Media Matters applies Bozellian logic: Since GOP readers outnumber Dems, online newspapers must be conservative

Summary: L. Brent Bozell III used data from a new study by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press to suggest that programs such as PBS' The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and Comedy Central's The Daily Show "can be identified as liberal since they are so passionately embraced by the Left." By that logic, online newspapers must be conservative, since the study found that Republican readers outnumber Democrats.

In his August 2 nationally syndicated column, L. Brent Bozell III, president of the conservative Media Research Center, used data from a new study by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press to suggest that programs such as PBS' The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart "can be identified as liberal since they are so passionately embraced by the Left." Bozell's reasoning behind this suggestion is that, according to the Pew survey, higher percentages of Democrats watch these programs regularly than do Republicans, therefore, the "conventional wisdom" should be that these programs are "liberal." However, this sort of inductive reasoning -- which prescribes that news outlets with predominantly liberal (or conservative, or whatever) audiences must therefore be liberal (or conservative, or whatever) -- can be used to make any number of baseless claims about the ideologies of news outlets and programs.

For example, the very same Pew study Bozell cited shows that the percentage of Democrats (6 percent) who regularly watch C-SPAN is twice than that of Republicans (3 percent). Under Bozell's reasoning, the cable network that broadcasts Senate hearings and House floor debates and the like must be a "liberal" network. The study also found that a greater percentage of Republicans than Democrats read newspapers online (10 percent, compared with 8 percent, respectively.) It follows, then, that newspapers -- the online versions -- are "conservative."

Bozell's Media Research Center purports to "prove -- through sound scientific research -- that liberal bias in the media does exist and undermines traditional American values."

From Bozell's August 2 column:

Democrats decry Fox News Channel as GOP-TV, and liberals have a special loathing for "The O'Reilly Factor," with Pew finding 16 percent of Republicans watch it regularly, compared to just 5 percent of Democrats. It doesn't matter how conservative Bill O'Reilly is -- or isn't -- on any given night. Liberals regularly criticize Fox as a partisan news operation catering to a GOP-leaning audience.

But notice how Pew also found that nearly twice as many Democrats as Republicans (7 percent vs. 4 percent) are regular viewers of PBS's "News Hour with Jim Lehrer," and 22 percent of Democrats listen regularly to NPR, but only 13 percent of Republicans. Democrats also outnumber Republicans among regular viewers of Comedy Central's "Daily Show" with Jon Stewart (by 10 percent to 3 percent). Shouldn't then the conventional wisdom also embrace that these programs can be identified as liberal since they are more passionately embraced by the Left?

—S.S.M.