You can look these things up by state. Here’s a list of MA papers. Even here, the list of syndicated conservatives in our op-ed pages outweighs progressives by 2 (24 conservatives to 22 progressives).
Drill down, it gets funner…the Lowell Sun has three regular conservatives to one centrist and one progressive. (The Sun runs Michelle Malkin? Honestly? How sad.) Occasional columnists include two conservatives and one progressive.
The Boston Herald is way worse, though. Six regular conservatives to one centrist. No liberals. Gee, surprised? Occasional columnists include one conservative, one centrist.
Only the Globe leans leftward with its syndicated choices, with three progressives, one centrist, and one conservative. More surprising to me, however, was that the Globe doesn’t have that many syndicated columnists total compared to even the smaller MA papers.
Many others in the top tier of circulation appear to be fairly balanced. (Of course, not including the Sun.)
Can we please, please stop pretending the media is liberal? Study after study comes out using indisputable numbers showing a very different story. If I hear “liberal media bias” one more time, I will end up decking someone. (Metaphorically speaking, of course.)
That the MSM is all about entertainment, not serious policy discussion.
<
p>
I’d wager that caustic conservativism probably draws more eyeballs — the equivalent of trying to avoid looking at a car wreck along the highway.
Now, you guys are pretty darned clear that liberal (democrat) and progressive aren't the same, so I would assume that the writers of this study wouldn't be so naive as to not make a distiction. That said, if they went out looking for “progressives” to conservatives and not including, for lack of a better term, run of the mill liberals, I have no doubt there's more conservatives. If they do use the terms interchangably, then a lot of you guys need to get your definitions down.
I have only seen the vaguest attempts at trying to differentiate “liberal” from “progressive”. “Liberal” is certainly no synonym for “Democrat”. Sam Nunn and Jack Murtha are Democrats certainly but not liberals.
To the extent that I can detect any difference at all, “liberal” seems to suggest the politics and tactics of the left-wing of the Democratic party up until 1994 and “progressive” seems to imply the politics and tactics of the left-wing of the Democratic party plus, possibly, those independents to the left of Democrats and to the right of socialists after 2001. Sort of the difference between Michael Dukakis and Deval Patrick. And that difference is–
To me, the difference seems complicated, arcane, and thus unlikely to be useful. There's certainly no continuity whatever between today's progressives and those of the early 20th century. On the other hand, “liberal” is rarely meant in the classical sense where we might count Arlen Spector as a liberal as in favoring liberal democracy, separation of church and state, and the like.
Possibly we are seeing a difference in branding.
Back to you: Who might you say is a liberal but not a progressive and who is a progressive but not a liberal?
Same idea as a conservative and a neocon…I wonder how many of the “conservative” columnists in this study are actually neocons, considering the study-writers took it upon themselves to brand “progressives”.
The neocons are more like a group of intellectuals or policy wonks within the Republican party than a broadly visible political grouping. They began as liberals, some even as Trotskyists, many studied Leo Strauss, and they made their way over to the right. Their magazine is The Weekly Standard. Politically, they advocate a foreign policy based on force rather than diplomacy. The idea that one should intimidate rather than negotiate with North Korea is a thoroughly neocon idea (in addition to being a failed idea). Nixon would not have shared it. Their messianic views of Freedom and Democracy do not sound like things Senators Dirkson or Goldwater would have advocated.
I get the sense that this grouping on the Right could only have grown up after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Wouldn't you say that libertarians like Paul and paleoconservatives like Buchanan are not neoconservatives?
I would never imply they aren't. However those who label themselves “progressive” seem to have this notion that they are so unlike a normal democrat that there should be a clear distinction as there is in conservatism with these factions. I just really wonder who these authors consider “progressive” and “conservative”. I don't think neocons are actually conservatives…I think their big-government authoritarians.
….EB3 and I were talking about this a while ago.
They are certainly liberals, if not outright progressive.
I also question some of the columnists labeled 'conservative' – when they are actually centrists.
Paul Krugman, yes; Tom Friedman, no way.
This whole discussion makes me wonder about the validity of the labels we tend to throw around. I think it was George Lakoff who said that most people don't neatly line up under one column or the other — that someone might be “progressive” (or “liberal”) on one issue, and “conservative” on another. The question becomes whether the whole is equal to or greater (or lesser) than the sum of its parts.
I guess it would be interesting to see how particular columinsts come down on particular issues — I think this would provide a more meaningful sense of whether a given individual has more “progressive” or “conservative” tendencies. Of course one would have to define the terms of measurement — progressive or conservative relative to what? — which could be a sticky wicket in and of itself….
Lakoff and the Rockridge Institute generally are against the whole political spectrum idea period. They point out that there are coherent liberal and conservative world views, but there is no coherent middle world view.
There are people who ardently hold liberal views on some issues and conservative views on others but there aren't enough of them to make a political party. Yes, there are fiscally conservative social liberals. There are also jingoistic fans of economic populism. There are also people who essentially hate politics and wish everyone would stop arguing but they don't have a proposal as to how to end all the arguments.
That's all part of the “center” becoming incoherent.
