US Political Polarization and News Media: Liberal vs. Conservative

[lpetrich]

13 Things We Just Learned About Conservatives And Liberals In America - Business Insider
Political Polarization & Media Habits | Pew Research Center's Journalism Project

Pew Research divided up its surveyed people by ideology, with these categories:

Consistently liberal: 14%, Mostly liberal: 22%, Mixed: 38%, Mostly conservative: 17%, Consistently conservative: 9%.

Thus, liberal: 36%, moderate 38%, conservative: 26%.

They also asked these people about their familiarity with these news sources and their use and opinions of them:

ABC News, Al Jazeera America, BBC, Bloomberg, Breitbart, BuzzFeed, CBS News, CNN, Colbert Report, Daily Kos, Daily Show, Drudge Report, Economist, Ed Schultz Show, Fox News, Glenn Beck Program, Google News, Guardian, Huffington Post, Mother Jones, MSNBC, NBC News, New York Times, New Yorker, NPR, PBS, Politico, Rush Limbaugh Show, Sean Hannity Show, Slate, TheBlaze, ThinkProgress, USA TODAY, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Yahoo News

They found that conservatives liked these news sources but that just about nobody else did:

Breitbart, Drudge Report, Fox News, Glenn Beck Program, Rush Limbaugh Show, Sean Hannity Show, TheBlaze

Liberals liked most of the others, and moderates liked the more middle-of-the-road of them, like the major US and UK radio and TV news networks outside of Fox (ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, NPR, MSNBC, BBC) and the major newspapers (New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today). The moderates didn't like some sources that liberals like (The Daily Kos, Mother Jones, ThinkProgress, The Guardian, The Colbert Report, The Daily Show).

Everybody seemed to like the Wall Street Journal.

I did some cluster analyses, and it confirmed that the Conservative Seven sources did indeed cluster together.

Consistent Conservatives had a favorite: 47% of them preferred Fox News
Consistent Liberals had no clear favorites: 15% CNN, 13% NPR, 12% MSBC, 10% NYT


How do these people react to each other? Consistent Liberals were the most likely to unfriend the other side, both generally and in social media. However, Consistent Conservatives were the most likely to surround themselves with like-minded people.

 

[doubtingt]

There isn't much variance between groups when it comes to how many news outlets they look at for political news in a week, but liberals are slightly more varied in their sources.

The article then shows that that Consistent conservatives use 5.5 sources while consistent liberals use 6.7. However, this "slight" difference is actually misleadingly small, because conservatives are not using different news organizations but really just Fox News plus Beck, Hannity, and Limbaugh. These are specific individual political partisans that overtly declare their conservatism and either have been or could easily be among the programs on Fox News.

IOW, they really are not different news organizations, just individual persons, which are often on Fox News.

In contrast, the primary varied sources for liberals are actually different news organizations that each have many different individual journalists and analysts.

Thus, the greater variety of news outlets used by liberals is actually much larger than the simple "number of sources" would suggest.

 

[lpetrich]

The article then shows that that Consistent conservatives use 5.5 sources while consistent liberals use 6.7. However, this "slight" difference is actually misleadingly small, because conservatives are not using different news organizations but really just Fox News plus Beck, Hannity, and Limbaugh. These are specific individual political partisans that overtly declare their conservatism and either have been or could easily be among the programs on Fox News.

It's worse than that.

Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity are both Fox alumni, with Glenn Beck having founded The Blaze. Andrew Breitbart had been a frequent guest on Fox News, and he had been an editor at The Drudge Report for a while, before founding Breitbart.com. That makes six of them closely related, reducing the Conservative Seven to Rush Limbaugh and Greater Fox News, for lack of a better name.

 

[boneyard bill]

There isn't much variance between groups when it comes to how many news outlets they look at for political news in a week, but liberals are slightly more varied in their sources.

The article then shows that that Consistent conservatives use 5.5 sources while consistent liberals use 6.7. However, this "slight" difference is actually misleadingly small, because conservatives are not using different news organizations but really just Fox News plus Beck, Hannity, and Limbaugh. These are specific individual political partisans that overtly declare their conservatism and either have been or could easily be among the programs on Fox News.

