Patterico’s Right: This Is Horrible Bias, Even for the LA Times
Patterico notes the way the Los Angeles Times’ Scott Collins played some recent cable news audience information. The facts are that in the 25-54 demographic, Fox is down 17%, CNN is down 38%, and MSNBC is up 16% off of a very small base.
Talk about selective fact-finding, even in what is admittedly an op-ed piece (requires registration):
A ratings downer for Fox News
May 8, 2006Some recent ratings news no doubt gladdened the hearts of Fox News Channel haters.
First, Nielsen Media Research reported that Fox News’ overall prime-time lineup dropped 17% last month compared with a year ago (MSNBC grew 16% during the same period, while CNN plummeted by 38%).
Late last week, a reliable television industry website, TVNewser.com, reported that in April, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly had his worst month in nearly five years among viewers age 25 to 54, the most coveted audience in TV news.
Although the network still churns out ratings light-years ahead of competitors’ and O’Reilly remains cable news’ No. 1 host, Fox News’ explosive growth appears to be, like the president’s 90% approval rating in the days following Sept. 11, a relic from the first Bush term.
That’s the elephant in the room, of course — the broadly assumed, and occasionally documented, affinity between Fox News and the current administration (Vice President Dick Cheney’s office prepared a hotel checklist, recently posted on TheSmokingGun.com, that ordered “all televisions tuned to Fox News” during Cheney visits). Could it be mere coincidence that O’Reilly, populist scourge of both Clintons and countless left-wing causes, is seeing his still-formidable nightly audience of 2.1 million or so start to shrink in tandem with the Bush/GOP’s rapidly fading grip on the electorate?
Meanwhile, back in reality, where Mr. Collins does not reside, here are the audiences last Friday, the last weekday currently available:
Collins doesn’t at all make it clear that he’s only covering the 25-54 demographic. Does Collins even realize, as this Patterico commenter shows, that CNN’s decline from a smaller base means it lost more viewers that Fox did from its larger base?
I’ve always found it pretty funny that Fox is considered conservative, because when you look at their 6PM-Midnight lineup, the only true conservative is Hannity — and he shares his show with liberal Alan Colmes. O’Reilly conservative? Please — He’s all over the place. Shep Smith? Same. Greta? Surely you jest. Hume? The best play-it-straight reporter in the business, bar none.
What liberals don’t like about Fox is that it generally airs both sides of an issue, and tries to avoid slanting the presentation. I can see how that would be difficult for someone who thinks Dan Rather was fair and balanced to swallow. The numbers of such people continue to shrink.
Please. FOX’s ratings have absolutely nothing to do with their content.
It’s juvenile and completely slanted. Or, in other words, Republicans love it.
FOX has established a brand (we’re conservative), marketed it, and found a niche.
Says absolutely nothing about the quality (or lack of quality) of FOX’s programming, or what the public at large thinks.
Comment by Theo — May 9, 2006 @ 6:35 pm
#1, Let’s see, you insult Moderate Mainstream, Republicans, Fox News…. you clearly aren’t interested in persuading anyone.
I would take Fox viewers as more representative of the public at large than the miniscule viewerships of CNN and MSNBC. People who watch Fox are relieved not to be talked down to and told what they should be thinking… sort of like you’re trying to talk down to me and other commenters on a continual basis.
And Hannity IS the only conservative in the FOX 6-12 lineup. The conservative label has been hung on Fox by jealous rivals who have been lapped by people who know how to professionally present news and discussion programming.
Comment by TBlumer — May 9, 2006 @ 7:11 pm
If you perceive yourself as being “talked down to”, there’s nothing I can do about that.
I’m sorry I make you feel inferior. But as Eleanor Roosevelt said, no one can do that without your consent.
I’m also sorry to tell you that FOX is a journalistic joke everywhere else but with FOX and their “FOX Fans”.
Like I said early, they market themselves as conservative news (”fair and balanced” - wink, wink) and they’ve cornered the market on that market. It says absolutely nothing about their journalistic quality or the tastes of the general public.
What part of that is so difficult for you to understand?
Comment by Theo — May 9, 2006 @ 7:32 pm
No, I observe you trying to act superior, and it’s really amusing to watch.
“Fair and balanced” is now “code” for “conservative”?
What I understand is that the general public was looking for quality news coverage in the late 1990s, and finally got it with Fox, which in 5 or so years caught up to and buried its supposedly objective but actually very biased rivals.
Comment by TBlumer — May 9, 2006 @ 8:25 pm
“‘Fair and balanced’ is now ‘code’ for ‘conservative’.” Now you’re starting to get it.
It implies that the rest of the media is crooked and only FOX is capable of the truth. Propaganda at its best.
And please stop using the words “quality” and “professional” when discussing jokes like Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, and John Gibson. They’re laughingstocks.
