Professor's Study Shows Liberal Bias in News Media

CNSNEWS.com ^ | 9/17/02 | Robert B. Bluey

[kattracks]

(CNSNews.com) - In a new book that will be released later this month, a Dartmouth College professor claims the news media ignore far-left, moderate and conservative viewpoints in favor of a "narrow brand of liberal bias."

Author Jim A. Kuypers, a senior lecturer at the Ivy League college, said he had no political agenda when conducting his research of nearly 700 newspaper articles from 116 publications. He called the results of his study surprising and warned of the consequences on American society.

"I didn't set out to look for a particular type of bias and I took steps to ensure I didn't impose my preconceptions," Kuypers said. "What I found was a narrow brand of liberal bias with the mainstream media."

The book, "Press Bias and Politics: How the Media Frame Controversial Issues," is a compilation of Kuypers' research on six prominent speeches between 1995 and 2000. He first obtained copies of the speeches and then compared their objectives with their coverage in the news media.

"I did not honestly believe the level of bias and misrepresentation would be as deep and terrible as it was," he said.

Kuypers analyzed two speeches by then-President Clinton on race and human rights, comments U.S. Sen. Trent Lott made on homosexuality, remarks by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan at the Million Man March, a speech condemning homosexuality by former football star Reggie White and an Alabama state senator's remarks on the Confederate flag.

As part of his findings, Kuypers said liberal opinions from editorials and news analyses often found their way into straightforward news reports. He speculated that the culture of news organizations was partly to blame.

The head of a media watchdog group, Accuracy in Media, agreed with Kuypers' findings.

"I've seen no difference and no great change in the last decade or last two decades," chairman Reed Irvine said. "The journalists -- the people who are editing and writing for papers -- are still overwhelmingly liberal."

Irvine has been studying the news media since the 1970s. He said the press continues to display liberal characteristics just as it did 30 years ago.

In fact, he said that bias is probably more expansive today, citing the rise in coverage of race and homosexuality -- the two issues that were the primary focus of Kuypers' study.

But Steve Rendall, a senior analyst for Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, another media watchdog group, said the press has done a poor job covering many social issues, including race and homosexuality.

Rendall cited a study conducted by his organization that showed reporters in the nation's capital lean to the right when covering many issues.

"When it comes to foreign policy and the economy, the U.S. media have a long way to go before they reach a standard of fairness and accuracy," he said. "On issues such as race and homosexuality, there may have been some progress in recent years, but we would say they have a long way to go on those issues as well."

Mainstream journalists routinely ignore or do a mediocre job covering issues such as consumer rights, environmental matters and topics related to the poor and minorities, Rendall said.

"The right-wing and conservative movements are well represented and the center is well represented," he said. "What's not well represented are progressive movements."

Kuypers said he anticipates criticism, but defended his methods. He said they are clearly outlined in the book and allow readers to conduct their own analysis if they wish.

"I just don't give examples of what I think is bias," he said. "I outlined how I was going to look for bias in such a way that others can do this as well."

The only thing readers might disagree with is his conclusion, Kuypers said. He ends the book by issuing a warning that biased reporting could endanger democracy by presenting only a narrow viewpoint.

"I'm scared for the state of democracy in this country in terms of how the press interacts," Kuypers said. "They are, in my opinion, an anti-democratic institution because they stifle alternative voices and paint an incredibly inaccurate picture of issues and ideas."

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[ForGod'sSake]

Howareya ladyinred???

In the interests of adding some background on FAIRy, the following article was written by the man(?) whom I believe was the founder of FAIR. That's Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, but believe me, they don't have a clue. From the slightly left leaning International Socialist Organization

Remembering The Last US Retaliation Against Terror

by Jeff Cohen

Published on Saturday, September 15, 2001

Nothing will ever be the same, we’re told, after the cataclysmic terrorism of 911. Yet some things seem unchanged in the media -- such as the pundit clamor for retaliation against someone, somewhere, fast.

As a talk radio host in New York put it: "Bomb somebody, goddamnit!"

We’ve been here before, almost exactly three years ago. In the wake of terror bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa, President Clinton was urged to take decisive action, and on August 20, 1998, he ordered missile attacks on two targets purportedly linked to Osama bin Laden, the accused mastermind of the bombings.

One target of operation "Infinite Reach" was bin Laden’s paramilitary camp in Afghanistan. "The U.S. picked the highly accurate cruise missile for the strikes against the Afghan camp," reported CNN’s military correspondent Jamie McIntrye, "because of their ability to fly with pinpoint accuracy." One of the missiles was so inaccurate it hit the wrong country, Pakistan, several hundred miles off-course.

The other target was the Al Shifa factory in Sudan, alleged by the Clinton administration to be linked to bin Laden and to be producing chemical warfare agents. The factory was destroyed and workers there were killed and maimed.