IOW, they really are not different news organizations, just individual persons, which are often on Fox News.

In contrast, the primary varied sources for liberals are actually different news organizations that each have many different individual journalists and analysts.

Thus, the greater variety of news outlets used by liberals is actually much larger than the simple "number of sources" would suggest.

Which suggests that liberals simply have more choices available than conservatives do.

 

[boneyard bill]

13 Things We Just Learned About Conservatives And Liberals In America - Business Insider
Political Polarization & Media Habits | Pew Research Center's Journalism Project

Pew Research divided up its surveyed people by ideology, with these categories:

Consistently liberal: 14%, Mostly liberal: 22%, Mixed: 38%, Mostly conservative: 17%, Consistently conservative: 9%.

Thus, liberal: 36%, moderate 38%, conservative: 26%.

They also asked these people about their familiarity with these news sources and their use and opinions of them:

ABC News, Al Jazeera America, BBC, Bloomberg, Breitbart, BuzzFeed, CBS News, CNN, Colbert Report, Daily Kos, Daily Show, Drudge Report, Economist, Ed Schultz Show, Fox News, Glenn Beck Program, Google News, Guardian, Huffington Post, Mother Jones, MSNBC, NBC News, New York Times, New Yorker, NPR, PBS, Politico, Rush Limbaugh Show, Sean Hannity Show, Slate, TheBlaze, ThinkProgress, USA TODAY, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Yahoo News

They found that conservatives liked these news sources but that just about nobody else did:

Breitbart, Drudge Report, Fox News, Glenn Beck Program, Rush Limbaugh Show, Sean Hannity Show, TheBlaze

Liberals liked most of the others, and moderates liked the more middle-of-the-road of them, like the major US and UK radio and TV news networks outside of Fox (ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, NPR, MSNBC, BBC) and the major newspapers (New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today). The moderates didn't like some sources that liberals like (The Daily Kos, Mother Jones, ThinkProgress, The Guardian, The Colbert Report, The Daily Show).

Everybody seemed to like the Wall Street Journal.

I did some cluster analyses, and it confirmed that the Conservative Seven sources did indeed cluster together.

Consistent Conservatives had a favorite: 47% of them preferred Fox News
Consistent Liberals had no clear favorites: 15% CNN, 13% NPR, 12% MSBC, 10% NYT


How do these people react to each other? Consistent Liberals were the most likely to unfriend the other side, both generally and in social media. However, Consistent Conservatives were the most likely to surround themselves with like-minded people.

I have a link to Drudge on my favorite's list but not to any of the others. I don't consider any of them to be worth a damn - liberal or conservative. I go to Real Clear Politics (which does often link to mainstream sites), David Stockman's Contra Corner, Politico, Global Research, and Anti-War.com. Of course, I go to other sites as I run across them, but I consider these to be among the best and the sites mentioned in the research to be worse than useless. (Except for Chris Matthews on MSNBC. I usually don't agree with him on issues, but I consider him to be a first rate political analyst who puts his own preferences aside).

 

[Herrick]

I have a link to Drudge on my favorite's list but not to any of the others. I don't consider any of them to be worth a damn - liberal or conservative.

Interesting. I know a few Fox News viewers/readers who also read Drudge Report. What makes Drudge Report better than Fox News for you? I've never read it myself so I don't know much about it.

 

[dismal]

Is the premise of this thread that it's bad to hang out in an echo chamber where almost everyone has similar politics as you?

Because that would strike me as highly ironic.

 

[maxparrish]

There isn't much variance between groups when it comes to how many news outlets they look at for political news in a week, but liberals are slightly more varied in their sources.

The article then shows that that Consistent conservatives use 5.5 sources while consistent liberals use 6.7. However, this "slight" difference is actually misleadingly small, because conservatives are not using different news organizations but really just Fox News plus Beck, Hannity, and Limbaugh. These are specific individual political partisans that overtly declare their conservatism and either have been or could easily be among the programs on Fox News.

