Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center really does seem to believe that it's the only one capable of detecting "media bias," even though it bias detector is so incredibly skewed. Thus, we have a June 19 post from Tim Graham ranting that abortion rights activists find media coverage of abortion to be rather skewed. Graham unironically complained:
In our experience, the “objective” media tilt dramatically in favor or abortion advocates. But amazingly, it’s not biased enough for them. NARAL Pro-Choice America released a “media analysis,” a "deep dive" this week on the way journalists cover abortion. They hired the Global Strategy Group, a Democratic polling and PR firm, to do the study.
So a Republican, pro-Trump organizaiton like the MRC is the only "experience" about media bias that should be trusted?
Graham linked only to the press release about the NARAL report, not the actual report itself, so it's unclear how closely he actually read the thing.
Graham's general response to the NARAL study is to attack it for complaining that the abortion debate is framed in right-wing-friendly terms and to bash the women who seek abortion and the doctors who carry them out. A sample:“Abortion is covered as a political issue, not a health issue.” That’s because it IS a political issue! Their introduction to this report actually screams “the right to abortion has never been more at risk.” But this complaint keeps coming...
“Political coverage elevates political voices and excludes those most impacted by abortion: doctors and those who seek abortion care.” They complain that politicians are quoted in political stories, when they want sensitive profiles of women who really needed to exercise their “right to choose” and the doctors who relieve them of their “burdens.”
[...]
“Reporters characterize the abortion debate as divisive, furthering the perception of profound conflict on the issue.” They complained “around 17 percent of the articles described abortion as “divisive, debatable, charged, controversial, or other similar terms.” Abortion kills an unborn human being. They want it to be covered like pimple removal.
This leads to the real gem:
“Charged rhetoric from anti-abortion advocates are included in coverage, often with minimal context.” Nearly half of all articles included "anti-choice" terms NARAL would deem unworthy of inclusion, including “infanticide,” “partial-birth abortion,” and “heartbeat bill.” They fussed that only four articles alluded to the notion that a “fetal heartbeat” isn’t a heartbeat, but electric pulses in a forming heart. It’s “fetal cardiac activity.” Weasel words.
Graham even ranted about the study's methodology: "How flawed is it? Start with how they read the media: “A random sample of more than 300 abortion-related articles were elected for study across ten major news outlets...from January through June of 2019.” It would be much more accurate to pick just one media outlet and read every article." This is from the organization that selectively examines only "explicitly evaluative statements" from a tiny sliver of the media and proclaims that to be a sweeping indictment of "liberal media bias," so maybe Graham isn't the best judge of how to conduct a study.
