COUNTERCOLUMN: All Your Bias Are Belong to Us

...albeit barely. Here he is writing in The National Journal:

Instead of answers to how Kerry expects to lure international troops into Iraq, how he'll pay for his many promises and cut the deficit in half in one term or even whether he believes the war to be a mistake, about all we learned through the media was that he is a Vietnam vet. Rather than examine Kerry's proposals, the press seems more than happy to buy into the campaign's "message of the day." Haven't we seen this movie before, and wasn't it called "the buildup to war"?

The cynicism and distrust for this administration among much of the media appears to be intractable at this point. Feeling they were too trusting in the days leading to war, the Fourth Estate no longer trusts what is fed to them. Why they ever did in the first place is beyond us, but when Republicans cry "bias," they've got a point.

But here's the opening paragraph:

When Republicans complain about media bias in the next few months, don't be so quick to brush it off as the same old song. They just might have a case, but not for the reasons they will suggest. Rather than some ideologically-driven agenda to put a Democrat in the White House, press bias appears rooted more in a sense of guilt.

Leapin' Lefties, Vaughn! Just how many studies detailing a pervasive ideological bias is it going to take to convince you guys that the problem is ideological in nature?

It's not overcompensation at all. There is zero empirical evidence to confirm that an ideologically neutral press is trying to overcompensate for failing to press the Bush Administration on WMD intelligence.

None.

Coverage was inept long before we went to Iraq. And coverage of a variety of social issues was hopelessly distorted long before we failed to find huge stocks of WMD.

The one-sided and incompetent coverage of gun control issues alone stands to convict journalists of their own ideological preconceptions, and has done so for more than 20 years, at least.

In contrast, study after study--survey after survey--confirms that journalists themselves are radically farther left than the population at large. Ideologically.

You've got to be pretty thick-headed to argue that, in the aggregate, such a pervasive ideological tilt DOESN'T predictably lead to skewed coverage.

The author constructs an elaborate straw-man argument: that conservative argue that journalists deliberately skew the news in a calculated effort to put one party in the White House and the other on the street.

That is a silly mischaracterization. Sure, some make that argument. But the fact is, for bias to exist, it does not have to be conscious or deliberate. Rather, I would posit that the inadvertent bias--the bias rooted in the assumptions that journalist hold dear, and wrongly believe that because their peers share them, that their readership shares them, too--is far and away bias's the most pernicious and insidious form.

Case in point:

The Times saw fit to run 20-some straight front-page stories on the Iraqi prison scandal, even on days when there was little or no actual news. Doom and gloom coverage throughout the press raised many a doubt about the handover of power to an interim Iraqi government.

From Iraq to the economy, Bush was buffeted by bad news -- and worse headlines.

None of the news was fabricated or made up in any way.

I'm throwing the bullshit flag on this one.

How many times have we seen the press blindly repeat the lie that despite the active participation of more than 20 countries, the Iraq war was unilateral?

How many times have we seen the press wrongly claim that "no WMDs have been found," despite the seizing of around a dozen WMDs by US troops and the seizure of enough chem to kill 20,000 people in Amman, Jordan?

How many times has the press wrongly stated that there were no Iraq links to Al Qaeda, despite the express insistence by the 9/11 commission that there were?

Is this distortion deliberate? Well, no. But the decision by the NY Times to run 20 straight front page stories on Abu Ghraib certainly was a conscious act. But conscious distortions are not neccessary to demonstrate bias.

Any valid scientific hypothesis or theory must be falsifiable. All hypotheses must contain the roots of their own destruction. All hypotheses must expressly state what findings will disprove the hypothesis.
My final question is: what on earth will convince you that there is an ideological problem with the press corps as an aggregate?

Ok, Vaughn, you're claiming that biased media coverage is a result of guilt over not having done a better job holding Bush accountable to his WMD claims before the war, and not a result of ideology within the press corps.

Alright, Vaughn, I'm calling your bluff:

What will falsify your hypothesis?

Just how many studies is it going to take?

Splash, out

Jason