New Media Bias Study

[JaJae]

Basically the study says that the large newspapers, televised news and publicly funded broadcasting (NPR) are producing stories favoring the Democrats and online news and talk radio are less partisan.

Basic methodology:

While reading or listening to a story, coders tally up all the comments that have either a negative or positive tone to the reporting. Direct and indirect quotes are counted. In order for a story either positive or negative, it must have 1.5 times the amount of positive or negative comments (with an exception for 2 to 3, which is coded as neutral). If the headline or lead has a positive or negative tone, it should be counted twice into the total value. Also counted twice for tone are the first three paragraphs or first four sentences, whichever comes first.

Some results:

National Public Radio: According to the report, “like the media overall, the first 30 minutes NPR’s ‘Morning Edition’ produced more stories about Democratic candidates than Republicans (41% vs. 24%). What was different was how little negative coverage Democrats received, especially compared with all other media. Stories about a Democratic candidate were more seven times more positive than negative: 41% positive vs. 6% negative.” For Republicans, the comparable figures are 30 percent positive vs. 20 percent negative.

Newspapers: The researchers examined the front pages of 13 daily newspapers, checking the New York Times every day and a dozen other papers every other day. “Democrats got much more positive coverage in the daily papers examined than they did elsewhere. Fully 59% of all stories about Democrats had a clear, positive message vs. 11% that carried a negative tone. That is roughly double the percentage of positive stories that we found in the media generally....For the top tier Democrats, the positive tilt was even more the case than for Democrats in general.”

Evening Newscasts: “The tone of coverage in the 30-minute evening newscasts was much more positive toward the Democrats than Republicans.” An accompanying chart shows that nearly four in ten evening news stories about Democrats (39.5%) were rated as positive, while just 17.1 percent were coded as negative. For Republicans, the figures were reversed: 37.2 percent negative, vs. 18.6 percent positive.

According to the raw data tables appended to the report, the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric had the biggest tilt in favor of the Democrats and against Republicans, while the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams was the most balanced (but still pro-Democratic).

Bolded Brian Williams for being the most balanced.. Good job Mr. Williams.

Morning Shows:
Exploring the raw data tables appended to the report, the morning shows look nearly as tilted as the evening news, with Democrats benefitting from 43.4 percent positive stories vs. 17.6 percent negative stories, compared to Republicans 26.8 percent positive vs. 31 percent negative.

Cable, Online and Talk Shows: The PEJ study found cable news overall to be just slightly pro-Democratic, with Democratic coverage 34% positive vs. 25% negative, compared with 29 percent positive and 30 percent negative for the GOP. MSNBC was the most pro-Democratic, Fox the most pro-Republican, with CNN somewhere in between.

The online sample — a survey of the top stories at CNN.com, Yahoo! News, MSNBC.com, Google News and AOL News — contained very few campaign stories, just 104 in five months. The tone of these stories was practically the same for both Republicans and Democrats, with twice as many positive stories as negative ones.

For talk radio, the group looked at both conservative and liberal talk radio, with the results basically balancing each other out — 14 to 18 percent positive for the Democrats and Republicans, respectively, compared to 67 and 70 percent negative. With one exception, the liberal hosts were the most partisan, never praising any of the top GOP candidates or criticizing Barack Obama or John Edwards. Hillary Clinton, however, the subject of more negative than positive reviews on the liberal shows — 17 percent positive vs. 33 percent negative.

Here's the study to view for yourself.
The Media Sectors | Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ)

I thought it was fairly interesting to say the least. I didn't find anything surprising actually. All the numbers seemed to make sense to me and seemed fairly accurate except the numbers of talk radio. I would have expected a more conservative leaning, but it is true that conservative talk radio is at least willing to say something bad about the GOP and a lot of the talk radio hosts are fed up right now. That might have something to do with it. There's probably a huge slant conservatively, but they're annoyed with the Republican politicians. Either way I figured some people would find this interesting, it is a fairly detailed study and there's a lot of good info.

