On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 11:08 AM, Judah McAuley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 10:48 AM, Charlie Griefer > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I don't disagree with this, and the concern that the research has been > done > > in an objective manner is a valid concern to voice. But I don't > necessarily > > believe that one can simply dismiss the findings without proving that the > > research itself was not done objectively. > > Agreed. Did you actually look at the "study"? First off, it isn't a > study. It is a report entitled "Liberal Media Exposed!". It is not a > survey of available literature and it is not a new study performed by > the group. The page that Scott linked to for the study has a > reasonable rundown of the highlights. Its points are that many of the > people in the media are Democrats (apparently 5 to 10% more than the > population average in the 80's) and they tend to vote for Democrats > for President. It also says that journalists have "liberal views" > using metrics like the fact that most of them support a woman's right > to choose an abortion. Then it says that some journalists have > admitted to being liberal and spends an entire section on how the > public thinks they are liberal. The final section seems mostly to be > an attack on Dan Rather and is all about how the media denies having a > liberal bias. > > What part of that is objective? They didn't even look at actual news. > The entire thing is an attack on the credibility of journalists, it > isn't an analysis of news coverage and reporting. There is no > research. > > > If there's a claim made that there's bias in the media (liberal or > > otherwise), and a study is set up to determine the validity of that > claim, > > by your reasoning that study is doomed to failure, because they are > "looking > > for it". But if the claim is made.. any claim really... let's say > somebody > > claims "X"... wouldn't a study be warranted to see if "X" is true? But > by > > your reasoning the study is flawed from the onset because they are > looking > > for "X". > > > > I wouldn't dismiss it simply because they were looking for it. Of course > > they were looking for it. That was the premise for the study. I would, > > however, say, "I'd like to see details about the study to be sure that it > > was conducted in an unbiased manner in order to arrive at conclusion Y." > > Perhaps you misunderstand what I meant. The issue I was trying to > address is known as confirmation bias, which is the tendency of people > to find data that supports their preconceived conclusions. When you > are trying to create a study on a topic, confirmation bias is one of > those things that you need to deal with first and foremost. > > A real study on bias in the media has to start with the null > hypothesis, that is, there is no bias one way or another. Then you > design a protocol to identify and score bias. Then you would go > collect data, run it through the protocol and see whether it best fit > the null hypothesis or an alternate hypothesis. > > it is one thing to ponder "I wonder how prevalent bias is in the > media" and then design a study to investigate it. That isn't what this > did though. I'm sure that there are people out there doing this sort > of investigation. What Scott linked to, however, was not credible. > > > You do leave yourself some wiggle-room by saying "Not 100% certain of > > course", and I agree with that (perhaps not surprising). But before we > > condemn the study, let's make sure we're condemning it for the proper > > reasons (if they exist). > > Ok, no wiggle room...the linked article is 100% a piece of worthless shit. > > There are ways to study these things. The item linked by Scott doesn't > fulfill any of the criteria for being a study let alone a sound study. > Fair enough. And I do understand the concept of starting with the null hypothesis. My point (and I did have one) was that it isn't fair (or logical) to dismiss the study simply by stating that results were twisted to support a hypothesis without showing facts to support that statement. I'll further agree that this wasn't a scientific study. I'll agree that it's a report. And that it supports a particular point of view rather than proving it. So for proof, how about one of the links that Larry posted: http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/groseclose/Media.Bias.8.htm Excerpt: "One surprise is the Wall Street Journal, which we find as the most liberal of all 20 news outlets. We should first remind readers that this estimate (as well as all other newspaper estimates) refers only to the news of the Wall Street Journal; we omitted all data that came from its editorial page. If we included data from the editorial page, surely it would appear more conservative. " Excerpt: "Most striking is that all but two of the outlets we examine are left of center. Even more striking is that if we use the more liberal definition of center (54.0)the one constructed from congressional scores from 1975-94it is still the case that eighteen of twenty outlets are left of center." -- I have failed as much as I have succeeded. But I love my life. I love my wife. And I wish you my kind of success. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:277076 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
