New UCLA Study: Most Media Leftwing Biased

I think any rational person already knows this. It's interesting some of the deductions they make. I don't think anyone would accuse UCLA of being "conservative" so I can't see how anyone can accuse them of having an agenda with this.

www.newsroom.ucla.edu...

Tell me it ain't so!


This is not true. This is a blatant lie. Media does not lie and is not biased towards any type wing. Only those in denial are surprised by these unfounded findings. I will be petitioning to have my name changed from Baghdad Bob to Captain Obvious. Move along....nothing to see here.






seekerof

[edit on 18-12-2005 by Seekerof]

The media is not really inherently leftist. It's inherently elitist. Elitists are inherently leftist.

This is also the reason for leftists in academia and in Hollywood-- it's not really about leftist ideology-- it's about being seen to be a superior, enlightened individual. For some reason, people have come to believe that the shallow nonsense spewed by left-wing demagogues is somehow more enlightened than the shallow nonsense spewed by right-wing demagogues.

So all of those who like to pride themselves on their keen intellects, despite the fact that they're really capable of nothing more than the essentially Pavlovian process of memorizing dissociated bits of information and regurgitating them on command, tend to gravitate toward the left-wing because everybody knows that lefitsts are smart and enlightened, and after all, what would their coworkers/neighbors/friends think if they didn't?

Bob..you have me busting out laughing at my desk. Almost spilled my coffee reading your post.

you posted:

"This is also the reason for leftists in academia and in Hollywood-- it's not really about leftist ideology-- it's about being seen to be a superior, enlightened individual. For some reason, people have come to believe that the shallow nonsense spewed by left-wing demagogues is somehow more enlightened than the shallow nonsense spewed by right-wing demagogues. "

Capital olde man..capital!!

It makes me want to puke whenever I see another academia or Hollywood "expert" on national or international affairs speaking publically.

And Seekerof...I did not know you used to be a PJ in the USAF. I was at one time stationed at Keflavik, Iceland with a HH3 helicopter outfit. Several PJs in our outfit on the three HH3s stationed their back in those days. Thaks for your service to our nation.

Orangetom

Another finding that contradicted conventional wisdom was that the Drudge Report was slightly left of center.

"One thing people should keep in mind is that our data for the Drudge Report was based almost entirely on the articles that the Drudge Report lists on other Web sites," said Groseclose. "Very little was based on the stories that Matt Drudge himself wrote. The fact that the Drudge Report appears left of center is merely a reflection of the overall bias of the media."

Yet another finding that contradicted conventional wisdom relates to National Public Radio, often cited by conservatives as an egregious example of a liberal news outlet. But according to the UCLA-University of Missouri study, it ranked eighth most liberal of the 20 that the study examined.

"By our estimate, NPR hardly differs from the average mainstream news outlet," Groseclose said. "Its score is approximately equal to those of Time, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report and its score is slightly more conservative than The Washington Post's. If anything, government‑funded outlets in our sample have a slightly lower average ADA score (61), than the private outlets in our sample (62.8)."

Who thinks Drudge is left of center? Well, at least we know NPR is fair and balanced!

In retrospect of your post....

I sat up one night after shutting down this computer and decided to watch some movies on the tube.

I wound up on a channel showing a program called "Left of the Dial" it was about this radio program on the dial called "Air America " and the 2004 presidential election.
What made me recall this movie on that particular night was the statement by one of the DJs on this Air America station named Randi Rhodes. Your statement about appearing to be a superior and enlightened individual.
As I recall the program...the election returns were coming in that night and some of the middle America states the tallys were coming in and some of them were for Bush. The response of Randi Rhodes several times in the movie...was .." no one lives in those states!!!" This is enlightened and superior????? Not to me..it is total ignorance and a concept of royalty...a deserving entitlement mentality. It comes across as feudalism ..as if they deserve to win..they deserve the office, deserve to play through. I found it highly innappropriate and offensive. I would find it so if the republicans did this too. This is not leadership material and that is my main point.
If this is the best one party or another can do ..they are along way from leadership material.
I conclude the same thing about media bias..no matter who is doing this.

Thank for your post Bob.
Orangetom

They are here to protect your freedoms and your rights as Americans.

Those left wing loonies who know nothing actually said this?

I don't consider myself left or right (infact 90 degrees), but I would take the left over the right anyday.
Remember, the Nazi party was right wing, so was Mussolini. The right, at least in Europe, is historicaly racist (national front, white wolves, British nationalist party). Fascism is a form of right wing politics....
In the US you have the Christian Patriots Movement, remember them? The Aryan Nation, the KKK, Grey Wolves etc....

