Is Fox less biased than any other news source?

[RACooper]

Well just finished watching a Fifth Estate special on the US media and percieved 'left' and 'right' wing bias... interesting to say the least - it's too bad DeltAlum doesn't get the CBC I'd have loved to here his take on the interviews with some of the media personalities...

Link to CBC website listing resources:
http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/sticksandstones.html

For those interested media watch-groups from the left and right are listed at the end of the page... intersting to see the connections to certain "studies" already used on GC.

Personally I found the correlation between primary news source and beliefs regarding the War in Iraq and US Politics - particularly the fact that the more you watched FOXNews the more apt you were to believe a) World opinion was in favour of the US taking military action in Iraq; b) WMD had been founf; c) Saddam and Iraq were directly responsible for 9/11... now if Fox is far and balanced, how can these misconceptions be more prevalent amongst their more advid viewers?


PS> Canadians will get a kick out of the FOXNews coverage shown regarding Bush's visit to Canada after the US election - priceless that the experts no so little about our and their own history Ann Coultier stated that Canada had sent troops to fight in Vietnam, and when corrected by the interviewer she argued with him that he was wrong.... he was even helpful enough to suggest that perhaps she was thinking of Australia... which she said no to - she was sure it was Canada Priceless.

[DeltAlum]

Originally posted by RACooper
it's too bad DeltAlum doesn't get the CBC I'd have loved to here his take on the interviews with some of the media personalities...

I wish I could see CBC as well. I used to enjoy watching it when we lived in Detroit. This show sounds interesting.

[Rudey]

Originally posted by RACooper


For those interested media watch-groups from the left and right are listed at the end of the page... intersting to see the connections to certain "studies" already used on GC.

So really what studies are used on GC?

What connections are you talking about?

-Rudey

[RACooper]

Originally posted by Rudey
So really what studies are used on GC?

What connections are you talking about?

-Rudey

Well the study that you referenced by Barro for one; there was a segement discussing questions about the Groseclose-Miylo studies methodology: specifically questions over the 1 for 1 rating of citations, without weighting them, or adjusting for context (ie. whether the cited "liberal" or "conservative" source was referenced in a positive or negative context); and the use of MRC references for some of the research material...

[KSig RC]

Originally posted by RACooper
Well the study that you referenced by Barro for one; there was a segement discussing questions about the Groseclose-Miylo studies methodology: specifically questions over the 1 for 1 rating of citations, without weighting them, or adjusting for context (ie. whether the cited "liberal" or "conservative" source was referenced in a positive or negative context); and the use of MRC references for some of the research material...

I didn't see the piece, obviously, but the 'weighting' referenced here (as well as contextualization) is a heated research topic in every field. For instance, weighting in my field has been disallowed because Bayesian workup of numbers adds yet another bias to the figures.

These are tenuous bases for attack on studies; the empiricism behind the numbers is always up for discussion, no matter how they're done. This is the real world of statistics.

[RACooper]

Originally posted by KSig RC
I didn't see the piece, obviously, but the 'weighting' referenced here (as well as contextualization) is a heated research topic in every field. For instance, weighting in my field has been disallowed because Bayesian workup of numbers adds yet another bias to the figures.

These are tenuous bases for attack on studies; the empiricism behind the numbers is always up for discussion, no matter how they're done. This is the real world of statistics.

Well to be honest a lot of the stuff went over my head in the small segement... mostly dealing with the mathematical model used. Basically the host/commentator argued that without weight or context, using left/right sources becomes problematic to say the least - sorta a looks good on paper, but not in practice. When they refered to weight they ment how left/right of centre was the source they subject was citing... which then gets into the prickly arguement of where centre is... something that I didn't (and the Fifth Estate) want to touch.

What I found interesting is that say if I was a reporter, and I was doing a piece say on the Iraq War - if I used sources such as Amnesty International and the Department of Defense once each my piece would balance according to the formula - even if the piece was an article attacking one side or the other in the arguement over body counts or prisoners of war... that is where I found the application of the Groseclose-Miylo study problematic when analyizing the media (or politics for that matter).

