Bias in the Media?

"As for the equality part, the media attempts to the best of their ability to be impartial and to give equal coverage to each of the "real" candidates. David Kiem said 'our paper's first priority is to be fair and give equal coverage, but to think we're totally impartial would be absurd.'" OH

"In eleven issues of U.S. News and World Report dated from April 20, 1992 to November 23, 1992, there were 26 articles dealing with the election of the President of the United States. All of the candidates got basically an equal amount of coverage. There were seven articles on Clinton, eight articles on Bush, and six articles on Perot. There were also five articles dealing with all three of the candidates. On Clinton, there were five positive articles and two negative articles. On Bush there were two positive articles and six negative articles. And on Perot there were five positive articles and one negative article." MO

"In reality, every conservative candidate from Nixon in 1968 to Bush in 1988 received between 66 percent and 80 percent of the daily newspaper endorsements. The notion of 'liberal bias' was thus assumed even when the evidence contradicted it." KS

"This past election is said to have sent a message to Washington. I heard several times how people were tired of mudslinging and that they wanted a change. I watched President Bush in his campaign and in the debates run Clinton down. I remember the officials of the debates asking Bush a question and then him turning it around and talking about Clinton protesting in Russia years ago. I also remember seeing Clinton trying to stick to the issue of the economy, no matter what the press or President Bush said. I even recall Clinton saying at a press conference that he was not going to drop to a level of calling names. Now that the election is over, we can see which style of campaign won." OK

". . . in most cases . . . it seems as though the incumbent is the only recognized name on the ballot. . . . In addition, the local newspaper of our area, which is predominantly Republican, allows very little coverage for the more liberal candidates and their issues. Because the staff of that newspaper has no equally liberal adversary, the people here cannot rely on the written word to obtain information on a strong Democrat." IL

"The press labeled him (Clinton) "Slick Willie". That nickname gave him an image of a sly individual on the lookout for only himself. Americans started to read into the nickname as Clinton's side of the draft issue "changed". In the end, a Media Center study showed that Bill Clinton received 55% negative coverage from January to June 1." OH

"It seemed this election was somewhat one-sided. Although reporters were knee deep in Arkansas, Bush still seemed to receive more exposure than Clinton." KS

"On the other hand, there is certainly bias in the reader as well as in the reporter. If a story conflicts with a reader's opinions, he may judge it to be slanted." OK

". . . the press usually is not one-sided. . ." KS

"Readers and viewers tend to see only what they want to. For most reporting there's usually somebody who is going to consider it biased. . . the media has in fact been doing the best job humanly possible in bringing forth the news without bias." NE

". . . overall, the majority of nationally known periodicals have leaned towards the liberal side of politics while small town and local newspapers have been predominantly conservative." KY

"If there is a bias in the media, what difference has it made? Despite the supposed liberalism of the major news media, American voters have put conservative Republicans in the White House in 20 of the past 24 years." TX

"Take the Nixon-Humphrey election for example. A study on the news reports on the candidates reported that between the three major networks, NBC, ABC, and CBS, a total of 8,428 good words to 8,307 bad words were recorded to have been said about Humphrey. This seems only a bit odd because we usually hear more bad news that good but this might still be considered unbiased. But when you take into consideration that a total of 1,620 good words compared to an outstanding 17,027 bad words were bias about Nixon, the tables seem a little lopsided. And when you also take into consideration that over 80 percent of the media polled voted democratic in that election, you can see how the opinions of the media affected the news that the television viewers watched. Let's match those statistics up to some taken from the 1984 election between Reagan and Mondale. The amount of good air time for Mondale and Ferraro was 1970 seconds compared to 1,450 seconds of negative air time. But for Reagan and Bush the ratio was 730 seconds positive to 8,740 seconds negative air time. That represents about 12 minutes versus almost two and a half hours. And there was not even one second of positive air time for George Bush in that election. Not one second! But did these statistics have any effect on the results of the election? We know that neither the Nixon-Humphrey or Reagan-Mondale elections was very close, and we also know that the winners in both of these elections were not those that the media would have had us choose. And we also know by a study done in 1984 covering the Reagan-Mondale election that only 3% of the voters were swayed by the media, and of these, 70 percent switched from reagan to Mondale and 30 percent vice-versa. So it seems that the media had a negligible affect on the final outcome of the race." MD

