In many cases even the pretense of journalistic fairness has faded, so consciously committed to the politics of liberalism are today’s news organizations.
It is almost impossible these days to open a newspaper or watch any of the alphabet-media empires without hearing President Bush or his administration cast in negative terms.
On the cable outlets, the media castigation of Bush and the GOP only worsens, as the viewer gets to hear CNN and the like regurgitate the latest Bush “scandal” every 12.5 minutes or so.
Surely, the Bush administration has made some missteps these past few years, and deserves to have its head handed to it occasionally. Democrats and liberals, of course, might be expected to balk at almost anything Bush promotes and signs into law.
Ask nearly any Republican or conservative, and he or she is likely to tell you that there are many things that have set one’s teeth on edge regarding this administration.
So what is one to think about a mainstream media that hides behind a First Amendment right of a free press, yet acts like a bought-and-paid-for Political Action Committee (PAC) on behalf of the Democratic Party?
With little surprise from those of us who know how the “independent” press operates from day to day, everyone else got to see one of those “bought to you by your National Democratic Party” moments by the PAC media.
The recent CBS News poll that found President Bush’s approval rating at an all-time low of 34%, and Vice President Cheney’s at an even more anemic 18% is a case in point. This was not so much a poll inasmuch as it was broadcast as breaking news.
Indeed. That was the entire purpose of such a poll. One goes to the CBS website to find banners trumpeting the news: a picture of a sad and dejected Bush, looking for all the world like he is about to cry. There are no less than five news videos and a half a dozen related stories that essentially say “Everything bad because of Bush.”
But about that poll: By now, most people have heard that the sample was heavily weighted towards Democrats and Independents, but for the record:
– The sampling was of 1018 “adults.” Not “likely voters” or even “registered voters,” just adults, like my neighbor, the non-voting, non-registered recluse, who, when last asked what he wanted to see in a president, responded “a knife hilt.”
– The “unweighted” sample of Democrats was 409, to the Republican sample of 272. That’s a 40% to 27% ratio, with Independents rated at 33%. Once these samples were “weighted” — which means they were adjusted to reflect the country’s general make-up — the poll still reflected a bias towards Democrats by a margin of 37% to 28%, putting Independents at 35%.
– I noticed something that I cannot recall seeing in many other polls of this type, and that is the specific reference to “African Americans,” who these days usually vote monolithically Democrat. After sampling 207 blacks for the poll, CBS weighted it to 118, a more representative number in regard to population. Still, why are blacks over-represented here? Why not Latinos or Asians? Is it because blacks have consistently voted Democratic in the 90+ percent range when voting in the last two presidential elections? Were they singled out from the beginning to achieve a desired result?
No, that couldn’t be it. That would be — along with the overall sampling of “adults,” and the over-sampling of Democrats in general — grossly negligent. I mean, we’re talking CBS here, the network that brought you “Memogate,” the story of a major media anchor’s insistence that forged documents are okay, because even though the documents are “fake,” they are nevertheless “accurate.”
Thankfully, Dan Rather has left the building. But unfortunately, his legacy of bias lives on in Blackrock and CBS. Too bad that legacy of bias also pervades just about all of the mainstream media.
Readers of the mainstream media, though, must by now be aware of the culture of partisan corruption that the media displays on a daily basis. As one manufactured crises winds down — like Vice President Cheney’s accidental shooting of a hunting partner — another crisis of historic proportions pops up.
This week, Americans have a choice: You can opt for the UAE (United Arab Emirates) terminal deal, in which the media worriedly reports that a wartime president is seemingly selling the country’s ports to terrorists, or the Hurricane Katrina video, in which the media breathlessly reports that “Bush knew” that those levees would burst, and kill those black people by the score.
Both stories are being portrayed as a “smoking gun” indictment of the Bush administration. The UAE interest regarding the terminals surfaced last October 31, 2005, in the Wall Street Journal. The Hurricane Katrina video of August 28, 2005, has actually been in the possession of the AP for some time now, but was reported as having been “leaked” to them by someone in the administration. In fact, the national press had their own copies that day, since they were invited to that very news conference. There is no “there” there. Yet, the PAC media continues its culture of corruption when reporting upon the events of a Republican president.
