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

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

[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.