I See What You Did There

First, giving credit where credit is due, Conservative Wahoo saw it first.

Here is a story about how the press covered the election. It is amazing in three respects. First, if there was ever any doubt about the widespread perception that the mainstream media has a liberal bias, this should prove it once and for all. Second--and I was surprised by this--it shows that Fox News Channel really is living up to its "Fair and Balanced" motto (I thought they would have had a slight conservative tilt, but the data shows otherwise). Finally, it's remarkable because despite what the raw data shows, the Pew Research Center still managed to present the data in a form that made it appear that FNC was skewed right and that the network news outlets were right in the middle.

Absolutely amazing. The problem with Pew's presentation is that it compares each outlet to the average of all of them, and then decides that if a network is to the left or right of that average, then they are left or right politically. The obvious problem with that is it assumes that the media as a whole is centrist. But it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the media as a whole can be on one side or another--especially when you have a network like MSNBC out there pulling the average way, way out to the left. A better method of analysis is not to assume anything, but to compare the way the networks treated the candidates. No spin, just straight up.

So here is the raw data that the story is based on. The data tells a pretty clear story, when you look at is for what it really is. So, here is what it looks like when you compare how the networks covered the candidates:

FNC
Negative Stories
Obama: 40%
Mcain: 40%
-BALANCED-

Positive Stories
Obama: 25%
McCain: 22%
-BALANCED- (slightly Obama favoring)

MSNBC:
negative stories:
Obama: 14%
McCain 73%
--Tilted against McCain by 5 to 1 ratio--

Positive stories
Obama: 42%
McCain: 10%
--Tilted for Obama by 4 to 1 ratio--

CNN:
Negative Stories
Obama: 39%
McCain: 61%
--Tilted against McCain by 1.7 to 1 ratio--

Positive Stories
Obama: 36%
McCain: 13%
--Tilted for Obama by 2.8 to 1 ratio--

NBC
Negative Stories
Obama: 20%
McCain: 54%
--Tilted against McCain by 2.7 to 1 ratio--

Positive Stories
Obama: 43%
McCain: 17%
--Tilted for Obama by 2.5 to 1 ratio--

CBS
Negative Stories
Obama: 27%
McCain: 57%
--Tilted against McCain by 2.1 to 1 ratio--

Positive Stories
Obama: 21%
McCain: 8%
--Tilted for Obama by 2.6 to 1 ratio--

ABC
Negative Stories
Obama: 27%
McCain: 56%
--Tilted against McCain by 2.1 to 1 ratio--

Positive Stories
Obama: 49%
McCain: 15%
----Tilted for Obama by 3.3 to 1 ratio--

So there you have it. When FNC says "Fair and Balanced", at least in this election, they meant it. CNN, MSNBC, and the old networks favored Obama in their coverage by a 2-5 to 1 margin. The data proves it.