The story here is not the liberalism that dominates newsrooms across America, but the media’s unflinching willingness to be guided by it. In most cases, even the pretense of journalistic fairness has faded, so consciously committed to the politics of liberalism are today’s news organizations.
A while back, I forwarded the notion that the mainstream media were engaging in a “soft coup d’etat” of the country’s political process, and I echo that here today. Instead of blood and bullets to enact a takeover, the media use headlines and editorials.
Often penning front page parables that more often reflect wishful thinking than fact, the mainstream media hope that you do not take notice of its own culture of corruption in regard to the news.
But if you did take notice, you would know that most of what you read and hear from today’s “guardians of society” is intellectually dishonest because it is politically motivated, and that is that. It is, without preamble, a media culture of corruption that plays itself out daily in our newsrooms and on television.
HMan23 ,
My point is that there are plenty of things that I disagree with Bush about. He’s certainly got his Daddy’s spending habits. He blows on border security. It’s also possible that at least some of these purported scandals have some merit, but since the 2000 election it seems the Dems have thrown out one thing after the other just trying to get something, anything, to stick. As soon as one craps out, they find another. It ultimately hurts the liberal cause because after about three dozen non-scandles in the first term of this administration, nearly all conservatives and a great number of moderates just assume that anything else that crops up is more of the same BushChimpHitler Bash-Fest, and we ignore it.
You all need to learn to conserve your ammo. If you’re just going to blast away indiscriminately at anything that moves, you’re rarely going to hit something, and even when you do it’ll rarely prove fatal. You’re better off to pick major targets that you can kill with a well placed shot.
If the Democrats had been all God, Mom, and Apple Pie and were perceived to be standing shoulder to shoulder with the President and the War on Terror and then out of the blue played the Downing Street Memo and tied the missing WMD’s to it, you may well have brought down the administration, but since DSM was perceived by most to be about the 46th cause of the week for the left, it was ultimately yawned over.
ibbleblibble ,
You haven’t provided me, or anyone else, with anything to read.
You offer to someday, maybe, if you have time and can find them, go dredge up something you supposedly did a couple of years ago, but you’re just really busy and you reformatted your hard drive and you’re not sure where the backups are so bear with you.
You sound like some chick trying to get out of a blind date.
If you are unable to Google up something to support your position, your position is untenable.
Mike, not ignoring it; I have not had time to digest the 50 page Milyo report. But trying to use so-called objective criteria to prove that a subjective motivation exists seems like a daunting task to me. I’d be surpised if ANY study cannot be shot full of holes. My impressions of your summaries:
1. SO, because conservatives feel more strongly about it, their conclusion is correct? Not too scientific to me.
2. Already, I can discount this study by virtue of the example. If the GDP growth was IN FACT less than expected, how is this a negative headline? Whether or not economic expectations are met IS a part of the analysis. See, this is the problem, if a conservative is in office, ANY negative news or headline is judged as liberal in this sort of analysis 9the flip side is obviously also true). But, if it is accurate, isn’t it unbiased?
3. Not to be too cute, but couldn’t this simply show that liberal people read more? Or that more liberals are concentrated in higher population centers where the number of readers would consequently increase?
4. All I gather so far from an overview of this is that the correlation is sought by examing the citations to think-tanks and then cross-referencing other references to those same think-tanks by members of Congress. I see a few problems with this methodology. First, it fails to account for reasons that a particular think-tank may be cited. It may be that one think-tank employees more credentialed experts, thus carrying a greater wieght with the press. A member of Congress might not care as much about credentials, only that the message is in line. Also, some think-tanks do not have an ideological counterpart. Take the NAACP. If there is a story on race relations and the NAACP is cited, there is no “People for Keeping Blacks Down” think-tank to take an opposing view. But, any news story like this will be perceived as having a liberal bias. Also, what if there is a topic in which cites to the Heritage Foundation and a democratic senator for the opposing view, the piece will be deemed to have a conservative bias – doesn’t make much sense if you watched the piece.
