[CDB]

Originally Posted by Number 5

CDB, I'll just address a few of your points as I think this is getting to the point where I would largely just be repeating myself I replied to everything.

However, I found this follow-up by Nunberg which addresses some of the criticism that was made against his initial article including the MRC study.

Already read it. It is in fact how I noticed he didn't get the most basic problem with his study: that it was studying something different than was claimed by Goldberg and conservatives in general.

I thought it was common knowledge, or do you really dispute that Republicans label themselves "conservative" a lot more frequently than Democrats label themselves "liberal?"

It isn't common knowledge, and even it were common knowledge that says nothing as to whether or not it's true. Classic example of rationalization. That the media is liberally biased is common knowledge, but that doesn't seem to fly with you as proof of anything in particular.

Have a look at this article by Ted Vaden from News & Observers. I don't know him but based on a quick overview of his previous articles he seems legit. He does something similar to the MRC experiment and then explains the result of why "conservative" comes up more than "liberal". In particular, he quotes an expert who claims that people self-identify more often as conservative than liberal (wihch polls confirm), the former label currently has a positive connotation while the latter does not, and politicians avoid the liberal label.

An 'expert' who studied self identification when the issue in question is the general tendency of the media to label others. I saw no proof of his claim that more conservatives self identify with that label than liberals with liberal. Even were it the case it ignores a problem, which is 'common knowledge,' in that part of the conservative claim is the media think they are middle of the road when if fact they are not. So that they or anyone else might self identify as moderate or some other label regardless of their actual ideological leanings is irrelevant; everyone thinks they are middle of the road. Which is all subordinate to the bigger issue as self identification is not at issue, media identification of others is at issue.

In fact, if the claim that liberals are self identifying with other labels, or specifically with labels implying they are not liberal but more middle of the road or moderate, that would support Goldberg's claim because a liberal who sees himself as middle of the road is more likely to to identify moderate people as conservatives. This is so because they've shifted the whole political spectrum around themselves and people more to the middle would seem conservative to such a person even though they are ideologically moderate.

Vaden's 'study' is irrelevant as the incidents of the use of conservative he is speaking about were specifically weeded out of the MRC study.

Just because ADA is a liberal organization does not mean that they would have any motive to incorrectly rate how liberal or conservative politicians are. They use those ratings themselves to decide who to endorse and so forth. I'm sure they have a system based on the votes politicians cast and I would expect it to match decently with similar rating systems by conservative organizations.

So let me get this straight: a group of liberals chooses the issues and sets the agenda, thereby completely slanting the result from the begining. They then frame the issues as they see fit, getting to ignore any riders or ammendments that might encourage or discourage a vote on a particular bill regardless of ideology, rates the reps on this based on whether or not they supported this legislation to advance the liberal cause, and this is an objective system in your eyes? Even in the weakest social sciences that would be recognized as pure BS and nonsense.

More to the point, do you disagree with their ratings of who was conservative (Trent Lott, Tom Delay, ...) and who was liberal (Barbara Boxer, Paul Wellstone,...) on the list of 10 politicians that Nunberg used?

If you read and understood the criticism I made you would realize this question is irrelevant. Specific candidates are not the issue, the media's general tendency to label conservatives more than liberals is the issue. That is what MRC studied specifically, and what the studies you bring up keep avoiding for some reason.

By the way, I came across an interesting pro-Dem blog post which is relevant to this topic:

Uncontrolled in any way and ultimately useless even if it were. Does not account for sourcing specifically as the shift in the rise of labeling democrats as 'liberal democrats' to 'conservative democrats' is easily accounted for by conservative pundit rhetoric. Before the election they were trying to win, afterwards they were trying to spin a loss into a victory, hence the shift in labeling. They did Google searches which means every blog and idiot with a keyboard is included in the sample.

I think that's a much bigger case of labeling bias than anything Goldberg "found," especially since the Dems who won were by and large on the left on economic issues and anti-war, and socially they were less conservative than their opponents.

See above. There are no controls of any kind on the results so it's proof of diddly squat and easily explained by a shift in rhetoric by Republican opinionaters (not news sources) who don't want to admit they had their asses handed to them this past election.

[okboy63]

Example of the media before fox news
A poltical talk show would consist of a liberal talk show host 2 liberal guests and moderate posing as a conservative and they would all browbeat the moderate.(a real conservative view would never see the light of day). Bill mahrs program is kind of like that now. Except before fox news those programs would pose as balanced and fair.
Another example is the censoring of any unpopular idea by use of ridicule(your a homophobe for being against gay marriage, a hick for not buying into evolution)
Granted the republicans have used the same tactic(liberal) but this was right out of the liberal playbook.
Even with Fox news and conservative radio there are still stories and issues that won't see the light of day because boths sides are against it.
I actually favor C-spans way of doing interveiws and analysis and think Brian Lamb is excellent. I have seen him interview very liberal(chomsky) and very conservative(malkin) and he is very consistent. The focus is always on the guest and he is just a facilator to get the information.

[CDB]

C-Span was always a good place to turn in my view for balanced reporting and interviews. They're always respectful of their guests no matter their views. It's one of the only places to go for decent third party coverage.

Originally Posted by okboy63

I actually favor C-spans way of doing interveiws and analysis and think Brian Lamb is excellent. I have seen him interview very liberal(chomsky) and very conservative(malkin) and he is very consistent. The focus is always on the guest and he is just a facilator to get the information.