STUDY: Conservative guests again outnumber progressives on Lou Dobbs Tonight
SUMMARY: A Media Matters analysis of the guest appearances on Lou Dobbs Tonight in the first four months of 2009 found that 52 percent more Republicans and conservatives appeared than Democrats and progressives.
A Media Matters for America analysis of guest appearances on Lou Dobbs Tonight for the first four months of 2009 has found that significantly more Republicans and conservatives than Democrats and progressives have appeared on the CNN show -- a result consistent with a 2006 Media Matters study on Dobbs' guest lineups. Despite this conservative tilt in the Lou Dobbs Tonight guest list and Dobbs' frequent falsehoods and distortions, CNN domestic network president Jon Klein reportedly contends that Dobbs -- while the network's most opinionated anchor "by a mile" -- is "doing more of a straight newscast than he's ever done before."
The most recent Media Matters analysis found that of the 326 guest appearances on the show from January 1 to April 30 of this year, 143 -- or approximately 44 percent -- were Republicans or conservatives. By contrast, 94 -- or approximately 29 percent -- were Democrats or progressives. In other words, 52 percent more Republicans and conservatives appeared than Democrats and progressives. The study classified the remaining 89 appearances -- approximately 27 percent -- as neutral. The data, rounded to the nearest percentage point:
Considering only elected and administration guests, the study similarly found that Republicans held an edge over Democrats, despite the fact that Democrats controlled Congress and, for most of the time period examined, the White House. Between January and April, Dobbs' program featured 29 Republicans (57 percent of elected and administration guests) and 22 Democrats (43 percent). Limiting it to just members of Congress, the disparity in favor of Republicans was even more stark, 26-14, or 65 percent to 35 percent. In the previous Media Matters study, which looked at the first two months of 2006, when Republicans held power, elected and administration Republicans held a 23-9 guest edge over Democratic elected officials, or 70 percent to 27 percent. The 2006 study found that when considering only members of Congress, Lou Dobbs Tonight hosted 20 Republicans and six Democrats, a 77 percent to 23 percent Republican advantage.
Republicans and conservatives also received a greater share of the solo interviews on Lou Dobbs Tonight, accounting for 42 percent of solo interviews, while Democrats and progressives accounted for 28 percent, and neutral guests accounted for 29 percent.
Guest discussion panels also tilted right more often than left. Forty-three percent of all panels tilted right, nearly double the 22 percent of panels that tilted left. Thirty-five percent of all panels were balanced.
Additionally, Lou Dobbs Tonight has been a particularly hospitable place for conservative talk radio hosts who otherwise do not have a national platform to express their views. Among the right-wing radio personalities who have appeared on Dobbs' show -- and whom Media Matters has documented trafficking in falsehoods and inflammatory rhetoric -- are Chris Baker, Bill Cunningham, Roger Hedgecock, Lars Larson, Steve Malzberg, and Chris Stigall.
For a list of the guests that were coded, click here.
Methodology
Media Matters for America tracked the guest appearances on CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight for all episodes between January 1, 2009, and April 30, 2009. (Note: The show was pre-empted by other programming on January 19, January 20, March 18, and April 29.)
Each guest who appeared on Lou Dobbs Tonight was coded for one of the following designations: Democratic, Republican, progressive, conservative, or neutral. The party designations (Democratic and Republican) were reserved for current and former officeholders, political consultants associated with one party or the other, and administration officials. All other guests were coded as conservative, progressive, or neutral based on self-identification or organizational and institutional affiliations. The neutral category does not necessarily imply strict ideological neutrality but, rather, might better be understood as neutral/centrist/nonpartisan -- Media Matters used the term "neutral" for the sake of brevity. On the few occasions where a guest's ideological alignment could not be determined by their self-identification or affiliations, their statements and positions on various issues were used to arrive at a designation. Where a guest's identification was in question, Media Matters chose to err on the side of listing that guest to the left. If a guest's ideology could not be determined by any of the methods outlined above, the guest was coded as neutral.
Panel discussion segments were coded for ideological balance. For example, if one Democratic senator and one Republican senator appeared together, the panel would be coded as balanced. If two conservative commentators appeared together with one progressive commentator, the panel would be coded as tilted right. Guests who appeared alone were coded as solo appearances.
All transcripts for Lou Dobbs Tonight were accessed through the Nexis database.
Clouds are white.
Grass is green unless dogs pee on it.
These things are pretty much as "unknown" as the results of this study.
L.K.A, R.S., & E.V.: perhaps there is a more productive use of your time. Like sleeping.
Actually this isn't as bad as I thought. I'd love to see the same graph for Sean Hannity, Bill O'Rielly and Glenn Beck. (And just to include all three networks, Joe Scarborogh as well.)
CNN network president, Jon Klein, claimed that Dobbs was "opinionated" but was doing an otherwise "straight newscast," at least more than he says he had previously done. This is not true, however, since he was just as slanted in 2006, when their last study was done.
MMFA has a pretty good search feature. You should try it:
Win or lose on Election Day, Republicans and conservatives hold majority on Face the Nation and Fox News Sunday
For seven hours, MSNBC hosted only conservatives and reporters to discuss immigration
Third time's not the charm: Sunday-morning talk shows still imbalanced
Progressives factored out: The O'Reilly Factor dominated by Republicans, conservatives
CNN roundtable on Bush immigration speech included five white men, but no progressives or Latinos
If It's Sunday, It's Still Conservative
Unfair & imbalanced: Republicans and conservatives dominate on Hannity & Colmes
The lineup on Lou Dobbs Tonight overwhelmingly tilts right
NBC's Today, like MSNBC's Hardball, hosted more conservatives than liberals
Hardball for the left, softball for the right: Conservatives dominate on Hardball
Meet the Press -- but only if you're a Republican
NBC's Today featured numerous conservatives to discuss the Plame investigation, very few progressives
A "Close Up" on Today's Republican-heavy guest list
No room for progressives on primetime in inauguration coverage either
No room for progressives on cable news inauguration coverage
19 Chris Matthews Show panels in 2004 skewed right; seven skewed left
I consider the entire MMFA website to be one giant study, subject to debate and scrutiny just like any other study.