That night, Sen. John McCain appeared on five national TV programs in less than three hours to endorse the President’s action. The next day, the missile attacks were supported on the editorial pages of America’s leading dailies.

But soon, Western professionals who had worked at the Sudan plant began to speak credibly of the plant being just what the Sudanese government claimed it was: a civilian factory producing a major share of the pharmaceuticals for an impoverished country.

Western journalists who rushed to the scene of the U.S. missile attack found medicine, but no security features that one would expect at a military or weapons facility. Sudan’s government offered journalists unfettered access to the area.

The U.S. government said that it had obtained a suspicious soil sample from near the plant nine months before the cruise attack. But as New York Times reporter James Risen noted in an exhaustive study a year after the Sudan factory had been leveled, "officials throughout the government raised doubts up to the eve of the attack about whether the United States had sufficient information linking the factory to either chemical weapons or to Mr. bin Laden."

Risen reported that intelligence analysts in the State Department were drafting an internal report saying the cruise attack on the Sudan factory had not been justified, but the report was killed by higher ups.

What’s not in dispute is that Sudan government officials forced Osama bin Laden to leave their country in 1996. Or that the Al Shifa factory had been purchased by a Sudanese businessman five months before the missile attack -- a fact that was unknown to the U.S. at the time it targeted the plant.

Three years after the U.S. government may have killed and injured innocent people on foreign soil in a misguided "retaliation against terrorism," media voices are again calling for a quick and forceful reprisal.

Outrage is the natural and appropriate response to the mass murder of September 11. But media should not be glibly encouraging retaliatory violence without remembering that U.S. retaliation has killed innocent civilians abroad, violated international law and done little to make us safer.

FGS

[Auntie Mame]

It's amazing that this FAIR is quoted by journalists as if it were a mainstream, reasoned source for quotes.

Thank you!

[Landru]

Your giving this ilk the benefit of the doubt, is really behind why they always seem to skate.

You really need to load up on your popcorn, FGS.

...you missed a pretty good show.

[ForGod'sSake]

Your giving this ilk the benefit of the doubt, is really behind why they always seem to skate.

Awright Lan, you've done it now! You've FORCED me to do something I really dislike.....research. Yuk!

Turns out this Kuypers fellow was born and raised in the South(cap intentional), and while not definitive, automatically earns him a second look IMO. Graduate of FSU; Masters Degree FSU; PHD from LSU '95. He can't be much older than his mid 30's. Some bio and links to other works at Dartmouth Speech Department.

He is/was a "Rouge" Scholar and former editor for the American Communication Journal.

An enlightening review of "Media Literacy" by one of his fellow academics:

Media Literacy

W. James Potter
Sage (1998)

Reviewer: Lisa R. Barry
Albion College

 

Which decade saw television introduced into this country? How much money did consumers spend supporting the media indirectly through advertising last year? What percentage of prime-time characters are male? African American? Overweight? How many immigrants will enter the United States this year? What is this country's median household income? What percentage of last year's crimes were violent?

These and other questions comprise the "media literacy quiz" that appears at the beginning of W. James Potter's Media Literacy. Surprisingly, even those of us who consider ourselves to be media literate may have difficulty answering these questions. More likely, we will discover as the result of this quiz that even our perceptions are distorted because of media. Armed with this knowledge, students (and faculty) embark on a journey that results in newly or more fully developed media literacy skills.

Potter begins with two chapters designed to introduce readers to media literacy and its importance in our society. The chapters not only define media literacy, but also discuss important concepts such as message saturation. The next three chapters work to identify and build media literacy skills. This includes discussions about how the human mind works, rudimentary and advanced media literacy skills, and cognitive, emotional and moral development of those skills. The first five chapters serve as the foundation upon which Potter builds the remainder of the text. Arranged in this way, the text allows students to identify and develop?even in their most basic form?important skills that will enable them to engage those concepts covered in the later chapters.

The next eleven chapters work through areas of knowledge that are important for anyone wanting to become more media literate. For instance, chapter six asks "what is news?" while chapter eight asks "what is entertainment?" The remaining chapters discuss commercial advertising, media industries, economic perspectives, media effects and media influence on institutions. Readers are asked "what is an audience" and "who owns and controls the mass media?" Potter also addresses the importance of real-world knowledge. Finally, the last two chapters attempt to put it all together and to offer strategies for increasing media literacy.