Is that what you all want? I don't get it.

Why not think for yourselfs?

"Right wing, left wing, you can stuff the lot"

While I haven't seen that particular movie, I do know the attitude of which you speak. Having been born and raised in one of the "flyover states," I've seen it over and over, and particularly in the past few years.

As a matter of fact, I've said before and continue to maintain that the single thing that most hurt Kerry's election bid was his, and his party's, obvious disdain for all of those that they consider to be beneath them, which seems to be about 3/4 of the nation.

Democrats seem to still be baffled by the fact that they didn't win in 2004. They're convinced that there MUST have been some sort of fraud involved because they just can't understand how it is that Bush could've won any other way.

The thing that they seem utterly incapable of grasping is that most Americans simply had no desire to vote for somebody who so obviously thinks that we're all subhuman idiots. Kerry's elitism and his overt disdain for everybody in "middle America" had more to do with his loss in 2004 than ANY other factor, including anything that Bush might've done or not done.

As an independent, I have no attachment to either party. As a minarchist, I feel that both of them are a threat to me and to all of us. However, simply as a human, I find the smug elitist attitude of the Democrats to be patently offensive, not least because, when it gets right down to it, their dogma is just as shallow and just as reactionary and just as self-serving as that of the Republicans.

Excerpts:
While the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal is conservative, the newspaper's news pages are liberal, even more liberal than The New York Times. The Drudge Report may have a right-wing reputation, but it leans left. Coverage by public television and radio is conservative compared to the rest of the mainstream media. Meanwhile, almost all major media outlets tilt to the left.

These are just a few of the surprising findings from a UCLA-led study, which is believed to be the first successful attempt at objectively quantifying bias in a range of media outlets and ranking them accordingly.

"I suspected that many media outlets would tilt to the left because surveys have shown that reporters tend to vote more Democrat than Republican," said Tim Groseclose, a UCLA political scientist and the study's lead author. "But I was surprised at just how pronounced the distinctions are."

Of the 20 major media outlets studied, 18 scored left of center, with CBS' "Evening News," The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times ranking second, third and fourth most liberal behind the news pages of The Wall Street Journal.

Only Fox News' "Special Report With Brit Hume" and The Washington Times scored right of the average U.S. voter.

The most centrist outlet proved to be the "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer." CNN's "NewsNight With Aaron Brown" and ABC's "Good Morning America" were a close second and third.



Perhaps the definitive answers to arguments that have been raging on ATS and throughout the U.S. political arena for years are finally available for all to see. Maybe now we can at least let the argument over media bias go and begin to devote our energies towards other real issues. Looks like the liberals were right about Fox and the conservatives were right, too - about almost all of the other media outlets.

And more importantly, news organizations can start returning to just reporting the news instead of trying to put their own 'spin' on what they send out to the American public.


[edit on 12/18/2005 by centurion1211]

Your going to have to educate me as to exactly what is meant by the term

"flyover states"

I have heard this term a couple of times but never made the association with any significance.

What exactly is meant by the term "flyover state"

I dont seem to be up to speed with this new term!!

Thanks,
Orangetom

Must be something wrong with me..I never quite got that impression of Kerry...elitism..per se. I did get that elitism impression of his wife. I also dont believe that among most American women Kerry's wife was a good representation of women in this country....hence it reflected on him in the voting booth among women. And women are a huge influential voting block in this country.
I also got that impression of Al Gore. Elitism. I also got that impression of much of the media shilling for thier respective political partys...elitism.
I dont really care which party is doing this...it doesnt ring well with me. More like a dull thud.

Thanks for your post Bob,
Orangetom

Originally posted by orangetom1999
Your going to have to educate me as to exactly what is meant by the term

"flyover states"

I have heard this term a couple of times but never made the association with any significance.

What exactly is meant by the term "flyover state"

I dont seem to be up to speed with this new term!!

Thanks,
Orangetom

It's hardly a new term, but it can be considered 'elitist', because it refers to all the states in the middle of the U.S. - the ones the elites from the east and west coasts "fly over" to get to the other coast. You see, they think they're not worth visiting. Of course these states are almost all considered "red states". You know, the ones elites think are full of stupid religious people.

