Sunday's New York Times has a good piece by Public Editor Clark Hoyt on the question of media bias. Here's a choice excerpt:
In political coverage, the accusations are always that the reporter or publication has ideological or party bias. But Cline has written that journalists have a whole set of professional biases that have nothing to do with politics. Journalists are biased toward conflict, toward bad news because it is more exciting than good news, and, obviously, toward what is new. When Obama was the new candidate on the presidential scene, The Times did some tough reporting on his background and record. But that was a long time ago, and memories fade. Palin was new much more recently, so the tough reporting on her happened closer to the general election, leading her supporters to complain that The Times was picking on her and giving Obama a pass.Being human, journalists do have personal biases, and a long line of studies has shown that they tend to be more socially and politically liberal than the population at large. There is no reason to believe Times journalists are any different. But Tien-Tsung Lee, an associate professor of journalism at the University of Kansas, wrote in 2005 after reviewing the literature that “a link between reporters’ political beliefs and news coverage has never been convincingly established.”
You can read the entire article here.