IOW, they really are not different news organizations, just individual persons, which are often on Fox News.

In contrast, the primary varied sources for liberals are actually different news organizations that each have many different individual journalists and analysts.

Thus, the greater variety of news outlets used by liberals is actually much larger than the simple "number of sources" would suggest.

Or the greater variety or number of left of center news outlets means liberals spread their time between "distinctions without a diffference". I don't find any of this especially interesting other than the greater likelihood a liberal will unfriend someone they disagree with - not exactly a surprise but a pleasing quantitative confirmation of liberal attitudes.

 

[doubtingt]

The article then shows that that Consistent conservatives use 5.5 sources while consistent liberals use 6.7. However, this "slight" difference is actually misleadingly small, because conservatives are not using different news organizations but really just Fox News plus Beck, Hannity, and Limbaugh. These are specific individual political partisans that overtly declare their conservatism and either have been or could easily be among the programs on Fox News.

IOW, they really are not different news organizations, just individual persons, which are often on Fox News.

In contrast, the primary varied sources for liberals are actually different news organizations that each have many different individual journalists and analysts.

Thus, the greater variety of news outlets used by liberals is actually much larger than the simple "number of sources" would suggest.

Which suggests that liberals simply have more choices available than conservatives do.

No, all liberals and conservatives have the same number of choices, because they all could choose to watch any outlets available. What is shows is that conservatives have no interest in exposing themselves to a variety of information and views. Not only do conservatives watch almost nothing but Fox and its derivatives, but Fox itself is far more monolithic and homogeneous in the perspective of its programming than any of the individual outlets that liberals rely upon. Plus, nearly everything on Fox is editorial/opinion style "journalism" rather than actual reporting. Combined with other research showing that Fox is the most ideologically biased in its programming and its viewers are the most misinformed about clear objective facts, it shows that conservative only watch Fox because they have little interest in accurate information and reasoned analysis, and Fox in the only major outlet willing to give them nothing but the kind of narrow-minded dishonest misinformation and propaganda that they want.

Corporate profit motive is largely incompatible with intellectual integrity and honesty, because the truth is often not profitable. Thus, all other corporate media has its own issues and especially a bias to protect the interest of the parent corporation and the many industries they have stakes in. However, most of them also want to at least appear to be a news organization, and have a broad appeal beyond a select market of particular ideological extremist. This means that they have a lot of overlap with each other because they are each internally heterogeneous. Thus, they compete with each other for viewers and many viewers watch many of these outlets. Murdoch's business model with Fox News is quite different. He created extremist homogeneous propaganda machine that neither liberals nor most reasonable people would have any interest in. However, realizing that American conservatism is essentially defined by narrow-minded intolerance and irrational faith, he gambled (and won) that most conservatives would choose this as their exclusive source of "information", much like they turn blindly to the Bible as their sole source of moral guidance. They are cultists.

 

[doubtingt]

Is the premise of this thread that it's bad to hang out in an echo chamber where almost everyone has similar politics as you?

Because that would strike me as highly ironic.

Then you don't know what irony means. There are 5 participants in this thread, and 2 of them (you and boneyard) are extremist right wingers that usually take the position typical of Fox News pundits. If laughing dog and Athena were to join in, then we'd have representation of the far left (at least in the US political spectrum). Then there is me, who disagrees with them and with you and boneyard in about equal measure, depending upon the issue. There are few discussion groups on the internet with more varied views and more knowledgeable people on more topics than this one.
There are far more OPs here that I disagree than agree with. Even when I agree with the general point, I often disagree with the argument used to support it and I point these flaws out, despite it giving fodder to others with whom I disagree with more fundamentally.

There are some threads where you (and maybe Derec) are being "ganged up on" by everyone else in the thread. But that does not mean that everyone else shares the same politics, values, and worldview. It could be because your position is so extreme or objectively false that most people no matter their perspective disagree with it.

 

[lpetrich]

Thus, the greater variety of news outlets used by liberals is actually much larger than the simple "number of sources" would suggest.

