Media bias study
From dKosopedia
This report is touted as showing the Drudge Report as a moderate news source, and the rest of the media as having a liberal bias (other than Fox News). This is sheer spin based on the false assumption that the median Congressperson is in the political center, but the data is otherwise good. What the data really shows is that Drudge is politically comparable to moderate Republicans, that Fox is comparable to ordinary Republicans, and that most media outlets are to the left of the Republican Party and to the right of the Democratic Party.
The data first rates think tanks as liberal to conservative based on the members of Congress who cite them and the member's political leanings as ranked by ADA (Americans for Democratic Action) based on their votes in Congress. Then, media outlets are rated from liberal to conservative based upon their mix of citations to various think tanks.
On the ADA scale (1 conservative, 100 liberal), the average House Republican rates 11.4, the average Senate Republican rates 11, the average House Democrat rates 76.5 and the average Senate Democrat rates 71.7. The average in the House is 44.5 and in the Senate is 40.0 because both chambers are Republican controlled. The public, of course, is extremely closely balanced between Republicans (and parties to thier right) and Democrats (and parties to their left) as shown by the 2000 Presidential race popular vote. Moderates in Congress were ranked as follows by the ADA:
- Joe Lieberman (D. - Ct.) 66.3
- Constance Morella (R.-Md.) 60.5
- Ernest Hollings (D. - S.C.) 56.1
- Arlen Specter (R. - Pa.) 44.0
- Tom Campbell (R. - Ca.) 41.5
- Sam Nunn (D. - Ga.) 40.9
- Dave McCurdy (D.- Ok.) 39.8
- Olympia Snowe (R.- Me.) 36.0
- Charlie Stenholm (D. - Tex.) 29.3
- Nathan Deal (D - Ga.) 15.1
Basically, Democrats generally are 65 or higher, and Republicans are generally 45 of lower, with a handful of moderate Republicans and Democrats in the intermediate range. Most Democrats and Republicans are far from these thresholds.
Twenty think tanks were rated based on the ADA scores of the Congress members who cited them (the ACLU was then dropped as it scored in the 30s with campaign finance included and the 70s, without campaign finance included). These ranks are as follows:
- Cent. on Budget & Policy Priorities 80.04
- Council on Hemispheric Affairs 76.86
- Children's Defense Fund 73.92
- Economic Policy Institute 70.68
- Common Cause 61.28
- AARP 58.34
- RAND Corporation 52.59
- Amnesty International 50.01
- Brookings Institution 46.17
- American Enterprise Institute 29.76
- Citizens Against Government Waste 29.47
- Cato Institute 28.50
- National Taxpayers Union 27.54
- Nat. Fed. of Ind. Businesses 20.32
- Center for Security Policy 17.69
- National Right to Life Committee 15.23
- Family Research Council 13.95
- Heritage Foundation 13.75
- Alexis de Tocqueville Institute 12.96
This produced the following media ratings:
- Fox News Special Report 26.4
- Drudge Report 44.1
- ABC World News Tonight 54.8
- Los Angeles Times 58.4
- NBC Nightly News 62.5
- USA Today 62.6
- CBS Evening News 64.5
- New York Times 64.6
Thus, most mainstream media is between the Republican Party members of Congress and Democratic Party members of Congress in content, Drudge is in the moderate Republican party zone, and Fox is in the solidly Republican zone. None of the media establishments listed were solidly in the Democratic column.