[Rudey]

Originally posted by RACooper
Well the study that you referenced by Barro for one; there was a segement discussing questions about the Groseclose-Miylo studies methodology: specifically questions over the 1 for 1 rating of citations, without weighting them, or adjusting for context (ie. whether the cited "liberal" or "conservative" source was referenced in a positive or negative context); and the use of MRC references for some of the research material...

Well for one Barro conducted no study. Barro is one of the most prominent modern economists. All Barro did is offer a quick summary of the research piece in a magazine.

And there is no "connection". The study was conducted by academic research centers including NORC, at the University of Chicago, and Stanford if I remember correctly. To say a reference from something else was cited is pusing "connections".

-Rudey

[DeltAlum]

Excerpt from the Washington Post...

An Opinionated Network
Monday, Mar 14, 2005; 7:05 AM

In covering the Iraq war last year, 73 percent of the stories on Fox News included the opinions of the anchors and journalists reporting them, a new study says.

By contrast, 29 percent of the war reports on MSNBC and 2 percent of those on CNN included the journalists' own views.

These findings -- the figures were similar for coverage of other stories -- "seem to challenge" Fox's slogan of "we report, you decide," says the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

In a 617-page report, the group also found that "Fox is more deeply sourced than its rivals," while CNN is "the least transparent about its sources of the three cable channels, but more likely to present multiple points of view."

The project defines opinion as views that are not attributed to others.


(The article goes on for a long time. You can see it in Monday's edition online. You have to sign up -- but it is free)

Here's a link...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...s/kurtzhoward/

[KSig RC]

Originally posted by DeltAlum
Excerpt from the Washington Post...

An Opinionated Network
Monday, Mar 14, 2005; 7:05 AM

In covering the Iraq war last year, 73 percent of the stories on Fox News included the opinions of the anchors and journalists reporting them, a new study says.

By contrast, 29 percent of the war reports on MSNBC and 2 percent of those on CNN included the journalists' own views.

These findings -- the figures were similar for coverage of other stories -- "seem to challenge" Fox's slogan of "we report, you decide," says the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

In a 617-page report, the group also found that "Fox is more deeply sourced than its rivals," while CNN is "the least transparent about its sources of the three cable channels, but more likely to present multiple points of view."

The project defines opinion as views that are not attributed to others.


(The article goes on for a long time. You can see it in Monday's edition online. You have to sign up -- but it is free)

Here's a link...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...s/kurtzhoward/

Yesterday, CNN (!) reported that a Columbia University study had determined that 2/3 of all Presidential election coverage was negative toward President Bush.

Was that coming from Fox News, as well?

[IowaStatePhiPsi]

fact/opinion vs. positive/negative story

[KSig RC]

Originally posted by IowaStatePhiPsi

fact/opinion vs. positive/negative story

Can you see how substitution of one with the other may create situations in which Fox News has less tangible bias than other sources? I'm not trying to Foghorn Leghorn you here, but that's the point of the thread, and that's what I was getting at.

Also, CNN's opinion pieces are simply not given by the reporter - it's by a pundit or commentator, which is significantly more journalistic, but may not satisfy the rift noted above.

[DeltAlum]

Originally posted by KSig RC
Yesterday, CNN (!) reported that a Columbia University study had determined that 2/3 of all Presidential election coverage was negative toward President Bush.

I saw that.

On the on-air network side, what was interesting to me is that within the same networks, there was a positive/negative difference between the major evening news programs and the morning shows. The evening shows tended to be more "negative" in their coverage than the AM counterparts.

Not having read the study, I have no idea how "positive" and "negative" were defined, though.

ETA --- Wait, I thought it was the other way around for Bush...36% negative, the rest positive or neutral. See below:

"The annual report by a press watchdog that is affiliated with Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism said that 36 percent of stories about Bush were negative compared to 12 percent about Kerry, a Massachusetts senator.

Only 20 percent were positive toward Bush compared to 30 percent of stories about Kerry that were positive, according to the report by the Project for Excellence in Journalism."