Or the greater variety or number of left of center news outlets means liberals spread their time between "distinctions without a diffference".

If one considers Rush Limbaugh and the Fox family centrist, then anything to the left of the Wall Street Journal will of course seem like a bunch of Communists. It's like how Robert Welch, founder of the John Birch Society, considered Dwight Eisenhower a Communist.

I don't find any of this especially interesting other than the greater likelihood a liberal will unfriend someone they disagree with - not exactly a surprise but a pleasing quantitative confirmation of liberal attitudes.

As opposing to preferring to surround oneself with like-minded friends?

 

[maxparrish]

Which suggests that liberals simply have more choices available than conservatives do.

No, all liberals and conservatives have the same number of choices, because they all could choose to watch any outlets available. What is shows is that conservatives have no interest in exposing themselves to a variety of information and views. Not only do conservatives watch almost nothing but Fox and its derivatives, but Fox itself is far more monolithic and homogeneous in the perspective of its programming than any of the individual outlets that liberals rely upon. Plus, nearly everything on Fox is editorial/opinion style "journalism" rather than actual reporting. Combined with other research showing that Fox is the most ideologically biased in its programming and its viewers are the most misinformed about clear objective facts, it shows that conservative only watch Fox because they have little interest in accurate information and reasoned analysis, and Fox in the only major outlet willing to give them nothing but the kind of narrow-minded dishonest misinformation and propaganda that they want.

Corporate profit motive is largely incompatible with intellectual integrity and honesty, because the truth is often not profitable. Thus, all other corporate media has its own issues and especially a bias to protect the interest of the parent corporation and the many industries they have stakes in. However, most of them also want to at least appear to be a news organization, and have a broad appeal beyond a select market of particular ideological extremist. This means that they have a lot of overlap with each other because they are each internally heterogeneous. Thus, they compete with each other for viewers and many viewers watch many of these outlets. Murdoch's business model with Fox News is quite different. He created extremist homogeneous propaganda machine that neither liberals nor most reasonable people would have any interest in. However, realizing that American conservatism is essentially defined by narrow-minded intolerance and irrational faith, he gambled (and won) that most conservatives would choose this as their exclusive source of "information", much like they turn blindly to the Bible as their sole source of moral guidance. They are cultists.

Before climbing on a soapbox to rant cliches about conservatives and then misinform us on "what it (PEW) shows", a little prior assumption checking on your sources might have been prudent. I did the checking for you.

Turns out the PEW study pre-selected 36 news sources, clearly more liberal than conservative. They did not ask those questioned what sources they ACTUALLY rely on, but only WHAT of the 36 news sources PEW selected do they trust/mistrust.

Predictably, left of center sources like BBC, NPR, PBS, ABC,CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, NYTimes, Washington Post, Mother Jones, Daily Kos, Bloomberg, The New Yorker, the Colbert Report, the Huffington Post, MSNBC, Slate, Think Progress, Al Jazera (etc) were most trusted by liberals...and they are distrusted by Conservatives.

And from the short list of far fewer conservative news sources PEW asked about, conservatives trust Fox News, Drudge, Rush, Shawn, Breitbart, Glenn., and the Blaze...and they are distrusted by Liberals.!

OF COURSE conservatives rely on fewer news sources in a heavily weighted list of left of center sources. And when you offer fewer choices for conservatives, you MUST get a lower number of 'different' news sources used by Conservatives.

So want to guess how the poll might have been changed had the 36 "sources" been as follows?

Forbes, as opposed to Bloomberg
Hot Air or National Review (NRO) as opposed to Huffington Post
Weekly Standard or American Spectator rather than Mother Jones
Townhall or Reason as opposed to Slate
Cato or Heritage as compared to Thinkprogress

Or if they had included the Washington Times, New York Post, CNS, Newsmax, Newsbusters, Independent Journal Review, Daily Caller, Investor's Business Daily?