Mike – on the “save your ammo” non-scandal point I just saw, where do these scandals or non-scandals you list come from? You make it seem as if a room full of Dems hatched them in some clandestine meeting. Abu Grahib came because of a whistleblower in the service. Plame/Libby because of an article published by Bob Novak, and an investigation opened by the Justice Department at the request of the CIA. The Downing Street Memo came about from a member of British intelligence. What you think about the underlying truth is one thing, but these are not inconsequential issues. It’s not like the press is going after Bush for a failed land deal, groping a secretary, having an illigetimate child, or smoking pot when he was in college.
Another thing:
“If Dems had been seen as standing shoulder to shoulder with the President and the War on Terror ?”
How were they not? Because many voted against force in Iraq? So, because those same Dems who THEN did not think Iraq posed a threat later learned something supporting their view, exposing it lacks credibility?
Anyway, I thought you said earlier that Dems were on the same page with Bush when it came to Iraq? You gave us that list of 22 quotes and all …
HMan23,
I agree with you on number 1. It is an entirely subjective result, as I admitted at the end of my post at #48.
As far as number 2 is concerned, the entire study was based on how a headline presented a story depending on the political affiliation of the President. The result was the 9 of the 10 papers studied tended put negative headlines on a news story involving a Republican administration.
With regard to number 3, It’s certainly a fact that liberals tend to gather in population centers, and I appreciate what I hope was a somewhat tongue in cheek descriptor of libs reading more.
4. With regard to #4, they built in / blocked out the issues you bring up. I won’t pester you any more about it. It is a fascinating study, not because it vindicates my own personal beliefs, but because of the care that was taken to not reach a foregone conclusion. It really was well done. Read it when you get some time.
HMan23 @ 55
They voted for the war before they voted against it…
Most of those quotes were made during the Clinton administration. The Democrats were happy to sound like hawks then. My point, then and now, is that the Democrats position on Iraq changed between the Clinton Administration and the Bush Administration, though nothing in Iraq had changed. Hussein was still playing the same games for the same reasons, it’s just the party platform changed.
As far as the sources of all the scandals were concerned, the source isn’t always the issue, though there’s been a few disgruntled employee types start these things off. The issue is how the information is treated by the press.
Bill Clinton committed perjury. He lied on the stand. You or I would have gone to prison for that. Whether or not you believe he was subjected to a witch-hunt, he committed a felony. The press yawned. It’s a privacy issue. What’s the big deal? Everyone does it.
On the other hand, Bush has been blamed for intelligence failures leading up to 9/11, though he’d only been in office for seven months. The eight years of the Clinton administration gutting the military and intelligence communities and treating terrorists as common criminals and putting up walls between the CIA and FBI is given a pass.
Hman23,
Jumping back to #54. Abu Ghraib is a perfect example. What went on at Abu Ghraib was scndalous. Most of it was in no way torture, by any stretch of the imagination. While in the service, I went through far worse at SERE school, which only simulated a POW camp. Having said that, the people who broke the rules were tried, convicted, and punished, as was proper. The media and the Dems tried to make Abu Ghraib a referendum on George Bush personally. Remember Teddy Kennedy saying that Saddams torture chambers were open under new management? I do, because it was replayed on CNN and MSNBC about a jillion times.
Hman23,
I’ve enjoyed the conversation, but I’ve gotta run. I’ll try to check back in here in a bit.
Later.
Mike -
We will have to agree to disagree on some of those last points.
Whatever was said during Clinton is pretty irrelevant because whatever he or his administration said in public, they did not go to war (why do you think that was?) If he had, and the same intel issues came up with him, I’d be plenty pissed. You may not believe that, but it’s true.
I don’t support Clinton’s conduct, but as far as committing a felony, I do not believe he was convicted was he? Do you take the same approach with Tom Delay? Bill Frist? Scooter Libby? Just want to forewarn you about posting that these guys are innocent until proven guilty or anything.
And you seriously contend that the press did not cover the impeachment, or the investigation leading up to it? Not from what I remember.
