Drudge Report

[jasonxctf]

obviously many of you here read the Drudge Report. Even though I am a (D) I read it on somewhat of a regular basis.

 

Most of the time, I think their reporting style/links are fair. They dont always take sides.

 

Last nite I had my first issue with them. The had a link on their website stating that Bush's Poll Numbers improve to 47%. I clicked the link to abc news, read it and had no problems with it. Later in the nite i surfed over to CNN's website and saw that their poll from yesterday showed that Bush's numbers had dropped to 41%. Obviously two polls, with two totally different findings.

 

Wouldn't it be appropriate for Drudge to provide links to both... especially since they didn't conduct either???

[FlaSoxxJim]

I prefer the Drudge Retort, but yeah I check out the other one sometimes as well.

 

The divergent poll conclusions are all over the place the last couple of days. I'm sure Drudge will have links to both the stories that show a bump and also those that don't pretty soon.

[southsider2k5]

I guess this is an interesting place to mention this... UCLA did a media study on the respective news sites and networks. It is kinda interesting, but since Drudge is specifically mentioned, this study actually ranks it as Centrist.

 

http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=6664

[FlaSoxxJim]

I guess this is an interesting place to mention this... UCLA did a media study on the respective news sites and networks.  It is kinda interesting, but since Drudge is specifically mentioned, this study actually ranks it as Centrist.

 

http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=6664

 

I'd pretty much agree, compared to the rest of the field.

[YASNY]

I prefer the Drudge Retort, but yeah I check out the other one sometimes as well.

 

The divergent poll conclusions are all over the place the last couple of days.  I'm sure Drudge will have links to both the stories that show a bump and also those that don't pretty soon.

 

That kind of sounds like MSNBC removing that poll about the death penalty after 72% voted in favor of it.

[Rex Kickass]

If they take the stories that his site actually authors, I think it would move much further in one direction.

[FlaSoxxJim]

That kind of sounds like MSNBC removing that poll about the death penalty after 72% voted in favor of it.

 

Maybe. All of these constantly updating portal pages are slow on the uptake on some things sometimes.

 

I didn't see that MSNBC had done that, btw. Too bad.

[Controlled Chaos]

I guess this is an interesting place to mention this... UCLA did a media study on the respective news sites and networks.  It is kinda interesting, but since Drudge is specifically mentioned, this study actually ranks it as Centrist.

 

http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=6664

Good read....and pretty much confirms what most on the right have always stated.

[southsider2k5]

If they take the stories that his site actually authors, I think it would move much further in one direction.

 

Those were omitted for a reason. They are opinion pieces, and not meant to be fact. They are looking more at how the facts are reported, and what facts are reported.

 

Since Groseclose and Milyo were more concerned with bias in news reporting than opinion pieces, which are designed to stake a political position, they omitted editorials and Op‑Eds from their tallies. This is one reason their study finds The Wall Street Journal more liberal than conventional wisdom asserts.

[Rex Kickass]

But Drudge Report "opinions" aren't labeled as such. They are labeled as fact.

 

I don't think that in any case you can determine bias on a mathematical scale. Those things are going to discount casual asides you'd hear from the anchor - which is more and more common on cable news. The merging of opinion and news stories without a clear line of demarcation is becoming more common.

[YASNY]

But Drudge Report "opinions" aren't labeled as such. They are labeled as fact.

 

I don't think that in any case you can determine bias on a mathematical scale. Those things are going to discount casual asides you'd hear from the anchor - which is more and more common on cable news. The merging of opinion and news stories without a clear line of demarcation is becoming more common.

 

Asides from the anchor is the type of stuff I've been saying has been happening on network news for 30 plus years. Now, it's dismissed.

[Rex Kickass]

I just find it hard to put a quantifiable number to political bias on a story. The methodology could be very flawed and what they determine to be liberal - may not be what liberal is. Same with centrist or conservative.

[jasonxctf]

well the drudge link that started this topic has been taken down without ever mentioning the other poll.

 

"FOR SHAME... DRUDGE REPORT... FOR SHAME"

[Texsox]

My take on media bias. If YAS and I both sat down to watch a perfectly nuetral newscast. He will think it has a liberal bias and I will think it has a conservative bias, and we will both be right. We will both pick a couple stories that were written in a manner that would seem to favor one side.

 

I'm not certain, and no one has really tried to explain, what an unbaised newspaper looks like. As soon as a reporter sits down to write a story with say 25 "facts" he has to put them in order. Bingo bias. Doesn't matter left, right, or middle. So of one article can't be unbiased, how about if that newspaper for the day is balanced? Year? How about if the WSJ and the NYT both have widespread circulation, do they unbias each other?

[Mercy!]

First, we all have biases. I think somewhere along the line, many began to associate that concept with unthinking, hateful prejudice and began to think that it was a bad thing. Why not consider bias as having a particular point of view based on your life experiences?

 

Regarding the national media, the whining about media bias in this day and age intrigues me. It’s a little like complaining about some of the trash on TV. Who in the world makes you watch or read these things? There’s a news source for every possible political persuasion these days. I make a big distinction between the legitimate journalism sources, the cable bloviators, and most anonymous bloggers, not that some bloggers don’t fill an important niche. And the bloviators I just never listen to.

