MEDIA LABELING

Media Labeling Conservatives, Study Says
By Stuart Shepard

According to an extensive new study of liberal media bias, the major networks love to label 'conservatives' on their newscasts. For a recent study, the Media Research Center (MRC) examined the content of the evening network news over the past five years. Researchers added up every time an anchor or reporter labeled a person or group "conservative" or "liberal."

Their finding: liberals were labeled nearly 250 times, conservatives 1,000 times - a 4-to-1 ratio. MRC spokesman Rich Noyes said this kind of disparity cannot be accidental. Moreover, he said, being labeled for your views often works against conservative values. "It pigeonholes you; it alerts people that you've got an 'axe to grind' or you've got an agenda," Noyes said. "If liberals can avoid that while conservatives are saddled with that, that's a great advantage to the liberals."

He said network news producers surely know the impact of their labeling. "Certainly some of them know what they're doing," Noyes said. As an example of the kind of stereotypical labeling referred to in the report, Concerned Women for America is labeled "conservative" 41% of the time. But the feminist National Organization for Women is called "liberal" only 2% of the time.

Wendy Wright, senior policy director at Concerned Women for America, said she wouldn't mind her group being called conservative if liberal groups were labeled such just as clearly and consistently. "(That kind of labeling) would seem to convey that the liberal groups are objective, that they're not coming from a particular viewpoint that is shaded by their political ideology," Wright said.

FOR MORE INFORMATION To read more about the Media Research Center study, see the Media Research Center Web site: http://www.mediaresearch.org/realitycheck/2002/fax20020625.asp