MEASURING MEDIA BIAS

Measuring Media Bias

Measuring Media Bias

Given the potential import of media bias beliefs, it is important that credible evidence be assembled to address this concern. Unfortunately, the main line of evidence available to substantiate claims of bias and the main line of evidence available to refute claims of bias suffer from serious methodological limitations. One typical but thorough study is Hofstetter's analysis of television news coverage of the 1972 presidential election (Gallown 2001)

Hofstetter found the overwhelming tone of the coverage was neutral for both Democrats and Republicans. That is, in almost eight in ten stories, negative points were balanced with positive points, or there was no positive or negative angle to the story at all. In effect, “most coverage was neutral or ambiguous.”25 Hofstetter argued that his work “certainly challenges studies that assert strong biases in favor of, or in opposition to, a candidate are present in news coverage.” Similarly, Domke and colleagues found little evidence of any partisan imbalance in their massive content analysis of newspaper coverage of the 1996 presidential campaign. They tabulated the ratio of positive paragraphs written about each candidate to the number of negative paragraphs written on each. Beyond studies of reporters' ideas and campaign coverage, there have been considerable efforts put forward to demonstrate bias in the way issues are presented or framed by the media. Studies focused on the issues of abortion and homelessness, for example, has found that the media adopt a liberal perspective for understanding and framing issues. Similarly, though, other scholars have used the issues of abortion and hunger to show that the media have a conservative mindset in presenting the issues.46 Often these studies hinge on examples the authors find disappointing or distressing, rather than on presentations of falsifiable evidence. Indeed, in assessing much of the work measuring bias in issue coverage, it is difficult to weigh the data because there is no baseline established or asserted to define what the presence of fair coverage might look like.47 Ultimately, the two major bodies of evidence on partisan media bias are based in surveys, which do not demonstrate differences in coverage, and in content analyses which do not provide a meaningful baseline for comparison of coverage (and which frequently present conflicting conclusions).

Sometimes liberal bias reflects an attentive alternative by the reporter or editor. Sometimes it stems from meager sloth; it can take a lot of work to produce balanced report stories on a reliable basis. And a reporter under deadline force may just not understand the cautious viewpoint well sufficient to explain it in his story. So if the conservative professional he called doesn't call back in time, that viewpoint won't make it into the story. But no one of these is legitimate excuses. Reporter's job is to present a balanced story. (Of course, the reporter who tries but fails because he's just so hurried and can't get a cautious to comment warrants more comprehending from you than the reporter who never bothers to call a conservative and ...