News media bias ranking...

[AgnosticBoy]

I found an excellent chart that ranks most of the mainstream media according to their bias. For instance, Fox news is biased towards the right, while MSNBC is ranked as being biased towards the left.

Do you agree with this chart? What changes would you make?

 

[Multicolored Lemur]

I think it’s asymmetrical in that American politics are more rightwing than leftwing, so no, I’m not real crazy about this chart.

For example, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has come out and basically said Covid vaccines are dangerous. He’s said, you’ll get more sick if you get a vaccine. When the reality is just the opposite. The vaccine may not always prevent you from getting Covid, but it majorly helps prevent you from getting severe disease if you do.

What DeSantis is trying to do is outflank Trump on the right.

I hope Nikki Haley, former Gov. of South Caroline who said Feb. 1st she’ll be running for president, with her formal announcement to come Feb. 15, well— I hope she can give DeSantis a real run for his money!

But because of the substantial % of the Republican base who have some pretty way-out viewpoints, we’ll see what way-out positions she feels she has to take. Or believes in herself, just because of repeated assertion, or just because this is the new normal.

 

[AgnosticBoy]

What DeSantis is trying to do is outflank Trump on the right.

I can definitely agree with that. It is such a turn off.

I hope Nikki Haley, former Gov. of South Caroline who said Feb. 1st she’ll be running for president, with her formal announcement to come Feb. 15, well— I hope she can give DeSantis a real run for his money!

Me too. I'm not a fan of Biden, and I would like to see a new fresh face and set of ideas for the country. I look forward to hearing from Haley and any other fresh candidates because I'm tired of seeing the same establishment candidates (Clinton, Biden, Trump, Romney).

 

[AgnosticBoy]

I think the chart in post #1 is correct for the most part. Even if it is not correct, I would still say that much of the media is biased, with some more than others. A majority of Americans seem to agree.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- At a time when Americans are relying heavily on the media for information about the coronavirus pandemic, the presidential election and other momentous events, the public remains largely distrustful of the mass media. Four in 10 U.S. adults say they have "a great deal" (9%) or "a fair amount" (31%) of trust and confidence in the media to report the news "fully, accurately, and fairly," while six in 10 have "not very much" trust (27%) or "none at all" (33%).

Although Americans' overall trust in the media has remained steady since last year, the 33% who do not have any confidence this year reflects a five-point uptick and is the highest reading on record. Republicans are the main drivers behind this change: 58% of them now express this view, marking a 10-point increase and the first-ever majority-level reading.

Although Democrats' overall level of trust has not changed, the 57% who now say they have a fair amount of trust represents a 12-point jump from 2019, mostly attributable to a decrease in the percentage saying they trust the media a great deal.

Source: Gallup

 

[Multicolored Lemur]

, I would still say that much of the media is biased,

I agree with that. I think they want to stoke their perceived viewers.

But I still don’t have it within me to put Fox “News” at near right rather than far right.

 

[Multicolored Lemur]

Looking at which (some) media is listed as centrist:

AP = Associated Press

BBC, and I sometimes listen to their nightly news [around 5:00 or 5:30 pm here in Houston]

Bloomberg which I think of as business news focused

The Hill — which has longish articles, and which I thought of as liberal

and,

Al Jazeera — Wow, (?) a large international conglomerate focused on the Middle East. And yes, I’m willing to view Islam as a straight-forward, middle-of-the-road religion, with some exceptions. Just like every religion has some exceptions.
All the same, at the end of the day, I suspect Al Jazeera is going to be pro-Middle East. And sometimes that will mean being anti- another area or nation a Middle Eastern nation is in conflict with.

 

[AgnosticBoy]

Do you agree with this chart? What changes would you make?

I think I would've made the ratings on the x-axis to be the following:
Extreme left, Left, center (or left left or lean right if being in "center" is not practical), Right, Extreme Right.

Given my ratings, I would not have placed Fox News as being "lean" right, but rather it's to the Right. A news organization like OAN would be extreme Right. I would put CNN and MSNBC all under Left.

 

[2Dbunk1]

I had not seen this post as I was not a member at the time. But, as we discussed on another thread recently, you and I were basically in agreement, except I used "ultra-left" and "ultra-right instead of "extreme."

 

[AgnosticBoy]

I had not seen this post as I was not a member at the time. But, as we discussed on another thread recently, you and I were basically in agreement.

The majority might also be on our side:

There also are more people who trust than distrust Forbes (+23), the Associated Press (+22), ABC (+21), USA Today (+21), CBS (+20), and Reuters (+20). Only a handful of outlets from the list are viewed by more Americans as untrustworthy than the share who view it as trustworthy: Infowars (-16), the Daily Caller (-4), Breitbart News (-3), and Daily Kos (-1).

In this poll, the three broadcast networks had similar levels of trust, while there was a slightly lower level of trust in each of the three cable networks: 44% say they trust ABC, 43% trust CBS, 42% trust NBC, 40% trust CNN, 38% trust Fox News, and 36% trust MSNBC.

- YouGov

And here's some analysis that gets behind the numbers above:

NEW YORK (AP) — Half of Americans in a recent survey indicated they believe national news organizations intend to mislead, misinform or persuade the public to adopt a particular point of view through their reporting.

The survey, released Wednesday by Gallup and the Knight Foundation, goes beyond others that have shown a low level of trust in the media to the startling point where many believe there is an intent to deceive.

Asked whether they agreed with the statement that national news organizations do not intend to mislead, 50% said they disagreed. Only 25% agreed, the study found.

Source: AP