Burnt Orange Report

With all due respect, I think this methodology is seriously flawed, and that these obervations mean very little.

By the way, speaking of bias in the media, I will puke if I see another article in the paper about how the terrorists won because of the vote in Spain.

Yep, WhoMe?, I agree. When liberals and Democrats make that argument, they might as well agree that a vote for Kerry is a vote for bin Laden. Frankly, I'm particuarly happy at the news either.

Is surveying journalists for how they actually vote a better methodology? In that case you smack into claims of 90% national/D.C. press corps Democratic voting preference, which of course has no bearing on their reporting, right?

I like how you said that they're not biased if they're citations are closer to us, because the other side is sooooo evil and insane...

The point gentlemen, as the CNN link shows, is that Al-Qaeda wanted this outcome in Spain. You may think that irrelevant, or think that Spain really did set itself in the cross hairs by participating in Iraq (nevermind Bin Laden's statements that it has been a crusader state since 1492, that Spain's participation in Afghanistan was also listed as a grievance, and nevermind the attacks on states that opposed the Iraq war such as Turkey and Indonesia).

Nonetheless, regardless of the degree of cooperation the new Spanish government may quietly offer the NATO force projected for Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda is going to claim victory. They are going to proclaim that this shows that the Europeans can be detached from their alliances with the Americans, picked off one by one. In other words, while Italy and Poland were already in the cross hairs before, Al-Qaeda will be more encouraged to strike them than ever.

As for the Aznar government deceiving, there is a counterpoint. Why would they change their tune the day before the election and admit that Islamists might have been involved? Public outcry? They could at least maintain their talking points until after the election. And ya'll are forgetting that the dynamite found was of a similar type used by ETA before, i.e. it was of Spanish manufacture, and that as early as 1996 Spanish and French authorities were worried about contacts between ETA and Islamists, according to Voice of America. Now I know you guys think 'secular' Marxists can never cooperate with jihadists, but a single Washington Post article does not the whole story make.

Even assuming their dubious methodology has produced meaningful results:

First, they didn't use the obvious definition of "center:" an ADA score of 50%. As you mentioned, they instead defined the GOP Congress as the "center." This skews the results because Congress is generally more conservative than the American public (due mainly to the influence of money on elections).

Second, they used the medians of the Houses of Congress, not the averages! In many cases, this would make sense, since extremes would affect the average but not the median. But in the case of Congress, where the Rethugs cluster around 10% and the Dems cluster around 80%, with few intermediate scores, it has the opposite effect!

In short, they cherry-picked a definition of "center" to get the conclusion they wanted. Using the obvious definition of "center" as a score of 50%, by their own methodology, actually ABC News is the "fairest," and Fox News is less "balanced" than any of the other media outlets listed!

I don't put too much stock in their methodology, though. Any methodology which shows the Conservative Broadcasting System as the most "liberal" network would seem prima facie flawed.

Love that fair media...

The following has been taken from the Congressional Record of February 9, 1917. Powerful war materials production interests bought the press before WWI so that matters relating to “preparedness, militarism, financial policies and other things of national and international nature considered vital to the interests of the purchasers” will be reported in a manner most sensitive to their needs. There is no evidence to suggest that the policy of media control established prior to WWI has been abandoned. To the contrary, national TV, radio and print medias are continually being mega merged by international corporations such as Time/Warner which are perpetually purchasing smaller presses and smaller TV and radio stations.

The CHAIRMAN: The Chair will recognize the gentleman from Texas, a member of the [defense appropriations] committee.

Mr. CALLAWAY: Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to insert in the Record a statement that I have of how the newspapers of this country have been handled by the munitions manufacturers.

The CHAIRMAN: The gentleman from Texas asks unanimous consent to extend his remarks in the Record by inserting a certain statement. Is there any objection?

Mr. MANN: Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, may I ask whether it is the gentleman's purpose to insert a long list of extracts from newspapers?

Mr. CALLAWAY: No; it will be a little, short statement not over 2 ½ inches in length in the Record.

The CHAIRMAN: Is there any objection?

There was no objection.

Mr. CALLAWAY: Mr. Chairman, under unanimous consent, I insert into the Record at this point a statement showing the newspaper combination, which explains their activity in the war matter, just discussed by the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. MOORE]:

“In March, 1915, the J.P. Morgan interests, the steel, ship building and powder interests and their subsidiary organizations, got together 12 men high up in the newspaper world and employed them to select the most influential newspapers in the United States and sufficient number of them to control generally the policy of the daily press in the United States.

“These 12 men worked the problems out by selecting 179 newspapers, and then began, by an elimination process, to retain only those necessary for the purpose of controlling the general policy of the daily press throughout the country. They found it was only necessary to purchase the control of 25 of the greatest papers. The 25 papers were agreed upon; emissaries were sent to purchase the policy, national and international, of these papers; an agreement was reached; the policy of the papers was bought, to be paid for by the month; an editor was furnished for each paper to properly supervise and edit information regarding the questions of preparedness, militarism, financial policies and other things of national and international nature considered vital to the interests of the purchasers.

“This contract is in existence at the present time, and it accounts for the news columns of the daily press of the country being filled with all sorts of preparedness arguments and misrepresentations as to the present condition of the United States Army and Navy, and the possibility and probability of the United States being attacked by foreign foes.

“This policy also included the suppression of everything in opposition to the wishes of the interests served. The effectiveness of this scheme has been conclusively demonstrated by the character of the stuff carried in the daily press throughout the country since March, 1915. They have resorted to anything necessary to commercialize public sentiment and sandbag the National Congress into making extravagant and wasteful appropriations for the Army and Navy under false pretense that it was necessary. Their stock argument is that it is 'patriotism.' They are playing on every prejudice and passion of the American people.”

The above entry of the Congressional Record was provided by Citizens In Action, a proactive group of concerned Americans from Reno, Nevada.
..............................

Do you think they gave the media back??

Had MathWiz above actually READ the paper, it would be perfectly clear why the authors made comparisons between the median congress member and media outlets. This is a clear cut case for using the median over the mean for inference, PRECISELY BECAUSE the the distribution is not unimodal as objected to above -- likely a manufactured estimator would be even better, but highly open to challenge so in its absence the median is the clear choice. Nowhere do they claim that their ADA scores of 50 are meant to represent a "centrist" outlet, in fact they explicitly call attention to the fact that this is NOT SO in the paper. Finally, if you going to bitch about methodology you need to either to i) propose a better methodology or ii) say that it is not currently possible to make any informed statements of the type they have made, and you've ruled out ii) by your assertions showing your personal bias. So do you propose something better, or are you just disagreeing with what looks to be an honest attempt to answer a question because you don't like the conclusions?

Had MathWiz above actually READ the paper, it would be perfectly clear why the authors made comparisons between the median congress member and media outlets. This is a clear cut case for using the median over the mean for inference, PRECISELY BECAUSE the the distribution is not unimodal as objected to above -- likely a manufactured estimator would be even better, but highly open to challenge so in its absence the median is the clear choice. Nowhere do they claim that their ADA scores of 50 are meant to represent a "centrist" outlet, in fact they explicitly call attention to the fact that this is NOT SO in the paper. Finally, if you going to bitch about methodology you need to either to i) propose a better methodology or ii) say that it is not currently possible to make any informed statements of the type they have made, and you've ruled out ii) by your assertions showing your personal bias. So what do you propose as better, or are you just disagreeing with what looks to be an honest attempt to answer a question because you don't like the conclusions?

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