Foul cry

When media watchdogs like FAIR and MRC complain about bias, they often only reveal their own.

By Ben Fritz

Jul 1, 2002 | These days, the commentariat is bursting with self-professed media critics of all stripes (this column included). From bloggers to columnists to nonprofit organizations with multimillion-dollar budgets, calling the media on errors and inadequacy -- real or imagined -- is a business that just keeps on growing. But all too often, this analysis is driven more by ideology than the facts, as with the two most prominent media watchdogs, the Media Research Center (MRC) on the right and the somewhat smaller and less well-funded Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) on the left.

Despite their blatantly ideological agendas, both organizations claim to engage in impartial analysis. In practice, however, these groups often treat reporting that reflects the other side's perspective as de facto evidence of bias, with facts supporting their own views ignored or dismissed as an aberration. With MRC and FAIR, it seems, there's often no such thing as a balanced report.

It's not that these organizations don't have valid points. It's undeniable, for instance, that the vast majority of journalists self-identify as Democrats, as MRC points out. And FAIR is certainly correct that media outlets are being consolidated into large corporations that usually support conservative positions on issues such as taxes, regulation and trade. Further, both groups have done admirable work pointing out real examples of unbalanced reporting. Yet these valuable studies are too frequently intermixed with the ideological ax-grinding seen in several recent news analyses from both groups, which provide perfect evidence of how they can twist nearly any set of facts to fit their existing biases.

Consider, for instance, MRC's response to network news coverage of an Environmental Protection Agency report stating that human activity causes global warming, the first time that the Bush administration has explicitly stated this position. The MRC's "media reality check" on the issue is headlined "ABC, CBS and NBC Promote Liberal Critics, Pretend Dissent Over Global Warming No Longer Exists." But in the broadcasts cited, critics of the plan were quoted as many times as those who supported the report's findings (if not its recommendations), and reporters and anchors on all three networks explained the anti-regulation conclusions of the report. Yet, by only providing quotes critical of the Bush administration, MRC is creating a false impression of what these networks actually reported.

Nowhere to be found in MRC's analysis, for instance, are these statements by network reporters, all of which present administration positions critical of environmental regulation:

"[Administration officials] continue to insist that new cuts in emissions would harm the economy without curing global warming," said CBS's Bill Plante.

"This report says that since global warming has happened throughout the 20th century, and it's not necessarily going to slow down that much, there are going to have be adaptations," said ABC's Terry Moran.

"[T]he report also suggests an upside. Growing seasons in northern areas could last longer, crops and timber become more plentiful, therefore cheaper. Fuel bills could be lower. There could be more warm weather for construction or recreation," said NBC's Robert Hager.

And, according to MRC, Plante "was the only correspondent who included a conservative criticism." But MRC fails to note that Moran didn't include quotes from anyone, including environmentalists, in his short report for ABC.

Next Page: FAIR's unfair case against the Chicago Tribune

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