[DeltAlum]

Roger Ailes Defends FOX News Practices
Refutes Criticism by Project for Excellence in Journalism
By Claire Atkinson and Abbey Klaassen

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Fox News Network's chairman-CEO, Roger Ailes, Thursday brushed aside recent research from the Project for Excellence in Journalism that suggested his news operations harbored a conservative bias.

Mr. Ailes made his comments this morning at a media breakfast at Syracuse University's Newhouse School in Manhattan, where he was interviewed by New Yorker media columnist Ken Auletta.

The Project for Excellence in Journalism is a Washington-based organization affiliated with the Columbia University School of Journalism and funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts.

One-sided news coverage
In its "State of the American News Media" report issued March 13, the Project concluded that the Fox News Channel had the most one-sided news coverage of the major networks. Fox was specifically cited for being twice as likely to broadcast positive news stories about the Iraq war than its competitors. Its reporters were also found to have included their opinions in seven out of 10 news reports. Reporters from Fox rivals CNN and MSNBC only included opinion in about one in 10 of their stories, the report said.

Responding to the criticism, Mr. Ailes said survey questions or polls of the sort the Project conducted can always be spun. "I took a poll of Pew and 98% of my organization thought they were biased," he joked. "You can't get too worked up about it."

Heavy on political analysis
He went on to defend Fox News' programming, which runs a lineup heavy on political analysis, arguing that there is simply too much time in the day to do all hard news all the time. "You need news analysis, it's part of TV today," he said. But, he insisted, "hard news -- you can't really spin that." He said he always asks staff to "reach out to a point of view they don't always agree with, to be sure they add some balance to the stories."

In response to criticism from the Project that cable news channels often run stories based on only a single source, Mr. Ailes acknowledged that cable operations are often less staffed. He also pointed out that Fox News has one-third the staff of CNN.

"The journalism in cable sometimes is light because the depth of investigative research isn't there," he said.

No 'Tailwind'
Mr. Ailes asserted, however, that the "American people know what they're watching. The news audience is older, they're more educated, they have more money. There is no tricking anybody." He went on to say that Fox News had not had a "Tailwind," the 1998 journalistic debacle aired by CNN that inaccurately accused the military of gassing American defectors in Laos during the Vietnam war. The story was later retracted. Mr. Ailes said Fox had also avoided the kind of problems CBS News had following its report on President Bush's Air National Guard duty, for which anchor Dan Rather later apologized.

When asked about the greatest challenge at Fox News, he said it was "complacency and people who get to be successful or get too much money." When asked if there was anything CNN had that he envied, Mr. Ailes replied with a quick no. But, after a few seconds, decided he envied the positive press CNN gets. He said there was nothing he envied about MSNBC, but that the network has "hired every blonde that doesn't already work for us -- and apparently it's not working."

Sound marketing practices
His advice on sound marketing practice is, "You tell your story, figure out your message and get people to identify with it." Mr. Ailes described how Fox adopted the line, "America's most powerful brand in news." When a rival contested the phrase, he responded, "It's a marketing slogan!" In advertising sales terms, he said that because CNN refused to break out numbers on a head-to-head basis, he concluded that Fox News must be beating them.

[RACooper]

Well the CBC re-aired the 'Sticks and Stones' Fifth Estate program that has dealt with the bias in American media - specifically FOXNews...

Now the CBC has even made the program available online through their website:
http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/sticksandstones.html

It was fun watching the summary of the fallout of the program... including Bill O'Reilly calling the CBC's program equivelant to Nazi propaganda... or Ann Coulter insulting the CBC interviewer, Canada, and CBC on a C-SPAN interview.

I'd encourage people to watch this... particularlly viewers of FOXNews - the program is informative for supporters of media or journalism.

Oh in case you're wondering the program comes down firmly on the side of media bias blatantly existing in the mainstream media.

PS> You might want to check out that arrogant blowhard O'Reilly being caught lying about sources (well making them up), and lying about facts (making up statistics).... funny there has been no real calls for his resignation or firing.

[UKTriDelt]

[hijack]

I *heart* Fox News (especially Bill O'Reilly)

[/hijack]