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"The Center for Media and Public Affairs study found that Democrats recieve 77% favorable coverage, while Republicans receive 88% negative coverage. "
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But the methodology used by the CMPA to define "favorable" is typically skewed in order to obtain a preordained conclusion.
To wit:<ul type="square">Despite the . . . objective posture, the methodology used in most of their [CMPA founders Robert and Linda Lichter] research is not scientific. They have used it in the past to "prove" entirely dubious claims, such as the idea that Jesse Jackson was the candidate with the most positive news coverage in 1988, or that George Bush got as much negative coverage as Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War.
In analyzing media coverage, the Lichters single out what they judge to be "thematic messages"—explicit statements of opinion or evaluation. Usually the Lichters determine that such statements make up a very small proportion of the statements found in news reporting—yet proceed to generalize about coverage as a whole based on this tiny percentage.
The Lichters’ tendency to generalize from a narrow sliver of data is the main way that their studies end up supporting their preconceived conclusions of left bias. Take the Center’s report on Gulf War coverage (Media Monitor, 4/91) and its widely cited claim that "nearly three out of five sources (59 percent) criticized U.S. government policies during the [Gulf] War." This, of course, is not 59 percent of all 5,915 sources, but of those 249 sources (4.2 percent) who in the Lichters’ judgment stated an explicit position. This leaves only 148 sources, or 2.5 percent of all sources, who made explicit criticisms of U.S. policy (from the left, right or center).
On what basis can you generalize from the 4 percent of sources who supposedly expressed overt opinions to the 96 percent who didn’t? Doing so results in absurd claims, such as, "Surprisingly, the U.S. government fared little better than its Iraqi counterpart in the soundbite battle." That would be surprising, considering that 44 percent of total news sources were from the U.S. government, according to the Center’s own research.
The Lichters have also been known to stress partial data when a more comprehensive statistic would not prove the bias that they seemed to be looking for. For example, the Center’s report on abortion coverage (Media Monitor, 10/89) trumpeted this finding on the front page: "Pro-choice activist sources outnumbered their pro-life counterparts by a five to three margin." What wasn’t noted on the front page is that the anti-abortion position was often represented by government officials and other non-activist sources (who may speak with more authority than activists to the average news consumer). There is a statistic in the report that includes viewpoints from all sources: "On our summary measure of views on abortion policy, the pro-choice side had a slight edge (53 percent to 47 percent)." This is the more inclusive but less dramatic statistic—and it was buried on the last page.
Under the guise of revealing patterns of bias, what the Lichters really uncover are patterns of rhetoric. The Center’s abortion study found that 75 percent of media sources on abortion favor abolishing Roe v. Wade, yet 66 percent think abortion should be legal. Are these sources schizophrenic? No: The Lichter method simply picked up on the way activists talk. Pro-choice people favored the slogan "keep abortion legal," while anti-abortion forces rallied around "overturn Roe v. Wade."
Yet the Lichters constantly treat such semantic differences as if they indicated real biases in the media: "The pro-choice side dominated the legalization debate. But the pro-life side won out in the debates over Roe v. Wade’s status, government funding, morality and the outset of life." (For more on the Center’s abortion study, see FAIR’s research memo, "Do the Media Have a Pro-Choice Bias?")[/list]Which is exactly what one would expect from a right-wing propaganda outfit like CMPA founded by an AEI fellow and endorsed by Ronald Reagan, Ed Meese, Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson.
The Freedom House study tended to ignore explicitly right wing outlets (they received two percent of total questionaires) because its sample size tended to exclude non-profits (which conservative media organs tend to be). It sent only 20% of its questionaires to national organs while sending more than a quarter to marginal papers like "The Green Bay Press-Gazette, . . . the Sheboygan Press, . . . The Mississippi Press, Fort Collins Coloradoan, Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, Idaho Statesman, Thibodaux Daily Comet, Hemet News and many other newspapers that are not normally counted as part of the national news media. Other of the small-fry survey recipients were specialty journals or obscure publications. Intermission Magazine got a questionnaire, so too did Indian Country Today, Hill Rag, El Pregonero, Senior Advocate, Small Newspaper Group, Washington Citizen, Washington Blade and Government Standard." Robert Parry,
Illiberal Conservative Media.
Yet this study was rountinely touted as proof (by Krauthammer, Will and USNWR's Michael Barrone) that 89% of "Washington Journalists" (Ben Wattenberg's phrase) are left-leaning, and that unfair content in the mainstream media can therefore be presumed.
In short, your evidence is a joke that merely reinforces my claim that "liberal media bias" is a conscious and deliberate lie promulgated by the right-wing propaganda machine to dupe its more credulous followers.