Clinton was too busy getting deposed when we had the goods on Osama, remember? And when he did order cruise missle attacks it was only “Wag the Dog” I thought? Look, the Clinton Administration certainly could have done things better. Most reasonable people (and even Dems) will admit that. But, try to get a Bush supporter to say ANYTHING negative about Bush’s handling of the situation. Sure some will mention border issues, fiscal spending, etc. like you did earlier, but let’s be fair has Bush done ANYTHING wrong when it comes to homeland security, terrorism, 9/11, or the War in Iraq? You can’t keep blaming Clinton for everything.
hman – thanks for the legwork
mike – see hman for references
I guess that is your subjective view on what qualifies as torture, but you seem to admit at least that SOME of it WAS torture. You don’t think it was fair to ask about the procedures and policies in place, and whether those had any influence on the individual actors involved? Seems reasonable to me.
Catch you next time.
HMan23
You caught me on the way out.
You ask “Has Bush done ANYTHING wrong when it comes to homeland security, terrorism, 9/11, or the War in Iraq?”
The answer is yes, absolutely.
1. Homeland Security
Border security and the ports.
2. Terrorism / Regional Destabilizing Factors
Not dealing harshly enough with Hamas and the Palestinians.
Has allowed North Korea to keep their nukes.
Hasn’t taken Hugo Chavez seriously enough.
3. 9/11
Pretty solid job here. I just wish that we’d gotten Bin Ladin, but it’s not for lack of effort.
4. War in Iraq
Not aggressive enough and declared a victory way too soon. Too worried about public opinion.
Hasn’t controlled the Syrian or Iranian borders, which is the Vietnam mistake, and has allowed the Iranian nuke project to go on way too long.
In order to win in Iraq, we’ll have to take out the safe havens and support in Syria and Iran. I think bombing campaigns and an air war in both countries while we sew up Iraq would work well. Establish a 50 mile DMZ along both frontiers and have a kill on sight policy for anything inside said DMZ.
I don’t think Bush is that great of a president. His approval ratings show that many conservatives share my sentiment. On the other hand, he is a much better choice than Al Gore or John Kerry.
ibbleblibble @ 61,
I can’t believe you’ve got the balls to try to piggyback on Hman.
OK. I’ve really gotta bail. Later Hman.
Mike – you say Bush was too concerned with public opinion.
I take it you disagree with Tom Brewton’s article posted on this site? He seems to take the opposite view.
HMan23,
I haven’t read through Mr. Brewton’s article, so I can’t comment on it. I do disagree with the perception though that Bush has always done what he believed to be right at the expenditure of popularity. He isn’t the “I feel your pain” public affection whore that Clinton is, but certainly he has shown that he worries about public opinion. He would’ve never made it in Texas politics otherwise. He’d have also used that veto pen and would never have proposed that money-sucking medicare program if he didn’t worry about public opinion. Remember he sees himself as a “Uniter, not a divider.” That by definition is someone concerned with public opinion.
Guys, don’t get too worked up. When you want to argue with cold hard facts and/or research, practicality, historical experience, etc and the other person only wants to argue abstractly through philosophy and theory, than there ain’t a point arguing. From what I’ve seen in this blog so far, the conservatives have tried their hardest to engage the liberals in factually based debate. Ibbleblibble and HMan23 have absolutely refused, with a few exceptions, to respond. Sorry guys. You can give me all the rhetoric you want. Liberals over-simplify the complex and complexify the simple. I have yet to see much reasoning in their positions. I’ve noticed a few trends with liberals. When the have nothing of substance to say, which is often, the dumb ones revert to their default mode of accusing the other party of “ignorance.” The ones that demonstrate a bit more intelligence go into chaotic flights of philosophic abstraction, commonly known as “baffling them with your b.s.” Uh, the random reference about religion after my point that did nothing to counter my point? I can communicate using big words, whereas you b.s. about irrelevancies with your rediculous use of vernacular. How does my calling your points “sardonic” earlier have anything to do with my thoughts about your vocabulary? You really pulled that one out of your ass. For the record, Ibble, that was a reference to you telling Mike not to pop a blood vessel and all your other sarcasm in that portion of the debate. Which reminds me, you starting off using your thesaurus, then stopped for awhile to mock Mike and be “sardonic,” then started up with the big vocab once people began to make some serious challenges to your b.s. A little bit inconsistant, if you want to argue linguistics with me. I call bull.