Ya, the survey does show some interesting things but it can't support your mangled understanding. When carping about propaganda, irrationality, and cultist attitudes of one side, one ought make sure one's glass house is secure.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

I do peruse Think Progress and HuffPo from time to time, but don't take them as being objective. Especially the Sideboob.

 

[lpetrich]

Turns out the PEW study pre-selected 36 news sources, clearly more liberal than conservative. They did not ask those questioned what sources they ACTUALLY rely on, but only WHAT of the 36 news sources PEW selected do they trust/mistrust.

And Dwight Eisenhower had been a Communist, right?

More seriously, the Pew people go into detail about their methodology. Like Appendix B: The News Sources | Pew Research Center's Journalism Project

These sources (37 total, including local television news) were specifically chosen so as to ask respondents about a range of news media, both in terms of platform and audience size, including some sources with large mass audiences as well as some niche sources. Most of the sources are drawn from those asked about in past Pew Research Center surveys on media consumption. Many of these sources are widely known and have large audiences. From this initial list, researchers went through an iterative process to add additional sources to provide a greater range in the news media environment – including adding more international, radio and primarily digital sources. The final list is based on results of a pilot test by the Pew Research Center, along with audience estimates and whether the outlets are sources for government and politics.

(the next paragraph in their text reformatted as a list)

• All three major broadcast television stations: ABC News, CBS News and NBC News
• The three major cable television news networks: CNN, Fox News and MSNBC
• Local television news
• Four of the largest circulated newspapers: the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and USA TODAY
• The two major public broadcast networks: NPR and PBS
• International media organizations: BBC, the Guardian and Al Jazeera America
• News aggregator websites: Google News, Yahoo News and BuzzFeed
• News magazines: the Economist, Mother Jones and the New Yorker
• Economic news sources: Bloomberg [along with the Economist and the Wall Street Journal]
• Four political news radio programs with the largest audience bases: the Ed Schultz Show, the Glenn Beck Program, the Rush Limbaugh Show and the Sean Hannity Show
• Infotainment television shows: the Daily Show and the Colbert Report
• Primarily digital sources, some with large audiences that rival some traditional media outlets’ web presence: the Drudge Report and the Huffington Post
• Others with more niche audiences: the Blaze, Breitbart, DailyKos, Politico, Slate and ThinkProgress

So the Pew researchers chose news sources with big audiences. Thus, by capitalist standards, they are "successes".

Predictably, left of center sources like BBC, NPR, PBS, ABC,CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, NYTimes, Washington Post, Mother Jones, Daily Kos, Bloomberg, The New Yorker, the Colbert Report, the Huffington Post, MSNBC, Slate, Think Progress, Al Jazera (etc) were most trusted by liberals...and they are distrusted by Conservatives.

And from the short list of far fewer conservative news sources PEW asked about, conservatives trust Fox News, Drudge, Rush, Shawn, Breitbart, Glenn., and the Blaze...and they are distrusted by Liberals.!

maxparrish, I almost can't believe that I'm reading that. Are you trying to imply that the Pew researchers selected those sources because of what side that you think that they take?

OF COURSE conservatives rely on fewer news sources in a heavily weighted list of left of center sources. And when you offer fewer choices for conservatives, you MUST get a lower number of 'different' news sources used by Conservatives.

Those are big-name sources, whether you like it or not. Stomping one's feet and holding one's breath until one turns blue won't change that. Are you willing to accept that that is a major market failure? Perhaps not on the level of the flopping of the three Atlas Shrugged movies, but a big one nevertheless.

So want to guess how the poll might have been changed had the 36 "sources" been as follows?

Forbes, as opposed to Bloomberg
Hot Air or National Review (NRO) as opposed to Huffington Post
Weekly Standard or American Spectator rather than Mother Jones
Townhall or Reason as opposed to Slate
Cato or Heritage as compared to Thinkprogress

Or if they had included the Washington Times, New York Post, CNS, Newsmax, Newsbusters, Independent Journal Review, Daily Caller, Investor's Business Daily?

Very low familiarity, for starters. The sources that Pew used had familiarities between the 95% of CNN and the 9% of ThinkProgress. I suspect that most of the publications you mentioned would barely register.