[JaJae]

I found this to be fairly interesting:

Tone of Network Evening News Coverage by Party

% of Stories | Positive | Neutral | Negative
Democrats | 39.5 | 43.4 | 17.1
Republicans | 18.6 | 44.2 | 37.2

It's like an even reversal.

Also PBS had no positive stories about Republicans during the time of their sampling.

[JaJae]

Well here's the problem with the talk radio..


There's just not enough data. Also look at the scores for Hillary.. yikes.

[RMNIXON]

And public perception in general supports the same thing. How many Abu Ghraib stories were run on the front pages of the New York Times?

To some extent we all have bias. I think the honest way to keep it in check is to acknowledge this, especially in news reporting.

But I have encountered many on the internet with clear left-wing views on most subjects who think they represent mainstream thought. They wonder why candidates in the extreme get creamed durring elections in all but a few districts that are out of step with the rest of the country. I actually had a long running debate on a board with a poster who insisted NPR had no leftwing bias.

I am sure "he" was happy with everything they said!

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by JaJae

There's just not enough data. Also look at the scores for Hillary.. yikes.

Even on the Liberal Talk shows!!!!!!

[6SpeedTA95]

There's a lot of moderate stuff on talk radio, they do talk about both sides far more than print/video media but they have a right lean in general. Just like the print/video leans left.

Having said that the itnernet is one of the bbest places to get news, only downside is many of those far left sources are very established on the net. But it can be sifted through unlike what we get on TV.

[7960]

Originally Posted by JaJae

Well here's the problem with the talk radio..


There's just not enough data. Also look at the scores for Hillary.. yikes.

Who decides if a story is positive, negative, or neutral?

[6SpeedTA95]

On talk radio coverage they have to be considering local voices too and not just the big guys, most o fthe big guys are VERY conservative.

[Ardentfrost]

Whoa, talk radio isn't conservative biased? Just this evening I was trying to find a talk radio station that wasn't sports or conservative... I failed. There were 3 sports channels and 4 conservative talk shows (and a couple international stations)

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by 7960

Who decides if a story is positive, negative, or neutral?

This was the methodology for determining scores.

Coding Team & Process

Using the existing data in the Index and adding the codes for new variables, the team responsible for performing the content analysis is made up of the five trained coders, a coding administrator, and a senior research methodologist on the PEJ staff.

In coder-training, inter-coder reliability tests were conducted for all variables. For the variables derived from PEJ’s weekly Index, the average level agreement was 96%. For the new variables, initial tests found levels of agreement of 80% or greater for all but two variables (election topic and story impact). For those two variables, clarifications were made to the codebook and additional training implemented. An additional test was conducted later in the process and both variables reached a level above 80% agreement. In total, testing was conducted on 5% of the sample. In addition, the coding administrator monitored coding throughout the process to ensure levels were maintained.

The specific levels of agreement for the variables in this study were as follows:

Dateline: 92%

Recurring Lead: 83%

Primary Figure: 92%

Tone for Primary Figure: 86%

Story Trigger: 83%

Story Impact: 85%

Election Topic: 83%

[RMNIXON]

The Story actually got some press:


Even Harvard Finds The Media Biased

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, November 01, 2007 4:30 PM PT

Journalism: The debate is over. A consensus has been reached. On global warming? No, on how Democrats are favored on television, radio and in the newspapers.

Just like so many reports before it, a joint survey by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and Harvard's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy — hardly a bastion of conservative orthodoxy — found that in covering the current presidential race, the media are sympathetic to Democrats and hostile to Republicans.

Democrats are not only favored in the tone of the coverage. They get more coverage period. This is particularly evident on morning news shows, which "produced almost twice as many stories (51% to 27%) focused on Democratic candidates than on Republicans."



The most flagrant bias, however, was found in newspapers. In reviewing front-page coverage in 11 newspapers, the study found the tone positive in nearly six times as many stories about Democrats as it was negative.

Breaking it down by candidates, the survey found that Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were the favorites. "Obama's front page coverage was 70% positive and 9% negative, and Clinton's was similarly 61% positive and 13% negative."