Continuing with the last thought, Ibbleblibble’s pattern of unsubstantiated assertions appears to extend well beyond his undocumented political claims. I say he was being sardonic, as he clearly was behaving towards Mike earlier. Ibble illogically concludes that my calling him sardonic is an affront to his use of vocabulary and proceeds to make yet another unsubstantiated claim implying that I want to communicate in “a monosyllabic, sixth grade level fashion” because I believe sounding intelligent “isn’t cool, man.” (Do note the irony that a couple paragraphs containing such pride in Ibble’s “advanced” used of English are ripe with incomplete sentences and spelling errors.) I don’t claim that I never make typos, but I don’t behave like an conceited ass about my choice of words when somebody says something about it. (Which I didn’t, but that doesn’t matter, does it?) So Ibbleblibble, you basically call Mike childish for mocking a spelling error that you made, but you turn around and mock my verbage, on which you have no grounds to opine, because of an assertion that wasn’t true, quite possibly because you don’t understand enough about the word “sardonic” to realize that it has no real bearing on my opinions of your vocabulary. It’s about your know-it-all, dismissive, and mocking attitude towards questions to which you have no answer worth repeating outside of your “intellectual” feel-good circles, where those incapable of logic go to convince themselves of their importance and deep understanding. You wanna keep this one going? I’d love to keep talking the issue with you instead of talking language, but only if you’ll demonstrate some willingness to drop the abstract philosphy and say something factual. Throw out statistics or something. You keep claiming you don’t have the time to do research, yet you seem to have to time to continually blog and repond to almost comment people make about you. It’s growing old. I don’t care about the other dudes stats and links. I want to see yours.
If anyone wants a good laugh go here.
nevermine
Or just try and find Jason Miller.
Shane, sorry to disappoint you, but I am not sure what thread you are reading. I figured responding directly to Mike’s posts point-by-point qualified as a dialogue. Perhaps you would prefer an echo chamber.
On the subject at hand, I disagree that the conervatives here are offering a factually-based opinion and “cold hard facts.” That has been my point at least. I find the studies cited as having little basis in actual fact; the methodology has inherent subjective determinations of media content (which I made pretty clear in my posts – I thought). As someone else said, I could source studies showing that there is no liberal bias in the media; studies showing that there has actually been a shift to a conservative bias based upon the ideologies of guests on Sunday talk shows, for example; interviews where conservative operatives admitted that the “liberal media” charge has little basis, and was a tactic used to try and shift media coverage to a more conservative slant. Conservatives would likely refute these sources for one reason or another (similar to what I have attempted). So what is the point? It is a fool’s mission to try and give objective bases for the subjective perceptions of media bias.
Do you actually have an opinion to offer on the subject, or are you just here to post about the posters?
You know just reading everyone’s reply to ibblebabble without reading one word of what ibblebabble has written is even more interesting, and it saves time!
By reading those replies I can learn a few things, because most of you are well informed .
But by reading ibble’s post the only thing I learn is
how dysfunctional ibblebabble is.
Chrome on a car does not make it go faster or handle better, and big words out of ibblebabble’s mouth don’t make him any smarter.
Well, Anonymous256, neither does simply calling it a fast car. Highlighting who you think is smart or dysfunctional certainly doesn’t automatically earn you any points.
HMan 23, I was pissed at ibblleblibble for his response to an observation I made. I have no beef with you. I opined earlier that claims of no liberal bias are ludicrous. There is a column somewhere on this website that I linked to the other day which contains some strong analysis of the language used in media stories. I’ll see if I can remember where it is and tell you about it. As Ibbleblibble would say, I don’t have the time to that right now….gotta go.
As far as the Milyo study sourced in #10 – I read it. Interesting stuff, but I question the soundness of basing on citations to think-tanks. Here is just one problem I see (I mentioned a few in brief above):
Take a hypothetical news story on alleged torture in some U.S. facility. The piece shows clips of interviews from four White House officials and two Republicans in Congress – all discussing their views on why the allegation is false (for 90% of the piece). Apart from the brief lead-in discussing the allegations, the story cites to two “liberal-leaning” think-tanks, like Amnesty International or some equivalent (the remaining 10% of the piece). According to this study, that is 2-0 in favor of think-tanks cited more by left-of-center members of Congress. Thus, this story is “biased” in favor of a liberal position. Is that the reality? Unless you saw the story, you wouldn’t really know. Even the 90-10% split would not automatically tell the story.