Thanks for the update on the term "fly over". Somehow I never quite looked at it in that context..yes I understood flying over these states but not in such a negative connotation.
I have always considered these states to be places where American values and ideas still exist. Where towns and many citys still have individuality and its not totally the same McDonalds, the same shopping mall.
When I am traveling and have time I love to get off the interstates and stop in small towns where main street is still the main street and everything is not stamped out like a xerox machine and not made of plastic or fiberglass.
Ive been to big citys like Los Angeles and New York ..Philadelphia, Boston et al. Im not impressed with them.
I am always resentful of celebreties and media people who profile stories as if Hollywood or California or New York City represent all of America. I find this type of conduct in the media outlets to be disgusting. These places do not represent me. They never will.
Oh..I also find this red state blue state thinking horrible. It is divisive and not uniting in its workings. Its usage smacks of entitlement thinking. As I am given to understand it was devised by someone resentful over the results of the last election and seemed to have caught on among the public. Nevertheless it is dividing in its nature .


Thanks for the update and the definition
Orangetom

As someone who has lived in several of the fly over states and the West Coast, but have traveled to 47 of the 50 states, I have to agree with you.

Plus, every time I've ever spent time visiting or just walking around in one of the big cities on either coast I felt like I needed a long hot shower to wash away everything I touched and that touched me.

Originally posted by Apoc
I think any rational person already knows this. It's interesting some of the deductions they make.

I wonder... Back when the war was just starting and there were news coorespondents embedded with the soldiers in Iraq as they moved into Baghdad, and every day we saw the progress of the war in a positive light, there was the War room, the big map of Iraq on the floor and it was all in the spirit of good... were the media considered left-wing biased then?

Because it seems to me that back then, the news media were much more supportive of the war and they didn't ask tough questions of the president and it could be said that they were 'right-leaning' because of that. These days, they're not so supportive the war and they're is the occasional question to the president that has meaning and now they're considered left-leaning.

So, don't you agree that back in 2003/2004 the media were right-leaning?

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic

Originally posted by Apoc
I think any rational person already knows this. It's interesting some of the deductions they make.

I wonder... Back when the war was just starting and there were news coorespondents embedded with the soldiers in Iraq as they moved into Baghdad, and every day we saw the progress of the war in a positive light, there was the War room, the big map of Iraq on the floor and it was all in the spirit of good... were the media considered left-wing biased then?

The embedded reporters gave "positive" descriptions of the war - because they were right there and could see exactly what was going on. But their fellow media personalities back here were a completely different story. I guess you don't recall the GI's out of supplies stories or the attempts to relate the war to "being bogged down" viet nam because the soldiers had to stop for sand storms.

So, don't you agree that back in 2003/2004 the media were right-leaning?

So, no. I think they (the embedded reporters only) were reporting accurately. Maybe doing so is now considered "right-leaning"? Hmmm.

I think you'll have to start just facing the truth that the left-leaning media has been finally exposed by legitimate research for what it is.

[edit on 12/19/2005 by centurion1211]

Originally posted by centurion1211
I think they (the embedded reporters only) were reporting accurately. Maybe doing so is now considered "right-leaning"? Hmmm.

That's exactly what I'm thinking. Back in 2003, accurately reporting what was happening, because it supported the war seemed to be 'right-leaning' and today accurately reporting what is happening, because it the war is such a disaster and so unpopular seems to be left-leaning.

Whenever we don't like how things are being reported, we blame it on the slant of the media. I'm not saying the media's not slanted, but I remember a time when the media supported the war.

I think you'll have to start just facing the truth that the left-leaning media has been finally exposed by legitimate research for what it is.

I have already faced the truth that the war is very unpopular and it's showing in the media. When the war was popular, that also showed in the media.

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic

I have already faced the truth that the war is very unpopular and it's showing in the media. When the war was popular, that also showed in the media.

The left-leaning bias shows up in way more reporting than just about the war. That's too narrow a focus. It is also quite evident in election coverage, foreign policy, and the reporting of economic news. Guess you might need to face that, too.

[edit on 12/19/2005 by centurion1211]

...or maybe, it is just "Big Businness" playing all of you for puppets?

Those Left Wing and Right Wings media sources are all owned by the same people for christs sake...they all know each other, go to dinner parties together and so on and so fourth...

The Media is made so that people who fit into one of many groups will buy one of many newspapers it is just that simple. If you are anti-Bush, you'll buy something that reflects this compaired to those who are pro-Bush. While the market allows them to sell more that is anti they will and when ti shifts they will.

Capitalism 101