http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_10_24_atrios_archive.html#109914577799608335

Does that statement appear to be from someone who’s taking an objective approach to his work here?

Now we have this from the Media Matters mission statement:

“Conservative misinformation is defined as news or commentary presented in the media that is not accurate, reliable, or credible and that forwards the conservative agenda.”

Huh? They’re out to expose “unreliable conservative commentary” in the media? Isn’t that why it’s called “commentary?” I believe we were talking about bias in actual news stories and reporting, not bloviating talking heads.

Also from their site, here’s a book recently published by Media Matters that summarizes their MO:

http://mediamattersactionnetwork.org/book/

Again, this book is out to attack “commentary” by right – wing pundits, not actual news stories. Who among us takes idiots like Limbaugh, Coulter and Hannity seriously here? Again, isn’t commentary by it’s very definition biased?

This is similar to me quoting something from Brent Bozell, who’s stated goal is to counter the liberal press. I won’t do it, because it’s patently obvious where his sympathies lie on this issue.

Peter, if you want to kid yourself there’s not a prominent leftward bias in the media, then do so, by all means…clearly, nothing I show you will change your mind, so why beat my head against the wall?

Meanwhile, in the real world, the sun still rises and sets…

The first cite posits that the Times gives more play to “Democratic issues” (e.g., the environment, health care, etc.) when Republicans are in office. It then concludes that “this is consistent with the hypothesis that the New York Times has a Democratic partisanship” because Republicans are “weak” on those issues. Huh? If the Times runs a story on civil rights when a Republican is in office, it’s a deliberate attempt to make Republicans look bad? The Times is supposed to allocate its stories so civil rights gets the same number of column inches in a Republican administration as a Democratic administration? To quote Chief Justice Marshall: this is an absurdity too gross to be insisted upon.

The second cite compares Republican and Democratic administrations. The problem is that we’ve had one Democratic President since 1980, so basically they are comparing the coverage Clinton received with what the GOP got. Well, the economy was pretty good under Clinton – in fact, better under Clinton than any Republican administration since Eisenhower. Why shouldn’t he get positive coverage in the press?

As for the third cite, I’ll let Jacques’s post speak for itself. Moreover, it seems to have the same methodology as your Media Matters cite in post 39 – they do the same thing and come up with opposite results.

As for the fourth cite: there may very well be a correlation between journalists, media owners, and ideology, and I wouldn’t dispute that they tilt left. (By and large, they’re pretty intelligent people, so I would expect them to be liberals. Just kidding.) However, I think that the inference which is drawn (i.e., that it leads to liberal coverage) is completely incorrect. Rather, I think that most journalists bend over backwards to avoid a liberal tilt in their reporting and go too far in the other direction. Hence I think the end result – what you see on TV and read in newspapers – averages out to tilt right.

If the media tilted left: why did Al Gore and John Kerry get such a hard time in their campaigns, when Bush more or less got a free pass? And do you seriously think that Bill Clinton got a fair shake from the press – and especially the New York Times?

As for Media Matters: it is most definitely a partisan outlet (although no more so than the American Enterprise Institute cited in post 31), and it has the stated aim of exposing the conservative bias in the media. I don’t expect them to go looking for stories showing how Keith Olbermann uses his eyebrows the same way Brit Hume does (except with a GOP target). However, I think they are very useful in compiling a copious assortment of examples which, taken in their totality, show a very definite right wing tilt in the media. Moreover, the verbatim transcripts are indisputable. The fact that they are polemicists does not negate the facts they assemble.

So, I know they’re partisan, but how does this make them dishonest? If you link to an article of theirs that makes a point, why is that a problem? I mean, it’s like you linking to any other rightie blog, isn’t it?

a more apt comparison would be on one side, we have Fox News, on the other ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and MSNBC…

With a “fair and balanced” definition of “side” that would be apt.

Personally, I’ll stick with the Pacifica Radio comparison.

Here’s just one example of how their ‘methods’ reach their desired conclusions…