/ideology] was becoming such a habit, the reactions so automatic, that [journalists] taking sides on every news story became inevitable." .. sound familiar? this is from for Love & Liberty by Robin Young and it's about 1857 America at the start of the administration of James Buchanan.

This term Obama wanted us to believe that he was a Lincoln and a Teddy Roosevelt (with a taunting of Reagan to rock and roil the Ship of State).. if the second term proves he's a Buchanan and the professionals (military and LEO) do not act Lord help us.

[VRW Conspirator]

... in the late 1960's and throughout the 1970's...

You forgot to add"...when Disco reigned supreme...".

[VRW Conspirator]

Truly, it is liberating ne’cest pas?

Thank you Rush Limbaugh.

We are not worthy, we are not worthy, we are not worthy

[VRW Conspirator]

we learned that the Washington Post and Newsweek had the Lewinsky story, but had been sitting on it for months!

To put a finer point on it DSD, Newsweek published the story on their website but shortly "spiked" it, but not before Drudge put the story on his website. It was because of this that many FReepers found FReerepublic via the link at Drudge, thank you very much.

[MasterGunner01]

Of course the Media isn't biased — WaPo has pronounced it so. In other news: water is wet, grass is green, fire is hot, the Media only wants to inform you — NOT.

[gaijin]

How hard-working is the MSM? So hard-working that the FOLLOWING people have proven able to break MAJOR political scandals:

1. A former gift-shop clerk - Drudge

2. A former LA party boy - Breitbart

3. A freeper in his pajamas - Dan Rather TypewriterGate

4. A college guy who said Lucky Charms demeaned Irish - O’Keefe

5. A girl with a hot caboose and a mini skirt - O’Keefe’s girl buddy

THE ABOVE PEOPLE ARE DOING THE JOBS OF COLUMBIA J-SCHOOL GRADS

[Aetius]

Yes it’s true that the Left no longer has a monopoly on media as they once did. But the network news still reach millions every night. And the NY Times and the AP still set a tone for print coverage. This all matters. If the roles were reversed and we had an incumbent Republican president right now, and everything else was the same, then he’d be polling much worse than Obama. This weak recovery would be treated as if we were still in a recession by the media.

And of course we also have pop culture bias. Again I can’t help but think that Obama wouldn’t have such a huge edge with younger Americans if not for the entertainment industry’s worship of him.