 

Regarding Drudge, maybe he has moved more from the Right to the Center, and maybe his site is a useful source of information. But I put him in the category of self-loathing closet case who hurt a lot of people over the years, and I try not to click on his site just out of principle.

[Texsox]

First, we all have biases.  I think somewhere along the line, many began to associate that concept with unthinking, hateful prejudice and began to think that it was a bad thing.  Why not consider bias as having a particular point of view based on your life experiences?

 

Regarding the national media, the whining about media bias in this day and age intrigues me.  It’s a little like complaining about some of the trash on TV.  Who in the world makes you watch or read these things?  There’s a news source for every possible political persuasion these days.  I make a big distinction between the legitimate journalism sources, the cable bloviators, and most anonymous bloggers, not that some bloggers don’t fill an important niche.  And the bloviators I just never listen to.

 

Regarding Drudge, maybe he has moved more from the Right to the Center, and maybe his site is a useful source of information.  But I put him in the category of self-loathing closet case who hurt a lot of people over the years, and I try not to click on his site just out of principle.

 

I actually use his site as a jumping off point for the daily news. It is almost all links and they are usually some of the better sources. He also have a very good list of the world's news sites from the WSJ to the Village Voice, and a pretty good list of columnists.

[Balta1701]

I think This at least adds something to the discussion here.

 

In recent days, news outlets including CNN cited a study of several major media outlets, "A Measure of Media Bias" (pdf) by political scientist Timothy J. Groseclose of UCLA and economist Jeffrey D. Milyo of the University of Missouri-Columbia, purporting to demonstrate that America's news content has "a strong liberal bias." But the UCLA-led study employed a measure of "bias" so problematic that its findings are next to useless. In addition, the authors -- apparently new to media content analysis -- seem unaware of the substantial scholarly work that exists on the topic, yet they do cite a number of right-wing sources to provide support for their claims.

 

Given the study's conclusions (that the media is replete with liberal bias) and the study's failure to acknowledge its authors' conservative pedigree, it is not surprising that a number of conservative news outlets picked up the story, as did a few mainstream outlets. Conservative MSNBC host Tucker Carlson interviewed Milyo about the study on the December 19 edition of MSNBC's The Situation with Tucker Carlson. The study was also cited by anchor Jack Cafferty during the December 20 edition of CNN's The Situation Room; on the December 19 editions of Fox News' Fox & Friends and Special Report with Brit Hume; in a December 19 article in The Commercial Appeal of Memphis, Tennessee; and in a December 20 Investor's Business Daily editorial by Edward R. Stephanopoulos. CBS News' Public Eye weblog also featured a post about the study.

 

None of the outlets that reported on the study mentioned that the authors have previously received funding from the three premier conservative think tanks in the United States: the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI), The Heritage Foundation, and the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace....

 

Any quantitative study of this sort must take a complex idea -- in this case, "bias" -- and operationalize it into something that can be measured. But given its rather odd operationalization of "bias," it is perhaps unsurprising that the study's scheme leads to some categorizations no observer -- on the right or the left -- could take seriously, including the following:

 

    * National Rifle Association of America (NRA) scored a 45.9, making it "conservative" -- but just barely.

    * RAND Corporation, a nonprofit research organization (motto: "OBJECTIVE ANALYSIS. EFFECTIVE SOLUTIONS.") with strong ties to the Defense Department, scored a 60.4, making it a "liberal" group.

    * Council on Foreign Relations, whose tagline is "A Nonpartisan Resource for Information and Analysis" (its current president is a former Bush administration official; its board includes prominent Democrats and Republicans from the foreign policy establishment) scored a 60.2, making it a "liberal" group.

    * American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), bête noire of the right, scored a 49.8, putting it just on the "conservative" side of the ledger.

    * Center for Responsive Politics, a group whose primary purpose is the maintenance of databases on political contributions, scored a 66.9, making it highly "liberal."

    * Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a defense policy think tank whose board of directors is currently chaired by former Representative Dave McCurdy (D-OK), scored a 33.9, making it more "conservative" than AEI and than the National Taxpayers Union.

 

We leave to the reader the judgment on whether anyone could take seriously a coding scheme in which RAND is considered substantially more "liberal" than the ACLU.

 

But this is not the only problem with Groseclose and Milyo's study; they lump together advocacy groups and think tanks that perform dramatically different functions. For instance, according to their data, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is the third most-quoted group on the list. But stories about race relations that include a quote from an NAACP representative are unlikely to be "balanced" with quotes from another group on their list. Their quotes will often be balanced by quotes from an individual, depending on the nature of the story; however, because there are no pro-racism groups of any legitimacy (or on Groseclose and Milyo's list), such stories will be coded as having a "liberal bias." On the other hand, a quote from an NRA spokesperson can and often will be balanced with one from another organization on Groseclose and Milyo's list, Handgun Control, Inc. (Nonetheless, this reference is somewhat confusing, since Handgun Control was renamed the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence on June 14, 2001, and there is no reference to the Brady Campaign in the study or clarification of the name change; therefore, it is impossible to determine from reading the study if Groseclose and Milyo's score reflects post-2001 citations by legislators and the media of the group under its new name.)

Much more @ link. It's also worth noting that the study concludes that the most liberal paper in America is the Wall Street Journal. If nothing else, that should call a few of their conclusions into question. Edited December 22, 2005 by Balta1701