 

[maxparrish]

More seriously, the Pew people go into detail about their methodology. Like Appendix B: The News Sources | Pew Research Center's Journalism Project

These sources (37 total, including local television news) were specifically chosen so as to ask respondents about a range of news media, both in terms of platform and audience size, including some sources with large mass audiences as well as some niche sources. Most of the sources are drawn from those asked about in past Pew Research Center surveys on media consumption. Many of these sources are widely known and have large audiences. From this initial list, researchers went through an iterative process to add additional sources to provide a greater range in the news media environment... (etc.) – including adding more international, radio and primarily digital sources. The final list is based on results of a pilot test by the Pew Research Center, along with audience estimates and whether the outlets are sources for government and politics.

First, I was replying to doubtingt's false assumptions about the survey, which did not "prove" what he said it did. In particular, he claimed that conservatives use 5.5 sources while liberals use 6.7 sources and then said the slight difference is "misleadingly small, because conservatives are not using different news organizations but really just Fox News plus Beck, Hannity, and Limbaugh."

His conclusion was that PEW showed that liberals use a much greater variety of news sources and later added "...all liberals and conservatives have the same number of choices, because they all could choose to watch any outlets available. What is shows is that conservatives have no interest in exposing themselves to a variety of information and views."

However, the methodology used cannot support the claims he made. This is obvious. That liberals and conservatives had the same choices from a limited PEW selected list, cannot determine if these were all the surveyed's only sources of news AND if you don't know that, then you cannot claim that using 5.5 or 6.7 is from this list is a meaningful. Nor can you make claims about how this shows liberals expose themselves to more views (variety) when you don't know what else liberals or conservatives read.

maxparrish, I almost can't believe that I'm reading that. Are you trying to imply that the Pew researchers selected those sources because of what side that you think that they take?

Read into it what you wish, but regardless of what their intentions were I am noting what is methodologically inevitable. If you provide a limited list, and the list is skewed to a pre-selection of greater choices for liberals and fewer for conservatives, its results will not reflect the actual variety sources that conservatives (or liberals) use. Therefore any claim about who reads a greater "variety" of sources cannot be answered BECAUSE it does not include the full universe of sources people use (nor does it define "variety").

Those are big-name sources, whether you like it or not. Stomping one's feet and holding one's breath until one turns blue won't change that.

Nor will red herrings over "big name sources" make your bluster relevant to the points raised. PEW's selected some "big name" sources based on general circulation, and other sources based on undefined criteria for niche choices. Why they chose some over others is not entirely clear, but if the final list includes more liberal sources (for whatever valid or invalid reason) then there will be a greater number of sources for liberals to chose from.

Nor does say anything meaningful about who uses more "variety". If the liberal group reads 7 publications that say the same thing, and the conservative group reads 5 publications that say the same thing - what kind of "variety" is that? Only a liberal would think a choice between the NYTimes and Washington Post, or PBS and NPR reflect their desire for greater "variety" and "openness to other views".

Very low familiarity, for starters. The sources that Pew used had familiarities between the 95% of CNN and the 9% of ThinkProgress. I suspect that most of the publications you mentioned would barely register.

How would PEW know what is low familiarity for conservatives (as opposed to general circulation) UNLESS specifically offered them to select from the full universe of choices?

So then what do we REALLY know from this survey?

Apparently for network and cable news it is that ABC,CBS,NBC, and MSNBC are all MSM choices for liberals. Foxnews is the only choice for conservatives. Liberals have more liberal broadcast and cable channels to choose from so, guess what, they use a 'greater variety' of these sources.

Apparently for public broadcasting it is a choice between PBS or NPR for liberals, and nothing for conservatives. So yep, liberals use a 'greater variety' of these choices.

Apparently for International media organizations liberals can use BBC, the Guardian and Al Jazeera America. There are no conservative international news organizations. Yep, more "variety" for liberals.

Apparently for Entertainment News there is more variety for liberals, but in Radio Shows, there is more variety for conservatives.

