Self-Censoring Journalists Gave Favorable Coverage To Republicans: Study

The three major broadcast networks favored Republicans in elections from 1992 to 2004, according to a study that analyzed presidential campaign coverage.

That effect was largely due to journalists censoring their own reporting out of frustration at being accused of a liberal bias, according to Maria Elizabath Grabe, associate professor in the Department of Telecommunications at Indiana University College Of Arts and Sciences, who co-authored "Image Bite Politics: News And The Visual Framing Of Elections" (Oxford University Press) with fellow academic Erik Bucy.

Grabe and Bucy examined 62 hours of network news coverage - 178 newscasts - between Labor Day and Election Day over four elections and examined the visual coverage, including such package techniques as the "lip-flap shot - when a reporter's voice is heard over video of the candidate, which tends to be unflattering for that candidate.

They also examined the "Goldilocks effect" - which party gets the last say in a piece and is better remembered by viewers.

According to their research, Democrats were more likely to be the subject of the unflattering "lip-flap" effect while GOP candidates had the last say in every election but 2004. In 1996, Republicans got the final say eight times as many times as Democrats.

Comments

[Bettysdad]

This person could have saved a lot of time, money and effort by simply asking any sentient being who the MSM favors.

You would also get the same result be asking any Republican the same question. Since everything every Repub says is a lie, the result would simply be the opposite.

[KarmaTheDog]

How can any thinking person really think that the MSM has a liberal bias? It's ridiculous, the MSM are corporations. How many defense contractors have progressive leanings? To even refer the MSM as Main Stream Media is incorrect; it is corporate media. The corporate media certainly doesn't have a liberal bias, not necessarily even a conservative bias, it has a corporate bias.

[LauraD]

Oh, that liberal media and their conservative bias.

[Palemoon]

No surprise here, it's what I have known all along. That the "liberal media" was nothing but a DC urban myth created by GOP spinsters.

[vet64]

You have to take into account that the Neo Cons have paid billions each year to the Neo Con owned News Media, which are in turn, manipulated by the Israeli entities and individuals who own and manage them, for propaganda purposes. Just as the U.S. military pays billions a year to put a happy face on Vietnam, I mean Iraq.

[Curlew]

There goes that liberal media again.

[corsair1917]

uhmmm, duh.
How much money was spent on this research? All you have to do is watch CNN to see the bias. And that's not even FOX!

[PJQ49]

"In 1996, Republicans got the final say eight times as many times as Democrats.­"

This tells us that the study is biased or incompetent. Readers, don't you think you would have NOTICED this? That SOMEONE would have noticed it?

Signed, A Democratic academic

[LeeCalif]

you are pathetic

[bruster55]

The only pathetic commenter is YOU!

Thank you for your lack of information.

[ReallyMe]

What makes an academic such as yourself prone to assumptions? What makes you think we didn't notice?

[Twopennygal]

Duh! I noticed it, but I'm sure the average viewer didn't -- I'm not average. I've been railing at the lie that the MSM was liberal since Clinton took office. This study just confirms that "liberal MSM" is a lie.

[TrueBlueMajority]

I noticed it. A lot of people noticed it.

The idea of liberal media bias is another example of the VRWC getting people to believe a lie by repeating it over and over again.

[alumcreek]

Can anyone out there point to anything the Republicans have done in the past 40 years that has benefited the poor and middle class?

The media leans towards the right because the media knows that Republicans will punish them if teh media is scrupulously fair. GOPers don't forget any instance where the media points out their follies and foibles. Anyone who points out that the GOP is willing to sell legislation to the highest bidder will be severly punished. No matter how badly the public is harmed by industry there is never any cause to shift the cost away from the public. Let the average taxpayer pay for whatever damage is caused by any rich buyer of legislative favors.

[DMM1029]

I recall vividly in 1980, just after Raygun was elected, my late dear mother said that no poor person would ever get a break.

[TrueBlueMajority]

I can think of something Rs did in the last 40 years to help the poor and middle class:

They lost the 2008 elections.

[stondem]

OH GOD !

[dcarn2]

Well obviously this was done by some liberal study because it would ruin the whole argument that the mainstream media is biased against the Rethugs. LOL!

[sasidechick]

Exactly. I am sure they are looking at the authors of the report to show they are biased.

LOL.

[senorplaid]

And in other headlines: Today the sun rose in the East and is expected to set in the West.

[zaumbi]

Lies! Slander! COMMUNUHHST!

[Dystopic]

The sun is a theory.

[Peabodies]

doesn't say so in the bible, senor.

[Elle1019]

I can show this article to all my conservative friends and they'll deny it because they've been so conditioned to whine about the big, bad LIBERAL media. Or, they'll blast the authors for actually "wasting" time and money in studying this phenomenon. So, basically, this is a kind of "preaching to the choir" sort of thing, as if we already didn't know that.

[notb observer]

There was little if any coverage of Sarah and Todd Palin's association with the AIP, yet how many weeks did the Bill Ayers story stay in the headlines ? Even after Obama explained his non-existent relationship with the man, the story simply wouldn't go away.
There was also the Jeremiah Wright story, which was seemingly covered 24/7 for several weeks, yet hardly a mention of witch doctor Muthee and the freak show at Palin's extremist church...
It could be that the media has a right wing bias, or maybe it just loves to obsess over irrelevant trivialities and covers stories that it believes will sell, but whatever the case, it has gone on for far too long.
The current economic crisis will get far worse before it gets better (the credit card crisis hasn't even started to unfold yet....). The good news is that when it's over, "We the People" will have taken back control of our country from the multinationals.
Before we can truly begin the process of remission from our various addictions we have to hit rock bottom, and that has not happened yet. In fact, we have not even begun to grasp the reality that an entire generation of Americans has been living at the expense of future generations for the past 40 years. Whether it be the national debt or the environment, we have ignored the real issues and been lulled into a herd of semi-conscious sheep by the multinationals.

[deanimal]

They needed to study this?