HMan23 @ 77
That was accounted for in the study.
Here’s two paragraphs from the report that describe some of the measures taken to account for your hypothesis;
“Also, we omitted the instances where the member of Congress or journalist only cited the think tank so he or she could criticize it or explain why it was wrong. About five percent of the congressional citations and about one percent of the media citations fell into this category.”
and,
“In the same spirit, we omitted cases where a journalist or legislator gave an ideological label to a think tank (e.g. “Even the conservative Heritage Foundation favors this bill.”).”
They summarize as follows:
“The idea is that we only wanted cases were the legislator or journalist cited the think tank as if it were a disinterested expert on the topic at hand. About two percent of the congressional citations and about five percent of the media citations involved an ideological label.”
shane – honorable foe
i must say that one irrascible trait of conservatives, when arguing such points as these, is the “tsunami of references and footnotes” tactic…blast your opponant with such a tidalwave of sources, footnotes, references, etc, challenge him/her to refute everyone of them, then sit back and chuckle as the idiot flays about attempting to out nitpick you…the few times i have allowed myself to get drawn into this all too familiar trap, i have ultimatel found it worthy only in that a large portion of the obfuscationg references either a) came from conservative ideological think tanks/press or b) were lifted out of context while qualifying data/information was completely unmentioned…and i end up getting 5 hours of sleep before my lazy ass has to work itself off from can see til cant see the next day…
you denigrate logic and reason as obfuscation…do you also denigrate decency and compassion as silly naivete?
have you ever read emerson’s The American Scholar? if i had no reasonable, logical, reality upon which to base my beliefs, i too, could drown any and all in an ocean of footnotes and “prove” anthing i want…this is not the sign of great minds…
correction – “found it worthy in that I DISCOVERED THAT”
well – time for bed…blessings and best wishes to all, even the trolls…
again thanks to hman for doing the dity work here…as a “liberal” or “progressive” or “moron” or whatever u want to call me, i dont have nearly as much time to devote to this wickedly addictive game of debate as i wish i had, sinse i am so busy working my lazy trifling liberal ass off…
ibbleblibble,
You can make any excuse you want. The indisputable fact is that you represent MoveOn type talking points as fact such as your #2 above; “well, considering the fact that most of the media is owned by heavy republican donors …” As soon as someone disputes your “fact” with an actual – well – fact, you disregard the evidence and claim that you’re too busy to provide any of your own. Go ahead and make excuses, but that is intellectually dishonest. If you don’t want me to call you on virtually everything you say, then either provide some support for your statements or tone down the BS. I’ll have a civilized discussion with you anytime, up to the point where you start into the “fundymentalist evangotard Bush Chimphitler” garbage.
Sorry, Mike. I do not see how that accounts for my example because the two paragraphs you cited do not fit into what I was describing. I had in mind the exact type of citation that the study used (and not one that was a mere criticism (#1) or giving a label (#2)). The two examples surely do not account for 100% of the citations to think-tanks in the news or it would eat up everything. Are you saying that it would be unlikely to have a story like I outlined where the reference to the two think-tanks was anything other than the two examples you gave me? I presume not, or there would be no study. So, to clarify, take my example and add that the journalist cited to the two liberal think-tanks “as if it were a disinterested expert on the topic at hand.” Doesn’t this affect the validity of the study?
HMan23,
You’re making my brain hurt! I’ll have to have some more coffee before I can make any sort of an intelligent response. I’ve read your post. I know you are making a reasoned argument. It’s not sinking in though. I keep reading your post, but all I’m getting back from the ole noggin is white noise.
I’ve got to run some errands. I’ll re-read this later on. Hopefully, my brain will have engaged by that time.
Regards,
Mike
Mike, I’ll simplify it.
