Bong Lover said:
Not that this is going anywhere, but the liberal media bias thing is a huge red herring that conservastives would do well to reject as soon as possible. They won't and they will cling onto the liberal media monster to explain away everything under the sun. In reality, there is no liberal media bias. It's true that more jourtnalists identify as liberals then conservatives, and this is where this ongoing myth always goes to the well. It's based on statments like "Their political views will subconciously slant coverage" to more outright claim of a grand liberal agenda to mislead the public. Instead of going by this kind of meta information, look up the actual research that is done on the subject and one sees that the coverage is almost completely even. There is nothing in the data of actual coverage that shows any significant liberal bias in US media. It just isn't there. So where does the myth come from? The liberal bias myth is itself an example of bias, in this case confirmation bias. It's a theory many people want to believe, so they will give much more weight to information that supports the theory then information that denies it. An example of this is on display in the quoted post where an article from the Media Research Center is presented as some sort of credible proof for a liberal media bias. |
Actually... the research that's done on the subject often shows the same thing. At least when looking at the content, rather then how much content exists. For example... all the news networks are reporting about Benghazi... which would count under most studies as a "Conservative news story." Though, is it when the reporters and guests all talk about how it's a non issue?
It's the same thing as stories about women in the Media... the actual numbers are fairly favorable... the content however? Generally sort of dismissive and riddled with code words.
Most media will reach the center... but it's worth noting... that the actual media center is left of the actual center of peoples beliefs.
I mean, a decent example i'd say is gay rights. I've supported gay rights longer then most people have... and it isn't hard to see that gay rights have gotten MUCH better media coverage over the years then the number of people who supported gay marriage would of suggested. Why? The meida is generally supportive of gay rights. Therefore reports about "Gay's ruining morality" and other such bullshit only existed on fringe rightwing networks.... even when that was what the majority of Americans believed. While things about people being discriminating against gays was often talked about... even when it was the law of the land... (and the popular law of the land.)
Outside of stories about how it's suddenly way more popular. I'd argue that gay marriage coverage hasn't changed. Which, I support gay marriage and seeing more conservative coverage of it would of made me want to bash myself in the head with a brick, but i'm not so myopic to pretend the cause in particular i supported got an advantage as far as how the media treated it.
Another example is abortion rights. Most people are for abortion rights... but also for stricter limits on abortion. News generally slants towards full choice (as most news reporters do) and a few right wing people go the whole "Pro Life" route. Nobody argues or reports for the middle ground most people wants.
Also, as for the Media Research Center. It was simply a good summary of a bunch of research that does exist.
