--- And speaking of media bias.
I followed the links to the article in the Boston Globe and whaddya
know---it seems someone has been paying attention to the numbers put
out by the Project for Excellence in Journalism that I linked to last week.
There's lots of doubts about the motives of journalists," adds
Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and
the Press.
Kohut regularly polls people about the media, and the responses aren't
flattering. In a survey released last summer, 66 percent of the
respondents said news organizations tended to be biased when covering
political and social issues; only 26 percent thought they dealt fairly
with all sides. Seventy percent said news outlets were often influenced
by powerful people and organizations, while 23 percent considered the
media independent of such influences. Less than half those surveyed
thought news organizations were "moral," though only 32 percent were
willing to label the media as "immoral." Still, when that question was
asked in 1985, only 13 percent opted for the "immoral" characterization.
My questions remain:
a. What are the 1985 numbers and why hasn't anyone published a link to
them so we can compare and contrast the numbers? b. Why hasn't someone
checked to see why there was only a 14 point jump over seventeen years
in regards to the amount of bias? There seems to be plenty of
evaluation regarding journalists ethics, but there's no comparison in
this article about the bias numbers.
c. So, according to this, In a survey released last summer, 66
percent of the respondents said news organizations tended to be biased
when covering political and social issues I was right in saying that the numbers regarding bias were off, but we'll never know how
much they're off by because everyone seems to be comparing apples to
oranges when they talk about this study and the others that are cited.
d. Damnit! Why hasn't Instapundit linked me already on this one????
{obligatory blogging related whining for the day--sorry}