FUN WITH NUMBERS

A UCLA study purporting to show widespread liberal bias in the media has been making the rounds in WingnutWorld. The HTML version of the study is here and you can find criticisms of the flaws here and here but I want to concentrate on "face validity."

The authors use the Americans for Democratic Action ratings of congress critters and then look at how often each one cites a particular think tank or policy group. They then make a composite rating for each think tank or policy group based on how often each critter mentions it in his or her speeches. They also decided that the centrist voter in America has an ADA rating of 50.1. The ADA scale goes from 100 (perfect liberal) to 0 (perfect conservative).

OK, here's the fun part.

What would you guess would be the think tank or policy group closest to the center? Well, if you were thinking of either the Heritage Foundation (20) or the Consumer Federation of America (81.7), you would be wrong.

The winner in this contest is ... the ACLU!!!! (49.8).

Now, what would you guess would be the most liberal of the major news outlet?

CBS Evening News (73.7)? NPR Morning Edition (66.3)? Nope, it's the Wall Street Journal!!!! (85.1).

You probably won't get these tidbits from the wingnuts but it would be a good thing to inform them, just to hear the sputtering and spewing.