Comment by Theo — May 9, 2006 @ 8:34 pm
#5, Nope “Fair and Balanced” means “fair and balanced” (imagine that).
The rest of the media has all too often not been fair or balanced for 60 years, ever since enough of them decided that the Soviets really weren’t really all that bad after WW2.
They’re giving their audience something of value and they are being rewarded for it. The fact that you think they’re laughingstocks only demonstrates the contempt you have for smart people who figure out how to build an audience.
Comment by TBlumer — May 9, 2006 @ 10:07 pm
Sometimes I wish I were capable of your level of naivete.
Ignorance is bliss, they say.
Comment by Theo — May 9, 2006 @ 10:58 pm
#7, go to Newsbusters.org if you want to pick fights over how obviously liberally biased the major newspapers, the AP, and the major networks except Fox are. Dozens of blatant examples spew forth every week, and dwarf the ones MediaMatters.org pretends to find.
Comment by TBlumer — May 9, 2006 @ 11:21 pm
I believe right-wing paranoia about “liberal bias” rests solely on the fact that more liberals go into journalism than conservatives do.
As if it were impossible for someone, regardless of political affiliation, to report in an unbiased fashion.
Most (if not all) real journalists would rather retire than submit a news piece that was factually incorrect or biased.
The fact that the right perpetuates this myth and that the media is owned by fewer and fewer corporations are, on the other hand, demonstrable facts.
Comment by Theo — May 9, 2006 @ 11:51 pm
Well now that you’ve owned up to liberal bias, the only question becomes whether it’s all accidental or sometimes, or often, intentional.
Consult Mr. Patterico’s annual reviews of the LA Times’ coverage:
2003:
http://patterico.com/archives/001747.php
2004:
http://patterico.com/archives/003253.php
PART 2 HERE
2005:
ALL HERE
There’s more than a little liberal bias that’s intentional, and there’s lots more where it came from at the major newspapers, the AP, and every major network, sometimes even including Fox — though their errors in the conservative and liberal directions essentially offset each other, since they, unlike the rest, legitimately strive to be fair and balanced. :–>
Comment by TBlumer — May 10, 2006 @ 12:13 am
“Well now that you’ve owned up to liberal bias”
Not what I wrote.
If you have to stoop to deliberately misinterpreting my points, then I’d say you’re losing the argument.
How un-fair and balanced of you, by the way.
Comment by Theo — May 10, 2006 @ 12:20 am
#11, it IS what you wrote, in essence, because it IS “impossible for someone, regardless of political affiliation, to report in an unbiased fashion” (i.e., you are wrong :–>).
As marvelously fair as I try to be, I readily admit that my conservative biases creep into how I report things. A publication or broadcast that is trying to deliver all the “important” news also makes critical decisions about what NOT to report, or how much emphasis to give the stories (what page, where listed in the links, etc.), and biases will certainly enter the picture in those calls.
Bias also affects how reporters evaluate evidence and how much scrutiny they give it — The fake rathergate memos got through because CBS’s people wanted them to be true, and let down their guard, when any clod should have known that they couldn’t have been created as they appeared with the technology that was available in teh late 1960s-early 1970s.
So the only question is the degree to which the overweighting of the newsroom with liberals affects how what’s reported is reported, and how it affects what is not reported. I say a lot, especially if the overweighting is sustained over a long period of time, as it has been.
I even have a classic post on the origins of business bias for your entertainment that earned an Instalanche:
Kudlow Doesn’t Understand Biased MSM Business Reporting (So I Will Explain)
http://www.bizzyblog.com/?p=138
Comment by TBlumer — May 10, 2006 @ 1:18 am
“As marvelously fair as I try to be, I readily admit that my conservative biases creep into how I report things.”
Did you mean for that to be funny?
Because it made me laugh.
Conservatives that aren’t parrots repeating talking points and ideology (along with the standard extreme anti-liberal rhetoric) are few and far between in my experience, and I’m afraid you’re no different.
Comment by Theo — May 10, 2006 @ 2:49 am
Theo, sweetie, go pick fights with your peers (most of them only go half-day to school, so you should have plenty of time).
There are many things that both sides need to work on, but having ONE “fair & balanced” network out of many is not a valid catalyst for debate. Your side has controlled the media for decades…now you complain about ONE network? LOL.
We can exchange insults all day, but at the end of that day, nothing is achieved.
Comment by Anon — May 10, 2006 @ 7:54 am
#13, Yeah, I was attempting to add a little levity. It worked.
Given what this blog has covered and how it has covered it since I started it, you have no idea how silly your statement about parroting talking points makes you look.
Comment by TBlumer — May 10, 2006 @ 9:51 am
Indeed! LOL!
Comment by Anon — May 10, 2006 @ 5:51 pm