This "variety" does not show that liberals are open minded to other views, it shows liberals have more to choose from.

Finally, note that IF a survey wished to test for open-mindedness, they would test for the frequency of reading or viewership for 'the others' news sources. For example in the survey it showed in six cases conservatives had 50-50 trust of a source that liberals trusted. HOWEVER liberals had no trust in any source that conservatives trusted.

So who again, is more open minded?

 

[bilby]

There are no conservative international news organisations because the most rabidly right-wing people in the rest of the developed world would consider US 'liberals' to be dangerously conservative.

On a left-right scale, the Scandinavians and the Dutch generally occupy the left, the Germans and English usually occupy the right, and waaaaay off the scale to the far right are US 'liberals', one gnat's whisker to the left of US 'conservatives'.

I find it hilarious that media such as NBC, CNN or CBS are considered 'left' or even 'left leaning'; PBS strike me as being the leftmost of the US TV media, and they are distinctly centrist. If Fox News reported that the sun rose this morning, I wouldn't believe them until I had looked out of the window to check for myself.

Fox News appears from my perspective to be some kind of occupational therapy for psychiatric patients who are suffering the delusion that they are 'reporters'.

It is not 'closed minded' to stop paying attention to the ravings of proven lunatics.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The article then shows that that Consistent conservatives use 5.5 sources while consistent liberals use 6.7. However, this "slight" difference is actually misleadingly small, because conservatives are not using different news organizations but really just Fox News plus Beck, Hannity, and Limbaugh. These are specific individual political partisans that overtly declare their conservatism and either have been or could easily be among the programs on Fox News.

IOW, they really are not different news organizations, just individual persons, which are often on Fox News.

In contrast, the primary varied sources for liberals are actually different news organizations that each have many different individual journalists and analysts.

Thus, the greater variety of news outlets used by liberals is actually much larger than the simple "number of sources" would suggest.

Which suggests that liberals simply have more choices available than conservatives do.

Odd... those same sources are still available to conservatives.

Clearly they choose to enter their bubble and go straight for the right-wing commentary sites and media

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Or if they had included the Washington Times, New York Post, CNS, Newsmax, Newsbusters, Independent Journal Review, Daily Caller, Investor's Business Daily?

Agreed. Newsmax is a huge contributor to recycled news that get reports the same story as every other right-wing site.

 

[lpetrich]

Principal Components Analysis on Pew's data. Each news source was represented as a vector of assessment strengths by each ideology of person. The assessments: familiarity, use, trust, and distrust.

In the top left corner of these files is:
List of principal-component strengths
List of principal-component vectors -- only the first two are used in the plot, because it's a 2D one
The vectors' components: {Consistently liberal, Mostly liberal, Mixed, Mostly conservative, Consistently conservative}
The locations of the news sources as positions along the principal-component vectors

View attachment USPPNM Familiarity PCA.pdf
View attachment USPPNM Use PCA.pdf
View attachment USPPNM Trust PCA.pdf
View attachment USPPNM DIstrust PCA.pdf

The "use" one is especially interesting. The two axes are, by the people who use them,
Left: nonpartisan -- right: partisan
Top: conservative -- bottom: liberal

The Conservative Seven are clustered close together, with all but Fox forming a tight cluster and Fox being relatively far off in the nonpartisan direction.

The other sources formed an arc from the Wall Street Journal to USA Today to MSNBC to the Daily Kos.

The "trust" one was similar, though rotated 90d counterclockwise. The Conservative Seven close together, with all but Fox being in a very tight cluster. The others formed an arc from the Wall Street Journal to MSNBC to the Daily Kos.

The "familiarity" one has the less partisan ones bunched together and the more partisan ones spread out, both the liberal ones and the conservative ones.

The "distrust" one is odd. The Conservative Seven are a bit scattered, with Fox scattered among them. Most of the others are in a clump on the opposite side. There are some additional ones that are more scattered.

 

[NobleSavage]

Would anyone ever show up to a baseball or football game if they didn't have teams to route for? What I think politicians are lacking now is the idea of good sportsmanship.