My example: 2 cites to liberal think-tanks; none to conervative ones (only 6 people taking conservative positions, accounting for 90% of the air-time)
You countered: They did not count cites where it was done (1) to criticize the think-tank and (2) where the idological postion of the think-tank was merely given a label.
I countered: Agreed that the study did what you said, but assume in my example that the 2 cites do not fall under the two exceptions you listed. That sort of hypothetical story DOES exist, right?
Also, Mike:
The report itself says the two measures you rely on account only for 1-5% and 2-5% of the citations, so I am sure an example like mine does exist outside that criteria.
HMan23 @ 77, 83, 85, 86,
OK. Your postulate is two references to Amnesty International made by Conservatives, where that the disqualifiers don’t kick in. Does that result in a two-quote hit for the left in the study?
What that would do would be to take those Conservatives and move them to the left / raise their ADA score. Same with a Media Outlet. That’s the entire purpose of the study. I may be obtuse, but I don’t see how that would result in a subjective finding.
However, to cave on your point that any study is subjective in some manner, I think your argument is made here:
“We also recorded the average adjusted ADA score of the member who cited the think tank. We use adjusted scores, constructed by Groseclose, Levitt, and Snyder (1999), because we need the scores to be comparable across time and chambers.[12] Groseclose, Levitt, and Snyder (1999) use the 1980 House scale as their base year and chamber. It is convenient for us to choose a scale that gives centrist members of Congress a score of about 50. For this reason we converted scores to the 1999 House scale.”
The question is who determines what a “centrist” is and how did they arrive at the conclusion? This study doesn’t explain, and the “1980 House Scale” isn’t included, nor is the methodology, so I have to yield the point as I don’t know what the 1980 House Scale is. I may want to retract my yield if I get my hands on a copy of it, though.
Mike @ 87
I am sorry this is taking so long.
No, in my example the conservtives are NOT the ones who cite Amnesty (I thought that would have been assumed). If they did, I agree that their personal ADA score would move left. In my example, the six conservatives say things like, “There is no torture occurring” or something to that effect. And, in the same story qutoes Amnesty and some other liberal think-tank saying, “There is torutre going on.” So, this does nothing to affect the conservatives ADA score, but it will shift the Media Outlet’s score to the left of the scale.
More clearly, the Media Outlet cites Amnesty, not the conservatives.
HMan23,
I understand now. Sorry for being a little slow on the uptake today. Yes. The media outlets score would shift leftward if they cite Amnesty International without using a “left-leaning” qualifier or stating that there was some disagreement with Amnesty Internationals findings.
For instance, if the media outlet quoted Amnesty International and then said that such and such Conservative Group disputed the findings, then the statements would cancel out and the ADA score would remain where it was. Over a period of time, and after hundreds of stories a pattern would then emerge. If a particular media outlet regularly used the NAACP and Amnesty International and other left-leaning groups, and always reported as if these groups were completely impartial, then that media outlet would fall in there with Maxine Waters. Vice Versa for a blatantly right-wing media outlet. The closer to the center you hit, the more balanced your coverage is. In truth, I thought they were pretty fair. They found CNN NewsNight and Good Morning America to be fairly balanced, which is something I wouldn’t tend to believe without the data to support it.
mike – i’m not a member of moveon.org, nor have i ever even visited their website…
u conservatives seem to almost always assume that in order to engage in intellectual discussion, one must belong to/subscribe to/read the intellectual directives of some organization of “experts”. perhaps you are imputing your own tactics, but why do i need someone to tell me what can figure out/express myself? i have always found no better way to be labeled/thought of as a liar than to be COMPLETELY HONEST…since most people lie at least some, they assume everyone else does too. this is a recurrig theme in more rabid conservative’s approach to the truth. “we know you are lying too! everyone lies for their own benefit! stop being so hypocritical you liberals!”
a liar asumes all others lie. a thief assues all others steal. a philanderer assumes all others cheat. helps them sleep better and excuses their iniquity.
just because one side lies with ease and comfort, does not mean the other, when putting out opposing information, is just as guilty. in fact, mike, what IS the opposite of lies? other lies?
project for a new american century – our time’s mien kampf