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Re:Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers by Aunche on Monday June 14, 2021 @01:16PM (#27505248)
CNN is a bad example of a left leaning news outlet. They're quite centrist. The reason mainstream media appears to be left biased is because people use the government's political center as their frame of reference rather than that of the populace. The media caters to political beliefs of actual average American. The federal government caters to the center of voting power, which is heavily skewed towards smaller states which tend to be more conservative. This disparity is what people perceive as "left bias".
Re:Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers by andrepd on Monday June 14, 2021 @07:40PM (#27509766)
> The reason mainstream media appears to be left biased is because people use the government's political center as their frame of reference rather than that of the populace. The media caters to political beliefs of actual average American. The federal government caters to the center of voting power, which is heavily skewed towards smaller states which tend to be more conservative. This disparity is what people perceive as "left bias".

Wow, I never thought of that.

Re:Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers by bosswipe on Monday June 14, 2021 @01:51PM (#27505750)
Super interesting take, thanks! I've always been so confused by conservatives labeling all mainstream media as left-biased when I, as a liberal, see them as centrist or conservative.
Re:Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers by axguscbklp on Monday June 14, 2021 @01:46PM (#27505663)
Studies show that "left bias" in mainstream media is much greater than it is among Americans in general. For example:

"Compared with 2002, the percentage of full-time U.S. journalists who claim to be Democrats has dropped 8 percentage points in 2013 to about 28 percent, moving this figure closer to the overall population percentage of 30 percent, according to a December 12-15, 2013, ABC News/Washington Post national poll of 1,005 adults. This is the lowest percentage of journalists saying they are Democrats since 1971. An even larger drop was observed among journalists who said they were Republicans in 2013 (7.1 percent) than in 2002 (18 percent), but the 2013 figure is still notably lower than the percentage of U.S. adults who identified with the Republican Party (24 percent according to the poll mentioned above)."

(https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/05/06/ju...)

"Some of the professional groups have clear liberal leanings. People who work in the news media are almost exclusively donors to liberal candidates:"

(https://www.businessinsider.com/charts-show-the-political-bi...)

Re:Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers by jfrunyon on Monday June 14, 2021 @02:00PM (#27505904)
The percentage of the American population which is either Democrat or Republican is consistently[1] well[2] above[3] 90%[4], so I'm not sure where you're getting 54%.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_United_States_presidentia... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_presidentia... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidentia... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidentia...

Re:Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers by dragonwriter on Monday June 14, 2021 @02:26PM (#27506264)
> The percentage of the American population which is either Democrat or Republican is consistently[1] well[2] above[3] 90%[4]

Even if you read “voting for a D or R candidate in a Presidential general election” as “being a D or R”, and “eligible voters” as “the American population”, both which are clearly and wildly wrong, your evidence still doesn’t support your claim, because it has 98.2% of 66.2% = 65% of eligible voters, which is not “well above 90%”.

Re:Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers by jfrunyon on Tuesday June 15, 2021 @11:58AM (#27517349)
I'm not sure why you expect news to target people who aren't even in their coverage's audience.
Re:Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers by axguscbklp on Monday June 14, 2021 @02:07PM (#27506019)
Those links show that out of all Americans who vote in presidential elections, well above 90% vote for either a Democrat or a Republican. However, that does not mean that well above 90% of Americans are either Democrats or Republicans.
Re:Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers by jfrunyon on Monday June 14, 2021 @02:10PM (#27506056)
People lie. I'm not sure why you expect the media to sell to people's lies instead of selling to people's actions.

PS Americans also overwhelmingly vote either Democrat or Republican in non-presidential elections, even down to the city council level.

Re:Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers by dragonwriter on Monday June 14, 2021 @02:34PM (#27506399)
> PS Americans also overwhelmingly vote either Democrat or Republican in non-presidential elections

Americans overwhelmingly abstain rather than voting for any of the offered candidates, Democrat, Republican, or independent or minor party, in non-Presidential elections. 2018 had the highest midterm turnout since the before the Reagan era, and it reached the whole way up to 49%.

Re:Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers by axguscbklp on Monday June 14, 2021 @05:56PM (#27508821)
What do you mean by "people's actions"? If you mean voting, well, Democrats and Republicans get about the same number of votes in presidential elections, which does not seem to justify your view that "left" media bias just reflects the political leaning of the average American.
Re:Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers by jfrunyon on Tuesday June 15, 2021 @06:51AM (#27513445)
Except Democrats have been consistently beating Republicans in presidential elections. Click the links. Go back further if you want to. The Republican candidate has won the popular vote exactly once (in 2004) since 1990.
Re:Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers by axguscbklp on Saturday June 19, 2021 @04:46PM (#27564323)
The Presidential election popular vote margin has not gone over 10 million votes in over three decades now, in a country that has averaged about 300 million residents over that time span. These are not margins that support the idea that the population as a whole skews left as much as mainstream media skews left.
Re:Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers by dlp211 on Monday June 14, 2021 @04:34PM (#27507940)
Stated vs. Revealed preferences.