Why Chris Wallace was right and Jon Stewart was wrong

In the debate about media bias, the epic battle that was sparked in an interview between Chris Wallace and Jon Stewart two weekends ago continued on Fox News Sunday.

In the original interview, which was cordial for the most part, Wallace asked Stewart a pointed question.
 
“Over the years,” said Wallace, “you have called us [Fox News]... ‘a biased organization, relentlessly promoting an ideological agenda, under the rubric of being a news organization.’ ...Are you willing to say the same thing about the mainstream media — about ABC, CBS, NBC, Washington Post, the New York Times?”

“No,” Stewart responded vigorously.

As a political science professor at an elite, urban, West Coast university, I am perhaps the least likely person to take Wallace’s side instead of Stewart’s. However, not only do I agree with Wallace, I think he has actually understated things: According to my research, the leftward bias of the mainstream media is greater than the rightward bias of Fox News.

It must first be noted that that the research — at least under one interpretation — indeed, shows Fox to have a rightward bias. Chris Wallace seemed to concede that fact to Stewart noting, after arguing that the mainstream media are liberal, that “we tell the other side.”

Further, probably no one would argue that the opinion shows on Fox — such as Hannity, Glenn Beck, or the O’Reilly Factor — have a clear rightward bias. However, things become more complex when you analyze Fox’s more orthodox news shows, such as its flagship evening news show, Special Report. According to the research, under one interpretation of “centrist,” Special Report is slightly right-of-center. However, under a more appropriate interpretation of “centrist,” the show is actually left-of-center. The same could be said of all Fox shows with a similar slant—which probably includes those anchored by Shephard Smith, Bill Hemmer, Martha MacCallum, Greta van Sustern, and Wallace himself.

The research quantifies the slants of news outlets. To do this, the “political quotients” of politicians and voters must be computed. These are based on congressional roll call votes, where higher scores indicate more liberal views. For instance, Reps. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Barney Frank (D-Mass.) have PQs of approximately 100; while Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) have PQs of approximately 0. The average U.S. voter has a PQ of approximately 50. This is slightly more conservative than the PQ of Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and slightly more liberal than the PQ of Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine). It is approximately equal to the PQ that Sen. Arlen Specter had while he was a Republican.

From these PQs, “slant quotients” are then computed by collecting various data about the content of news. These data include think tank citations, loaded political phrases, and politically charged facts that an outlet reported or chose not to report. These data are then compared to congressional speeches. For example, the SQ of the New York Times is approximately 74, which is approximately the PQ of Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Ct.). Accordingly, the method says that the average New York Times article is approximately as liberal as the average Joe Lieberman speech.

Other SQs are: CBS Evening News, 74; Washington Post, 67; NBC Nightly News, 62; Jim Lehrer Newshour, 56; and Fox News’ Special Report, 40.

Although the statistical data has not been gathered on this specifically, it is probable that a supposed far-right show like Fox News’ Hannity is no more conservative than the average speech by Michele Bachmann. And given that Hannity sometimes gives liberals a voice on the show, the show’s slant is more centrist than a Michele Bachmann speech. The show sounds more like a speech by Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) or Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), which would imply a slant quotient of about 10.

At first glance, these results seem to support Jon Stewart’s position. That is, for instance, Hannity’s SQ, 10, is 40 points away from the center, 50, while the New York Times’ SQ, 74, is only 24 points away from the center.

But here are perhaps the two most important results of the research: (i) although some media, such as Fox News or talk radio, are right of center, the vast majority of the media are left of center, making the average slant of the entire media left of center; (ii) the liberal bias of the media has a real effect—that is, it really does cause people to think and vote more liberally.

Consequently, this means that the 50 PQ of the average voter is artificial. Media bias has distorted that number leftward.

But by how much? The researches uses some state-of-the-art social-science experiments to provide an estimate:  about 20 PQ points. That is, if media bias were suddenly to disappear, then the PQ of the average voter would be about 30 — not the 50 that we currently observe. This would mean that the average U.S. voter would think and vote about like the average Texan or Kentuckian — not like the average Iowan or Nevadan, as we currently observe (when media bias exists).

The research provides a new perspective on the dispute between Wallace and Stewart: The New York Times only seems more centrist than Hannity, because the bias of the entire media has shifted our views to the left.

Suppose instead that we judge media bias from the perspective of an average voter, once his views were no longer distorted by media bias. If we do this, then “centrist” means a slant quotient of 30, not 50.  By this perspective, Fox News’ Special Report has a slight liberal bias. Hannity, perhaps the most conservative show on Fox News, is only about 20 points (=30-10) right of center, while the New York Times is about 44 points (=74-30) left of center. That is, the bias of the New York Times is approximately double the bias of Hannity.

Not only is Chris Wallace correct, he’s more correct than he seems to realize.

Tim Groseclose is the Marvin Hoffenberg professor of political pcience at UCLA, and the author of the forthcoming Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind (St. Martin’s Press, July 2011).