Left Turn

How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind

By: Tim Groseclose

Narrated by: Buck Groat

Dr. Tim Groseclose, a professor of political science and economics at UCLA, has spent years constructing precise quantitative measures of the slant of media outlets. He does this by measuring the political content of news, as a way to measure the PQ, or political quotient, of voters and politicians. Among his conclusions are these: (i) all mainstream media outlets have a liberal bias, and (ii) while some supposedly conservative outlets - such as The Washington Times or Fox News' Special Report - do lean right, their conservative bias is less than the liberal bias of most mainstream outlets. Groseclose contends that the general leftward bias of the media has shifted the PQ of the average American by about 20 points, on a scale of 100, the difference between the current political views of the average American and the political views of the average resident of Orange County, California, or Salt Lake County, Utah. With Left Turn, listeners can easily calculate their own PQ and decide for themselves if bias exists.

©2011 Tim Groseclose (P)2021 Dreamscape Media, LLC

Disappointing - conservative bias on liberal bias

I had high hopes for this book as it addresses a topic that many think is vital to America correcting course - a reformed media dedicated to telling the truth. The author lost me entirely in the section where he was criticizing the liberal media's refusal to use the phrase "partial birth abortion," which he claimed should be used because it was in the title of the bill being considered. He never acknowledged, however, that a good reason NOT to use that phrase is because it was clearly one chosen by Republicans to be emotionally charged on a topic that divides many people. The medical community doesn't call it that. Partisan politicians do.
The author's methodolgy is also suspect. Not the part of converting social science into measurable variables, that happens all the time in good research. No problem with PQ as a measure, although it is a relative measure at best, comparing one flawed person to another. The problem is when he talks about the media needing to correct itself by reporting closer to what the average American believes. Question: What if the average American is anti vaccination, believes that angels perform miracles, subscribes to Qanon and suspects the second coming is tomorrow? Should the media report that because it's closer to the average American's PQ? No, the media should report verifiable facts (think science) without an agenda. That is the only metric that matters.
If conservative think tank authors want to criticize the "liberal media," and there's plenty to criticize, they should look to their own bias and blind spots first. Only a conservative author would fail to see the political games involved in titling a piece of legislatition "partial birth abortion." That one chapter completely destroyed all credibility in this book. To quote Trump, "Sad."