"Polls given to journalists indicate that they are overwhelmingly liberal, yet the companies that own the television stations and newspapers, which are owned by businessmen and women, are usually hardened conservatives, so perhaps an impasse is the best way to describe the media's bias." MO

"In the recent 1992 elections the media did an outstanding job of impartial candidate coverage . . . As evidence of this impartial coverage, in a national poll taken September 22, 1992 for Times Mirror 71 percent of the respondents thought Bush had been treated fairly by the media and 74 percent thought Clinton had." IL

"Voters also have to keep in mind that the people in the media are also trying to encourage the public to vote for the same candidates that they believe in. This causes different sources of the media to report different things depending on how they want people to vote. That means that if an individual looks only at one or two sources, the individual will be usually hearing only one side of the story, and won't be fully informed. The best voting decisions that I feel people make, are after viewing and reading about the candidates from many different viewpoints." MN

"When I looked at Time's coverage, I looked from July 20th up to the election. I found six different issues of the magazine with a political cover story. The first issue, the July 20th issue, featured Bill Clinton and Al Gore standing together. The second was the August 24th issue, which featured George Bush. The third issue from September 14th showed Hillary Clinton. The fourth issue was from September 28th and was featuring the economy. The fifth issue with a political cover story was the October 12th issue, which proclaimed Perot's return and sported a picture of all three candidates. The final issue with a political cover before the election (Oct. 19th) showed the three candidates after their first debate.

The only major political candidate that was not featured without the others was Ross Perot. Bush and Clinton got equal time, while Hillary Clinton was the only candidate's wife to show up on the cover.

Next I looked at the articles in these six magazines. I found a total of nine about George Bush, one about Barbara Bush, two about Dan Quayle, one about Marilyn Quayle, eight about Clinton, one about Hillary, three about Al Gore, one about Tipper Gore, seven about Ross Perot, and one about the Republican Party's woes. There were no articles on Stockdale or the Democratic Party. There was also one article that judged how well the media was doing in covering the campaign.

The articles were generally written without bias, although occasionally a few statements would color an article. The editors did a good job in keeping the magazine balanced. There were nearly equal numbers of articles on each person. The lack of articles on Perot in general and Stockdale in particular is because of Perot's dropping from the race, and his late pick of a vice-presidential candidate. Throughout the period that Perot was out of the race, very little was said about him. There was a small biography on Stockdale in the October 12th issue, but other than that, Perot's candidate for second-in-command was rarely mentioned.

The magazine also tried to put in the same number of letters for and against each issue. Even though the editors undoubtedly received piles of mail on one position, and few on the other side, they usually ended up putting in a good balance.

The article, Are the Media Too Liberal? takes a look at how well the press has done in covering the campaign. This has been compared to asking a congressman if he did a good job on the budget on the eve of an election. The article comes to the conclusion that nearly all of the press has been fair throughout the campaign.

In coming to this conclusion, they use quotes such as Richard Cohen's quote, 'Liberal or conservative, a reporter is a primitive being who would go after his own mother if he thought that was a good story.' The author of the article also points out that a media conspiracy would be impossible because of difficulties in getting a paper published at all.

The article goes on to say that any bias that is detected can be dismissed because the press wants some new blood in the White House, and it will probably just reverse in four years. They also point out that some of the strongest criticisms of the candidates came from their party. They also point to a poll that said that over 70 percent of the people surveyed thought the press had dealt with the candidates fairly. . . .

In conclusion, it is tough to tell whether or not the media as a whole was biased. It is necessary to take a look at each publication on an individual basis before coming to a conclusion...Time did a relatively good job of keeping the field even." WI