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From: janw@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Media Bias
Message-ID: <117200207@inmet>
Date: Sat, 4-Oct-86 17:45:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: inmet.117200207
Posted: Sat Oct  4 17:45:00 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 11-Oct-86 09:50:50 EDT
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Nf-From: inmet.UUCP!janw    Oct  4 17:45:00 1986


[ hingston@bnrmtv.UUCP /* ---- "Media Bias" ---- */]
>There has been a lot of discussion as to whether the Media
>in the USA is biased toward the right or the left.  It is
>my contention that there is a bias.  One form this bias takes
>is emphasizing abuses of the left while ignoring abuses of the
>right.  I know that it is bad form to use facts to back up a
>contention (:-)) but ...

A list of names, with frequencies of mention in the NYT, follows,
to demonstrate the point... The years covered are 1976-1981.

>This information is from "The Real Terror Network" by Edward Her-
>man.  Copyright 1982, South End Press.

It is good form to use facts - but statistics
on an *arbitrarily* selected list of names can easily back up
the *opposite* of truth. As they did in this case.

Mr. Herman's list is that of people  persecuted  by  left/right
regimes  and  mentioned/not  mentioned  by  the NYT. How were the
names *selected*? We _are not told_. Grep in  it  for  Mandela!  No
Nelson  Mandela, no Winnie Mandela. Would statistics on these two
names change the picture? Would *other* names from South  Africa?
Well, grep for SA - it is not mentioned!

Now grep for Argentina. Repression there was covered  extensively
and  in depth in just these years; names were all over the pages.
No mention of them here.

Was repression in left-wing thugdoms given more or less  coverage
than  that  in  the  right-wing ones? You won't learn it from Mr.
Herman's list - only his *own* bias is demonstrated.

BUT to really estimate the media bias - it is not enough to
compare *absolute* coverage of the two groups of nations.
It matters where the *actual* repression is greater!

If the Left repressed 100 times as much as the Right,
and if the numbers of mentions were *equal* - that
would demonstrate a clear leftward bias.

In the years covered, all of Cambodian genocide came and went. It
was  very  scantily  covered in the NYT, until the very end. Rare
mentions on back pages, with "unverified" the prominent word.
(Herman's list contains no Cambodian names).

That alone, were coverage proportional, would have crowded
away *all* of the names arbitrarily selected by Herman.

Next in volume would come the beginning  genocide  in  Afghanistan
(covered a little) and massive terror in some nations of Africa -
of which only Uganda got *some* coverage.

Repression in Latin America was much less, but  *Cuba*  ought  to
have  dominated the repression news from this hemisphere.  

But it didn't, of course. The bias was there - *not* of the  kind
Mr. Herman sees. But his "proof" methods are worse than his obvi-
ous bias. One can't always avoid bias; but one can argue honestly.

		Jan Wasilewsky