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Trivia Tidbit Of The Day: Part 16 -- Media Bias.

MEDIA BIAS-

Click for larger version.

Source: Adapted from The Nightly News Nightmare: Network Television's Coverage of U. S. Presidential Elections, 1988-2000, by Stephen J. Farnsworth, S. Robert Lichter, based on research from the nonpartisan Center for Media and Public Affairs.

Interesting that Ronald Reagan got such stunningly bad coverage in 1984. Of all the presidential candidates in the past quarter century, John Kerry received the most positive media coverage from the networks (.pdf). On average, Democrats have received 19% more positive coverage from the networks over the years, which matches somewhat that whole "media bias will be worth 15 points for Kerry" thing.

But how do we know this isn't just subjective opinion?

A little methodological concept known as "reliability." Basically, if multiple people come to the same conclusions, independently, based on rigorous objective criteria, it's more than a he-said, she-said game, the results are said to be "reliable."

For more on the methodology that went into the analyses, click here.

The measure is not fool-proof, though, as it fails to capture which stories were left out entirely from the news cycle, for example.

Previous trivia tidbits:

Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7; Part 8; Part 9; Part 10; Part 11; Part 12; Part 13; Part 14; Part 15.

Stay tuned to WILLisms.com for more daily trivia tidbits.

Posted by Will Franklin · 14 April 2005 10:12 AM

Comments

Posted by: Joseph (Advocate of Democracy) at April 14, 2005 10:21 AM

Posted by: Zsa Zsa at April 14, 2005 03:13 PM