Centerfield

I can't even begiin to respond to the many broad and sweeping generalizations DJ makes above, but i can point out that it's extraordinarily short on specifics, and also recycles practically verbatim every other description of liberal media bias I've ever seen, without directly addressing whether their might be any substance to the point I and Cowen make.

It was never my point to suggest that there's never any such thing as liberal bias, and I hope that DJ would not contend that there's never any such thing as conservative bias. There may well be a predominant or majority view among the mainstreammedia on each of many issues, but that majority view is not always liberal. Sometimes it's moderate, and sometimes its conservative, but its almost always driven in large part by ratings concern. And this ratings concern is NEVER voiced in the WSJ or the pro-war blogosphere as an attribution when it's possible to attribute it to liberalism instead.

DJ, I'm not especially inclined to accept on face value either the methodology or the results of a study commissioned by a group like the WSJ, which is already convinced they are right about lib bias and isn't prone to keep contracting with and financing an outfit that can't find it in great abundance with relative ease.

But I don't have a problem with someone suggesting that some media outlets, like, say, the NY times are prone to liberal bias. But surely these papers don't represent the media as a whole. Most major cities have a preferred paper for both sides. In Boston we have a very conservative Boston Herald to balance out the Globe, for example. And talk radio as a whole is almost exclusively conservative.

These contentions probably wouldn't be very hard to prove if I wanted to do a "study" to show such a thing. The point is, the Times speaks as it does because it knows what its audience wants to hear, and so does the WSJ.

But somehow, in the WSJ's world, what the Times says is evidence of a liberal conspiracy, whereas what the WSJ saysis the height of objective clarity?

I also think it's a little silly for the WSJ to get its panties in a bunch if it happens to be the case that a person with liberal views is more likely to go to journalism school than to biz school, whereas most free-market true believers shun journalism for Wall Street. Perhaps this a problem to solved by paying journalists and investment bankers the same wage? (that's a joke, DJ.)

BTW, couldn't you have responded to my post in the comments section?

ok -- too sweeping? hows about some very limited but indisputable specifics. how many major news anchors are there? and how many of them are self-proclaimed liberals and/or democrats? so you're trying to tell me that an evenly split population wants all of its major news anchors to be left of center? that the market drives that? come on (perhaps it's just random that near everyone i know in media is left of center, or that every published report shows that the vast majority of reporters at major media self ID as democrats). as for the wsj or the washington times or whatever, they don't purport to be objective, instead making quite clear that they are partisan. the times, while nearly equally so partisan, makes no such effort so far as i can discern. essentially, mainstream means left of center, despite the fact that the market is not so distorted.
what i find funny is that, even though i'm sympathetic (read: vote democrat, etc.), i have no trouble admitting how obviously skewed the news is (or academia, another one that really bugs me). i've read things where NPR claims not to be left of center. can you possibly try to defend that? i love NPR, pay good money to keep them afloat (less now that they have kroc's blood money, as PETA puts it), but would never deny that they're wacky left. (btw, why is it that taxpayer supported radio doesn't reflect the general polity's politics? market forces? do those exist for public radio? i wonder.)

ok -- too sweeping? hows about some very limited but indisputable specifics. how many major news anchors are there? and how many of them are self-proclaimed liberals and/or democrats? so you're trying to tell me that an evenly split population wants all of its major news anchors to be left of center? that the market drives that? come on (perhaps it's just random that near everyone i know in media is left of center, or that every published report shows that the vast majority of reporters at major media self ID as democrats). as for the wsj or the washington times or whatever, they don't purport to be objective, instead making quite clear that they are partisan. the times, while nearly equally so partisan, makes no such effort so far as i can discern. essentially, mainstream means left of center, despite the fact that the market is not so distorted.
what i find funny is that, even though i'm sympathetic (read: vote democrat, etc.), i have no trouble admitting how obviously skewed the news is (or academia, another one that really bugs me). i've read things where NPR claims not to be left of center. can you possibly try to defend that? i love NPR, pay good money to keep them afloat (less now that they have kroc's blood money, as PETA puts it), but would never deny that they're wacky left. (btw, why is it that taxpayer supported radio doesn't reflect the general polity's politics? market forces? do those exist for public radio? i wonder.)

I tend to agree with Brian on this, with the proviso that Big Media is just now coming around to the realization that there is a Big Market for right-of-center coverage (Fox News, WSJ, talk radio). So corporate media has some catching up to do, but I sincerely believe that the driving motive behind the Viacoms, AOL-TWs, Newscorps and Disneys of the world is $$$$ and they would sellout any left-leaning ideals in a heartbeat.

What I would gladly pay big $$ for, however, is bias-free coverage, for which there appears to be a very small market if the media currently available is any indication. The Economist makes a decent stab at it (although they are clearly biased toward free-market principles and do not hide that fact).

don't get me wrong, i love the economist, but they're like the journal -- they wear their right of center politics on their sleeves and it infuses, overtly and through subtle editorializing, everything they report. my contention is that, in the US, major media is predominantly left of center but purport to be objective. 3 networks, post/times/LAtimes, major newsmags, etc. and i don't believe that market forces explain it, though i do think market forces will help solve it because, as you point out, big media is really about the money. perhaps a bad analogy, but here goes anyway -- we go in space of a few years from ellen coming out on TV being a huge deal to gay characters everywhere. why? there's money in it. but sometimes it takes big media a while to realize where the money is (e.g., racy fare, gay characters, conservative viewpoints). further, i objected to the underlying premise of argument, which was "people buy what they want," (market drives liberal bias if it exists) rather than people buy what they want out of the available options (no one suspected we all wanted $3 cups of coffee until starbucks came along).

Boy, I had a really long post that I lost in a snafu. Probably you're grateful. Main points? Major anchors, call the cable networks CNN and Fox News a wash and you are left with just 3, which is a small sample size of guys who have had ther jobs for a long time, so you've got problems with the small sample size and with lagging indicators. I'm not looking forward to a Tim Russert coup d'etat, tho.

According to the recent NPR/Kroc donation story I read, NPR gets only 1% of its budget from gov't financing, and I'm pretty comfy that at least 1% of what they broadcast is value-neutral public service like classical music and coverage of under or un-reported stories, and so on...

Major newspapers? Being from Boston I've always assumed most major cities had 2 major papers that mirrored our left-right Globe-Herald split, so if there are major cities with both, but the left-leaning one is high-circulation and righty is low circulation, then the market is sending a pretty clear message.

Point taken that people choose from the available options. But if chocolate and vanilla are both available, but almost everyone's buying chocolate, isn't that a reflection of vanilla's crappiness, not a chocolate conspiracy?

Do you think NPR/PBS is more loony left than Fair-and-balanced Fox is off-its-rocker Right?

I've seen the reports that a majority of journalists self identify with the democratic party, but that's not an especially sensitive indicator. I'd be more interested in a survey that compared journalists views on a variety of issues to that of the general public. As well as to a variety of other professions like lawyers, doctors, businessmen, and so on. There's a theme in the mythos to the effect that journalists develop a progressively world-weary cynicism about how the world works, and there's also the fact of the historical duty of journalists comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. This an ethos that attracts liberals on the one hand and may well re-inforce or even create a liberal tendency to side with the underdog.

I invite you not to abandon you belief that liberal bias is pervasive, but to at least on occasion entertain the notion that what appears like liberally-biased reportage is a function of simple bias towards the thing s that drive media. In other words, that the Media's OWN agenda is much more pervasive and powerful than the occasional personal creep of a liberal reporter's views into a given story.