In stories about Republicans, on the other hand, the tone was positive in only a quarter of the stories; in four in 10 it was negative.

The study also discovered that newspaper stories "tended to be focused more on political matters and less on issues and ideas than the media overall. In all, 71% of newspaper stories concentrated on the 'game,' compared with 63% overall."

Television has a similar problem. Only 10% of TV stories were focused on issues, and here, too, Democrats get the better of it.

Reviewing 154 stories on evening network newscasts over the course of 109 weeknights, the survey found that Democrats were presented in a positive light more than twice as often as they were portrayed as negative. Positive tones for Republicans were detected in less than a fifth of stories while a negative tone was twice as common.

The gap between Democrats and Republicans narrows on cable TV, but it's there nonetheless. Stories about Democrats were positive in more than a third of the cases, while Republicans were portrayed favorably in fewer than 29%. Republican led in unfriendly stories 30.4% to 25.5%.

CNN was the most hostile toward Republicans, MSNBC, surprisingly, the most positive. MSNBC was also the most favorable toward Democrats (47.2%), Fox (36.8%) the most critical.

The anti-GOP attitude also lives on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition." There, Democrats were approvingly covered more than a third as often as Republicans. Negative coverage of Democrats was a negligible 5.9%. It seemed to be reserved for Republicans, who were subject to one-fifth of the program's disparaging reports.

Even talk radio, generally considered a bastion of conservatism, has been relatively rough on the GOP. On conservative shows, Obama got more favorable treatment (27.8%) than Rudy Giuliani (25%). Sen. John McCain got a 50% favorability rating while Mitt Romney led the three GOP candidates with 66.7%.

The PEG-Shorenstein effort is only the latest to conclude that the mainstream media tilt left. Others include Stanley Rothman and Robert Lichter's groundbreaking 1986 book "The Media Elite"; "A Measure of Media Bias," a 2005 paper written by professors from UCLA and the University of Missouri; and Bernard Goldberg's two books, "Bias" and "Arrogance." All underscore the media's leftward leanings.

The media, of course, insist they are careful to keep personal opinions out of their coverage. But the facts tell another story — one that can't be edited or spiked.

IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- Even Harvard Finds The Media Biased


If you read a business publication?

[Scrum]

My neighbor who rapes children gets more negative media than my friend who picks his nose and eats it.

OMG media bias!

[kinggovernor]

sounds about right

[SoFlaJDM]

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

sounds about right

[kinggovernor]

Originally Posted by SoFlaJDM

I may not have made a great intellectual post, but this study does sound about right to me. I don't know why you would have a problem with it

[motivez]

What dates did they look at stories?

If it's been over the last several years, I'm not surprised that there are more favorable stories on Democrats than Republicans, what with all the corruption and incompetence and sex scandals on the Republican side and the failed, unpopular war... started by a Republican President..

I don't think that necessarily represents a bias, rather a reflection of the political climate in the country and reality.

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by motivez

What dates did they look at stories?

If it's been over the last several years, I'm not surprised that there are more favorable stories on Democrats than Republicans, what with all the corruption and incompetence and sex scandals on the Republican side and the failed, unpopular war... started by a Republican President..

I don't think that necessarily represents a bias, rather a reflection of the political climate in the country and reality.

It's in the link, but I think it was about six months starting in the first quarter of this year.

[motivez]

Then I don't really find it that surprising.

The Republican party has had so much go wrong for them that there aren't even any red states left as far as Bush's popularity is concerned.. Utah finally went below 50%:



I'm sure if the study was done in the run up to the Iraq war you'd see similar numbers in favor of the Republicans.

[SoFlaJDM]

Originally Posted by motivez

Then I don't really find it that surprising.

The Republican party has had so much go wrong for them that there aren't even any red states left as far as Bush's popularity is concerned.. Utah finally went below 50%:



I'm sure if the study was done in the run up to the Iraq war you'd see similar numbers in favor of the Republicans.

ouch

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by motivez