A 2008 Pew Research Center analysis found that Fox News’ 2008 election coverage was very balanced compared to MSNBC (see graph above). This is going to focus on Fox News from now on. I check their webpage once a day, though I don’t have access to their cable news channel.
Conclusions:
1) PRC rated just Fox News’ news sections and not the commentary programs (i.e., Hannity, Beck, O’Reilly).
2) Polling was wrong
3) I am biased against Fox News and therefore cannot see that they were the most balanced
4) False dichotomy. Though the coverage (negative/positive) of McCain and Obama was balanced, it should not have been because one candidate works less with logic and more with ad hominem. This is like bringing 1 republican and 1 democratic on a show to discuss a topic and claiming this is balanced, even if you are discussing plate tectonics and one of them does not believe it in (hope that makes sense).
Anyone have a thought about this? The above may not be mutually exclusive. I probably am a little bias toward Fox, but I also think they use a lot of false dichotomy and guise their commentary programs as real news.
Posts
Something is fishy here. Can we look at their methods (in detail)? I'm happy to be wrong about Fox News, but we need access to their methods.
ReplyDeleteNo poll is a poll unless we see the science behind it. Let's try to look at this like we would a scientific article.
Here I have linked methodology from Pew Research on above study.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.journalism.org/node/13441
Rush Limbaugh, Hannity, Michael Savage were excluded as Talk Radio and not news, also, Beck did not start until January 2009, so he was not included either. O'Reilly's show was included, as well as Olbermann and Maddow on MSNBC.
They sample >2200 shows from Sept. 8 - Oct 16, 2008. In order to rank something negative or positive there had to be a >2:1 ratio (e.g., 2 negative:1 positive = negative; 1.5 negative:1 positive = neutral).
So now the question becomes, do we believe both McCain and Obama had equivalent statements/policies for 40% negative/each by Fox News?
How is a story defined? Hypothetically say FOX News rails on Obama for an hour straight on the same topic, then for 15 seconds briefly mentions McCain's involvement in the Keating 5 scandal. Do each of these count as "1 negative story"? Then switch it and say that Obama did well on something for 15 seconds and spend an hour on McCain's great works as a senator. Do these count as "1 positive story" for each? If so, I wouldn't call those equally balanced.
ReplyDeleteI forgot you posted the link of methodology. I'll try to look that over tonight to see how it melds with my question.
ReplyDelete