The
MRC and Liberal Media Bias: Creating Their Own Enemy
July 12, 2002
By Mark Weber
It's
an Orwellian irony: Conservative pundits can only justify
their overwhelming domination of the news media if they can
prove that Liberal Media Bias exists. Right-wingers need not
present an opposing point of view as long as Liberal Media
Bias ensures that left-wing thought is well represented.
Fox balances ABC. Rush balances CBS. The Wall St. Journal
balances NBC. It's only fair - but only if you can prove that
Liberal Media Bias is alive and well.
Enter the Media Research Center, Brent Bozell's media hit
squad for the right, running on a healthy dose of Scaife money
and lucre from other conservative cash cows. Bozell (Bill
Buckley's nephew) has been charged with what may be the most
important job in conservative circles � verifying that Liberal
Media Bias exists, and therefore vindicating the overwhelming
amount of conservative punditry that we are subjected to daily.
How does MRC do it? Their website is full of the old conservative
standbys: anecdotes about biased journalists, particularly
those of the TV-celebrity type; quotes taken out of context
purporting to show Liberal Media Bias; silly "Viewer Polls"
that are designed to show off the good common sense of MRC
acolytes.
But MRC also loves to put a pseudo-scientific patina on their
findings. Thanks to the Nexis news database, MRC can gather
"data" that they can then "analyze" using strict "methodologies"
that lead to "objective" conclusions about the media.
MRC's latest study is draped in this pretense of scholarship.
"Burying the Liberal Label on Network News" (released last
week) revels in its methodological soundness; apparently,
we are supposed to be impressed by the academic tone of the
study. Right-wing pundits will undoubtedly quote it ad nauseum
over the next several months.
On closer inspection, however, this report does nothing more
than expose MRC's talent for partisan sophistry and sloppy
research.
At the beginning of "Burying the Liberal Label," MRC juxtaposes
their past work against a study by Stanford linguist Geoffrey
Nunberg. Nunberg was compelled to take a look at the media
after reading Bernard Goldberg's "Bias," a book MRC lauds
for its exposure of liberal tendencies in network television
news.
Nunberg compared the total number of times that a politician's
name was used in several different newspapers to the number
of times it was used near the label "conservative" or "liberal"
(he admits that it was easier for him to check newspapers
than network broadcasts, and that television may be different
than newspapers, but probably not by much).
To his surprise, liberal politicians were much more likely
to be labeled than conservatives. This, of course, flies in
the face of every bit of "research" the MRC has conducted.
"Burying the Liberal Label" is essentially a rebuttal to
Nunberg. But rather than follow his example and compare the
number of times a politician is labeled to the number of times
she is not, MRC instead decided to count up the total number
of "liberal/conservative" labels on the three network evening
newscasts.
The results? Big surprise - a "conservative" label is used
much more often than a "liberal" label: 992 to 247. Numerical
proof that here must be Liberal Media Bias. Q.E.D. So there.
By this logic, if Brent Bozell bought a new fishing pole,
took it down to the lake, and caught three bass and one sunny,
he would say that the pole was three times more biased toward
catching bass. It wouldn�t occur to him that maybe there were
more bass in the lake.
A much more plausible explanation for the greater use of
the "conservative" label would be that conservatives get a
lot more airtime on the networks than liberals do. In fact,
Nunberg's study suggests just this: his five liberal politicians
got considerably fewer mentions, even in "liberal" newspapers,
than his five conservatives did.
Is this proof of Conservative Media Bias? Of course not;
it only shows that the numbers game MRC plays is rigged to
give them the results that they and their funders want.
But even if we accept MRC's goofy premise, this study fails
on its own terms. The MRC's methodology has holes large enough
to drive a newsvan through.
To massage the data for "Burying the Liberal Label," MRC
winnowed down the number of uses to only those it deemed relevant
to the study. Most of the "methodology" involved selecting
which labels should stay or go.
For example, MRC eliminated all uses of the labels that are
not "Swithin the U.S. political context." Time out � why do
all of those get eliminated? I can understand removing a description
of "a deeply conservative Islamist," but what about a label
of, say, Tony Blair as a "liberal"? There are plenty of Western
world leaders whose labeling should be relevant to this study.
Next, the study removed all uses of labels by "news sources."
If, for example, a reporter repeats that a Republican calls
a Democrat a "liberal," that doesn�t count.
But why not? The reporter is using editorial license to make
her point. If she uses the quote, and then calls the Republican
a "conservative," she gets dinged for using a conservative
label but not for using a liberal one. She wouldn�t repeat
the label for the Democrat � it's already been used. Why doesn�t
MRC believe that editorial bias is relevant?
It gets sloppier. MRC also doesn�t count sound bites, where
a politician can label himself or someone else. So a network
can choose to run a string of clips with Republicans calling
Democrats "tax-and-spend liberals," and not get dinged, but
if they describe Bush as a "compassionate conservative," they�re
showing bias.
All of this methodological madness, however, is not nearly
as bad as the premise on which the study is based. The use
of the word "conservative" more often than the word "liberal"
in no way betrays Liberal Media Bias.
During the five years of the study, conservatives dominated
the Congress and won (sorry, stole) a presidential election.
Conservatives have increasingly commanded the political debate
in this country. Republicans proudly identify themselves as
"conservatives"; Democrats shy away from being labeled "liberals."
All of these factors contribute to the increased use of the
"conservative" label in newscasts.
In fact, the overwhelming use of the word "conservative"
on the nightly news suggests quite the opposite of Liberal
Media Bias. Conservatives are setting the agenda and getting
the lion's share of the face-time. Liberals have been pushed
off to the side, unable to make their case to the public.
The right has taken over the mainstream.
But don�t tell that Brent Bozell. He's getting paid to point
out the enemy � even if he has to create one out of cooked
numbers.
Sources:
Media Research Center � "Burying
the Liberal Label on Network News"
Geoffrey Nunberg - "On
the Bias"
Tompaine.com � Background
on the Media Research Center
MediaTransparency � Sources
of MRC's funding
Mark Weber is a writer and composer whose political work
includes arts advocacy.
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