Armchair Pundits

Specious Charge?

Often times, the left maligns charges of main-stream media (MSM) bias from the center right, as being paranoid , mistrusting or even as evidence of a radical right-wing agenda on par with the machinations of conspiracy theorists.

Interestingly enough, this same group views the existence of the Fox News network, as the penultimate example of a right-wing media bias; however a recent study in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, touts the first quantifiable evidence of media bias, and this UCLA lead study cites Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume as being demonstrably centrist.

Also noteworthy, was that Drudge Report exhibts a slightly left of center leaning, while News Hour With Jim Lehrer is cited as most centrist. Both examples fly in the face of conventional wisdom, as Drudge is oft touted as a mouth-piece of the right, with Lehrer's program appearing on what many consider a bastion of liberal thought, PBS.

While both sides of the political spectrum manifest a tendency to see what they want, this study demonstrates that as a whole, MSM is left-leaning.

Vindication.

posted by Grisby @ 11:34 AM