That said, the critique of the media on the Left Blogosphere says that pundits, as exemplified by Broder, tend to pine for a Washington consensus. They've piled up lots of evidence as to how pundits and, to a degree reporters, have come to socialize together and identify with official Washington. These folks are the kind of people who imagine that the Iraqi Study Group or the 9/11 Commission are going to be much more influential than they are. Pundits, therefore, are a kind of exception.
I think the bell curve model you remark on with EB3 is flawed, but if it were true, might we expect a long list of centrist pundits?
How many columnists do “on the one hand” and “on the other hand”? Or make a show of independence? You'd think that there would be a cottage industry at this if there were a lot of centrists.
Drew Pearson!
Honestly – fashion in punditry has changed….
I saw an interesting discussion as to why this is.
Anyway, an interesting question, no?
I suppose that the newspapers feel a need to fill up their fish-wrapping and bird-cage-liner with some filler. And, since they have lost most of their advertising to other media (my “incredibly shrinking Globe” comment) I suspect that they will want to do the filling at the lowest possible cost. Has anyone analyzed the cost structure of columns from conservatives vs. the cost of columns from liberals?
<
p>
I sincerely cannot figure out why anyone would buy a newspaper based on their conservative columnists. Virtually all of their columns are available on one web site: http://www.townhall…. , even Jeff Jacoby’s. Liberal columnists’ columns are more difficult to find, but commondreams.org is a useful place to start.
<
p>
As an aside, I was actually amused that the NYTimes wanted to charge for access to their op-ed columnists, but give their news reporting for free on their web site. It made little sense, but that suggested to me how little the NYTimes valued their news reporting.
Sara Robinson has an article on this very topic over at Orcinus http://dneiwert.blog…
Yes, blackmailing editors and publisher to quash dissenting opinions instead of standing up to them and writing your OWN columns and letters is certainly the progressive way – just like getting a court decision instead of bothering with legislation.
…I will acknowledge your point, up to a point. The tactic is not to go directly to the editors and publishers; they don’t give a tinkers’ damn what purchasers or subscribers say.. You go to the advertisers (at least the few of them who are left in American media.
<
p>
That has been obvious for a long time. Your Christian Right allies did it at least as early as the 1980s with the TV series 30something.
<
p>
But advertisers apparently do care about the product with which they are associated.
<
p>
On the other hand, a few letters targeted to advertisers, cc’ed to editors an publishers, can work wonders. Do you know why Don “I’m An Ass” in the Morning was off the air so quickly? And why “Dr” Laura “Shitslinger” Schlessinger lost her TV show and now is pretty much relegated to low-budget radio stations. That’s pretty much why. The advertisers were targeted.
….by threatening to withhold advertising dollars.
Of course, as a tactic, it's a joke – what CANDIDATE would forego the chance to get their name in front of the electorate as a favor to a county club with no election on the line?
The fact that the bullying was the suggested strategy was intriguing – and shows that your cited 'expert' knows little of poltical advertising, if s/he thinks an editor would fall for such a transparent gambit.
Maybe Dems HAVE been trying this boneheaded stunt – it would account for the increase in conservative pundits!
…I link to posts that I find that are relevant to the topic at hand and that others may be interested in. That doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree with them, or that I believe that their facts or arguments are complete. If you object to that, I don’t really care.
<
p>
I will tell you, though, that I would have put
<
p>
<
p>
a bit differently. I would have put it that I, as a potential customer, am not going to give you (the advertiser) my custom as long as you see fit to advertise on the (potentially disparaging remark refrained from by commenter) medium outlet. And, I, as a potential customer, have the right to notify an advertiser of that fact.
<
p>
And, moreover, I have the right to cc my comment to the advertiser to the medium outlet. They can do with it what they wish. And I can spend my money whereever I wish. That last is often lost on most people who object to such strategies.
<
p>
The sad fact that you have in the USofA is that TV, radio and newspapers are largely supported by advertising. So they are susceptible to the influences of the advertisers. I hate to give another little story from here in Munich. I don’t know how much the NYTimes costs in Boston, but I do know that the Boston Globe costs (on a daily basis) on the order of 50 cents. The Suedeutsche Zeitung, Munich’s newspaper of record (it actually is an international newspaper) costs in the order of 2 dollars. So does the FAZ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). Per issue.
<
p>
Americans have gotten used to cheap media. But what they get is cheep media.
While I don't have time to go into much detail in the Media Matters “comprehensive study”, I did notice something interesting. If you go to the report about 1/3 of the way down there is a graphic that shows the breakdown by region. For the Northeast, progressives edge out conservatives 44% to 42%. So based on this report it does appear that our media is liberally biased.
I also wonder if anyone can tell us what percentage of the columns in say, the NY Times or Globe are written by syndicated columnists since that is all this study dealt with.
One last thing, most conservatives don't say the media is biased based on what op-ed columns the papers run but say it based on the slant of the news articles that are portrayed as “facts” but often contain more opinion then fact.
Bottom line for me is that based on a quick review, this “comprehensive study” is more a case of confirmation biased by the study creators.