Overwhelming evidence on every level. 65% of his guests who are members of Congress are Republicans? Let's see, Democrats overwhelmingly control both houses of Congress. How could this happen?
Hey Lou, get dah head outta dah butt!!
Here is what they wanted to say: "MMFA cannot force people who have their own shows to put on who we want them to, and we dont like it".
He is welcome to put monkeys as his guests. If the monkeys spread Conservative misinformation, MMFA will post it and they have every right to do so. It is their website you know.
On a serious note though, have you ever watched his show? An old guy pretending to care for middle class who does nothing else?
He is very narcissistic, like OReilly.
should read
An old guy pretending to care for middle class who does nothing but bash unions (and the President)?
What's happening to you guys to distort your perspective is you're comparing apples to apples but seeing apples and oranges. We have the same problem on the Right.
The traditional Progressive position in America is still far Left of the majority of Americans. The classic Conservative view is still far Right of the majority of Americans. What's really in the majority is the conservative-Progressive view, a mix of Progressive agenda with traditionalism and fiscal conservativism. Guys we see as too far Left, you see as too far Right. They see us as the too far Left and Right. Did you notice the big groups of Neutrals the MMFA study found? Where can you really find that big of a group in politics that are really neutral?
Neutral isn't a direction. The neutrals take their ideas from the competing theories of how best to structure and maintain the best possible society. So they waiver back and forth, led by one side for a while until genuine and false complaints add up to enough to lean them in the other direction.
Now if you're good Progressives, you believe that civilization has advanced to the point where we can do a better job than our ancestors did. You want to redesign some percentage of the way things are done and to do that you look for the kind of leadership that gives you confidence that these are people that share enough of your understandings that they can be entrusted with the awesome task of guiding that transformation, they can lead us to real progress. You believe that an almost scientific design based on statistical analysis of social needs and technological answers based on the wealth of society being directed toward the betterment of society can be achieved. Your critic's idea that this will lead to a socialist dictatorship are misguided because we've seen those kinds of government and know to avoid them. They are part of the past and the whole idea of progress is that we learn from the past and progress to a better idea.
The "good" Conservatives believe that each of us should, to the greatest degree possible while still preserving a social order, be in control of our own lives and free to make our own choices. We believe that the best progress toward that in human history was made in the founding of this nation, but that the nation took those freedoms too much for granted and that too many of us slipped backwards into wanting a great and powerful "king" to ensure that things were well run and everyone had what they need. That the "king" was to be elected this time, share rule with others and serve limited terms is a minor relief, but not to the point. The "king", (or leader), who has the power to fix things also has the power to make them worse. But more than that, the power to control our lives includes the power to build, shape and control our environment. The more of such power is given to the leaders, the less of such power is still in the hands of the individuals that make up the people. We believe that way too much power has been shifted to government and to the degree that has happened, we have lost our freedom. We beieve that the amazing thing about the Constitution is that it was designed, not to enable government, but to restrain it, to prevent the government from acquiring more than the minimum amount of power necessary to keep the country together and defended. Any problems beyond that are for communitees and individuals to decide on and deal with.
Many of you are concerned about "conservatives" taking over and imposing their conservative religious beliefs and social values on you. And your fear is well justified. But those aren't The Conservatives. The Conservatives want to take away from any government, employer, neighbor or church the power to impose their values on you or anyone else. And where power IS needed, we want to restrict its scope and counter it with other competing sources of power. The people who want to take you back to yesteryear and impose their traditions on you are the "conservative-Progressives". Just like you, they have a vision of what they think would be a better design for society and they want to make progress toward it as fast as any government they can dominate can get us there.
Most of us Conservatives, believe that the truest, most realistic and most human way to look at human beings is not as demographic categories, but as individuals; That the individual is the only real unit in society and that which enables us each to govern our own lives and make our own judgements and seek our own individual dreams is the goal of enlightened civilization; And that the early stages of the American experiment showed that this could work very well. The problem is, we might be wrong in that human beings may not have advanced to a state in which they can live cooperatively and peacefully and yet make most of their own judgments and decisions.
This is a struggle of great ideas. I favor one over the other, but only a God could ultimately know which one is the better. That this struggle devolves to a tawdry comparison of which side is more moral and which side is more honest is a sad necessity. But when we, the real opponents in this struggle, can better understand each other, then we may diminish the potential for truly regretable confrontation.
So, argue your points with vigor, but can't we set aside this presumption of inferiority? As I've said to others on this site, I've been on both sides and neither is pure and neither is altogether wrong.
I don't know how old you are or how well educated, but my fund of knowledge includes 60 years of personal experience and memory and extensive study in a wide variety of subjects. I will refer to such things and in normal conversation you would assume that I'm telling "the truth as I know it" unless you have information that contradicts it. Instead, because I don't come to the same conclusions you do you've assumed that I'm lying or ignorant or just dumb. If you paid attention to a range of sources you would have some memory of reports on this, soon afterwhich Dobb's prominence on CNN increased. But if it makes you more comfortable to toss out a challenge and an insult and then huddle down inside your safe little shell where only people that agree with you matter, you go right ahead.
By the way, you failed to meet the challenge.