Difference between revisions of "Liberal bias"

Revision as of 00:42, April 9, 2007

One manifestation of liberal bias is partisan bias towards liberal positions or policies in many mainstream media.

The following persons, television programs or media outlets have frequently been said to express a well known liberal bias.

• The New York Times
• ABC, CBS^{[Citation Needed]}
• Dan Rather^[1]
• CNN^{[Citation Needed]}
• LA Times^{[Citation Needed]}
• Michael Moore
• The Daily Show
• Real Time with Bill Maher
• The United Nations^{[Citation Needed]}
• Washington Post^{[Citation Needed]}
• MSNBC
• Communism for Dummies
• Liberals

CBS insider Bernard Goldberg wrote the definitive book on liberal bias in the media, simply entitled Bias.

• He asserts that an "inability to see liberal views as liberal views ... is at the heart of the entire problem."
• He wrote: "Pauline Kael, for years the brilliant film critic at the New Yorker, was completely baffled about how Richard Nixon could have beaten George McGovern in 1972: 'Nobody I know voted for Nixon.' Never mind that Nixon carried 49 states. She wasn't kidding."^[2]

He also suggested that liberals don't even see their liberal values as "liberal":

• "Their views on all the big social issues ... aren't liberal views at all. They're simply reasonable views, shared by all the reasonable people the media elites mingle with ..."^[3]

Media Bias

A 2005 report^[4] by Tim Groseclose and Jeffrey Milyo political scientists at UCLA concluded that, based on estimated ideological scores, all of the news outlets they examined, except Fox News’ Special Report and the Washington Times, showed a strong liberal bias (scores to the left of the average member of Congress). 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.

"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." ^[5]

References

1. ↑ During a phone conversation, Bernard Goldberg asked him, "What do you consider the New York Times? Rather answered, "Middle of the road." ([[Bias (book)|]], page 221)
2. ↑ (Bias (book), page 222-223)
3. ↑ (Bias (book), page 222)
4. ↑ http://www.polisci.ucla.edu/faculty/groseclose/Media.Bias.pdf A MEASURE OF MEDIA BIAS
5. ↑ http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=6664