Wednesday's Biased Item - March 21, 2007
Zogby Poll: Voters Believe Media Bias is Very Real
Excerpt
QUESTION: Read the excerpt below from MRC.org's March 15 Cyber Alert. Then scroll down and read "Types of Media Bias." Answer the following questions and ask a parent's opinion also:1. Do you think the media is biased? If so, do you think the media has a liberal or conservative bias? 2. Name the media outlets you think are the most or least biased.
The "vast majority of American voters believe media bias is alive and well" with 83% seeing bias in the media and of those, "nearly two-thirds (64%)...said the media leans left" while only "slightly more than a quarter of respondents (28%) said they see a conservative bias," determined a Zogby Interactive survey of 1,757 likely voters nationwide which was released on Wednesday [March 14, 2007].
[The following is] an excerpt from the posted findings for the survey...:
Zogby Poll: Voters Believe Media Bias is Very Real: Institute for Politics, Democracy, and the Internet/Zogby Poll shows American voters are skeptical political motivation may be behind blogs run by mainstream news organizations. The vast majority of American voters believe media bias is alive and well -- 83% of likely voters said the media is biased in one direction or another, while just 11% believe the media doesn't take political sides, a recent IPDI/Zogby Interactive poll shows....
Nearly two-thirds of those online respondents who detected bias in the media (64%) said the media leans left, while slightly more than a quarter of respondents (28%) said they see a conservative bias on their TV sets and in their column inches....
While 97% of Republicans surveyed said the media are liberal, two-thirds of political independents feel the same, but fewer than one in four independents (23%) said they saw a conservative bias. Democrats, while much more likely to perceive a conservative bias than other groups, were not nearly as sure the media was against them as were the Republicans. While Republicans were unified in their perception of a left-wing media, just two-thirds of Democrats were certain the media skewed right -- and 17% said the bias favored the left.
- Go to MRC.org for the original posting.
- For Zogby's summary of the poll results, go to zogby.com
- For IPDI's website, go to ipdi.org
To accurately identify different types of bias, you should be aware of the issues of the day, and the liberal and conservative perspectives on each issue. (See our chart “Conservative vs. Liberal Beliefs”)
Types of Media Bias:
Omission – leaving one side out of an article or a series of articles over a period of time... (read more)
Selection of Sources – including more sources that support one view over another... (read more)
Story Selection – a pattern of highlighting news stories that support one side of an issue over another... (read more)
Placement – the location in the paper or article where a story or event is printed; a pattern of placing news stories so as to downplay information supportive of one side... (read more)
Labeling – comes in two forms: 1. Tagging of person from one party or group with extreme labels while leaving the other side unlabeled or with more mild labels. 2. A reporter not only fails to identify a liberal or conservative as such, but also describes the person or group with positive labels, such as “an expert” or “independent consumer group”... (read more)
Spin – occurs when the story has only one interpretation of an event or policy, to the exclusion of the other. Spin involves tone- a reporter’s subjective comments about objective facts... (read more)
Previous Biased Items
- When Watchdogs Snore: How ABC, CBS & NBC Ignored Fannie & Freddie
October 1, 2008 - AP: US ‘A Nation That Enshrined Slavery in its Constitution’
September 24, 2008 - Media’s Treatment of Hillary, Barack and Sarah
September 17, 2008 - Media Credibility Plummets
September 10, 2008 - The NY Times: A Year-Long Analysis: Part 2
September 3, 2008