An important element of this book is not only the accessibility of the language with which it is written, but the exercises that accompany each chapter. These exercises are designed both to sharpen the skills students learn in each chapter, and to enable them to think critically about what they have learned. For instance, the exercise that accompanies chapter two asks readers to first estimate their exposure to media messages (e.g., how many minutes and hours are spent watching television, films at a theatre, listening to the radio, reading magazines, etc.). Readers are then asked to track their exposures by maintaining a diary for one week, which facilitates the reader's ability to note each instance that s/he is exposed to a media message either directly or indirectly. This involves not only an awareness of direct media interaction (for instance, logos on people's clothing or advertisements on the side of a bus), but also the conversations people have about media (such as friends talking about a particular episode of their favorite sit-com). At the end of the week readers are asked to avoid media messages for one day; that is, they should not turn on the radio or television, read magazines, etc. The goal is to avoid media messages for as long as possible, and then to document how long they were able to go without exposure. Needless to say, this is a difficult activity, but students respond well to it. In fact, many students in my basic mass communication course claimed they would be unable to avoid media messages because they "need" music (or television, or . . .). Students do recognize, though, how pervasive media is.

Media Literacy is a key text for media studies and mass communication instructors who seek to educate students about the impact media has in our lives. It is also an important text for anyone seeking to improve their media literacy skills. We cannot escape media. The best we can hope for is to arm ourselves with the skills necessary to minimize its impact on us.

If you'll follow some of the links in the aforementioned goodies I think you'll see an interesting picture of Mr. Kuypers and his associates emerge.

You really need to load up on your popcorn, FGS.

Advice heeded ; )

...you missed a pretty good show.

Well, maybe; maybe not. Gimme another jingle after you've done some surfing about on Kuypers. IMHO, you've allowed your (hard earned)cynicism to override you logic on this one; I think you may have missed the mark on him. It appears for all the world he's on our side Lan. In fact with just the hour or so I spent researching him, it also appears for all the world that he's shouting at the top of his lungs

Beware Media Bearing Gifts!!!

Troubling question. If this guy is more or less conservative, how in the devil did he end up at one of the premier Socialist institutions in the country??? Or are they??? Scratching head...

FGS

[Landru]

He was *what*??
A "Red" Scholar?
Former editor for the American Communist Journal?

...ok; whatever.

[ForGod'sSake]

Whatever? Is that kinda like calfrope? ; )

FGS

[TaRaRaBoomDeAyGoreLostToday!]

bump

[Congressman Billybob]

I agree with your post. In my latest book, second link below, my co-author and I discuss the ways to fight back against the "untrustworthy" major media. (If the link comes up with only half the site, I've already reported the problem to VeriSign. We have already paid our money to VeriSign for a year, so we're stuck. But no one else should mess with that outfit. Let me know if it works on your browser. But I digress.)

Congressman Billybob

Click for "Til Death Do Us Part."

Click for "to Restore Trust in America"

Click for "I am almost out of ideas"

[jackbill]

Hep yersef to one o' those in #38, btw

No thanks, but I appreciate the offer. They look too much like a drug test in progress. I'll stick to my own Rebel Yell.

[jackbill]

I happened on to a program on C-SPAN2 this morning and it was so interesting that I didn't go to watch Fox News Sunday (which I haven't missed in years).

The program featured a feminist lesbian - Tammy Bruce - speaking at the Univ. of California at Davis. She was compelling in talking about her book "The New Thought Police: Inside the Left's Assault on Free Speech and Free Minds".

I intend to read the book and I suggest that Freepers become familiar with it. It is definitely NOT what you would expect from a "lesbian feminist activist". She was great.

[MeekOneGOP]

No thanks, but I appreciate the offer. They look too much like a drug test in progress. I'll stick to my own Rebel Yell.

LOL ! Party pooper !! So what is this Rebel Yell, anyway? lol !

[jackbill]

LOL ! Party pooper !! So what is this Rebel Yell, anyway? lol !

Rebel Yell is my favorite corn licker - aka bourbon. Try it - you'll like it.

Check it out at:

http://www.davidsherman.com/search/detail_POS.asp?POS_ID=487

[Robert A Cook PE]

Rendell (from "FAIR") IS an extremist (Liberal) from a liberal homosexual-oriented group who's hate-filled rethoric (against conservatives) doesn't surprise me.

What is surprising is that "FAIR" is treated as an "impartial, unbiased judge" of media intolerance and bias in this story....just the oppsoing view so urgentl sought by extremists to "balance the story.".

Then again, maybe not..... The essence of bias (as ib the yes of this writer) is in NOT seeing your own prejudices.

[ForGod'sSake]

Then again, maybe not..... The essence of bias (as ib the yes of this writer) is in NOT seeing your own prejudices.

Interesting comments Robert. Would you mind expanding some for me so's I'm sure I undertand your point(s)?

FGS

[MeekOneGOP]

Oh, a bourbon. I drink that a little bit on occaision.
When I do, it's usually W.L. Weller. Ever tried that?