Media Bias Is Real, Finds UCLA Political Scientist... 12/14/2005: "While the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal is conservative, the newspaper's news pages are liberal, even more liberal than The New York Times. The Drudge Report may have a right-wing reputation, but it leans left. Coverage by public television and radio is conservative compared to the rest of the mainstream media. Meanwhile, almost all major media outlets tilt to the left.Read the whole thing.
These are just a few of the surprising findings from a UCLA-led study, which is believed to be the first successful attempt at objectively quantifying bias in a range of media outlets and ranking them accordingly.
'I suspected that many media outlets would tilt to the left because surveys have shown that reporters tend to vote more Democrat than Republican,' said Tim Groseclose, a UCLA political scientist and the study's lead author. 'But I was surprised at just how pronounced the distinctions are.'
'Overall, the major media outlets are quite moderate compared to members of Congress, but even so, there is a quantifiable and significant bias in that nearly all of them lean to the left,' said co‑author Jeffrey Milyo, University of Missouri economist and public policy scholar."
I knew about the Wall Street Journal. But I don't think it's fair to say that Drudge leans left. After all his page is mostly just links to what other people are reporting, with the occasional scoop thrown in.
Still though if you didn't take your newspaper, or news anchors with a grain of salt before you should start now.
