Sunday, July 27, 2008

YES VIRGINIA, THERE IS MEDIA BIAS

And FAUX News is the worst of them all!

In study, evidence of liberal-bias bias

Cable talking heads accuse broadcast networks of liberal bias -- but a think tank finds that ABC, NBC and CBS were tougher on Barack Obama than on John McCain in recent weeks.

By JAMES RAINEY, ON THE MEDIA
July 27, 2008
LA Times

The Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University, where researchers have tracked network news content for two decades, found that ABC, NBC and CBS were tougher on Obama than on Republican John McCain during the first six weeks of the general-election campaign.

During the evening news, the majority of statements from reporters and anchors on all three networks are neutral, the center found. And when network news people ventured opinions in recent weeks, 28% of the statements were positive for Obama and 72% negative. Network reporting also tilted against McCain, but far less dramatically, with 43% of the statements positive and 57% negative, according to the Washington-based media center.

By the way, Lichter's group also surveys the first half-hour of "Special Report With Brit Hume," Fox News' answer to the network evening news shows.

The review found that, since the start of the general-election campaign, "Special Report" offered more opinions on the two candidates than all three networks combined. No surprise there. Previous research has shown Fox News to be opinion-heavy. "Special Report" was tougher than the networks on Obama -- with 79% of the statements about the Democrat negative, compared with 61% negative on McCain.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Um, thanks for putting out yet another study on this.

I, however, already knew it. First experience at age 5, 50 years ago.

Virginia

(AKA Ginny in CO)