Biased News Media or Biased Readers?

[Benton]

(10-01-2018, 10:53 PM)Dill Wrote: For those interested in the phenomenon of selective skepticism, here is an interesting study by Gallup and the Knight Foundation. The comments following it are also interesting, and in some cases seem to confirm the experiment.  

Biased News Media or Biased Readers? An Experiment on Trust
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/26/upshot/biased-news-media-or-biased-readers-an-experiment-on-trust.html

Those who are most distrustful of the news media, and those with more extreme political views, tend to be the most biased readers, research shows. Some excerpts

Gallup survey data indicates that Americans are increasingly distrustful about potentially biased news. But they should also worry about the partiality of their own judgment as well as how their news consumption habits may affect it.

The bias consumers bring with them distorts their rating of news content, new research shows, and those who are most distrustful of the news media tend to be the most biased readers.

The evidence also suggests that people are at greater risk of bias if they habitually turn to more extreme sources — such as those least often preferred by political moderates.
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Who is at greatest risk of bias?

Among all readers in the group who could see the news source, 35 percent exhibit large bias — meaning their trust rating of an article diverged from the blind-review group by 1.5  points or more on the 1-to-5-point scale.

Not surprisingly, those with more extreme political views tend to provide more biased ratings of news. Those who described their political views as very liberal or very conservative exhibited large bias across 43 percent of the articles they rated, whereas those who described their views as moderate exhibited bias just 31 percent of the time. Likewise, those who leaned toward one party but did not fully identify with it exhibited about the same bias as the moderates.

The data also suggests that those who approve of President Trump rate news articles with more bias than those who disapprove of the president (39.2 percent versus 32.8 percent). However, Trump supporters tend to be less biased than those identifying as “very liberal.”
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Chosen news sources shape perceptions

Another reason some people may demonstrate high levels of bias in reading the news is that they habitually consume highly biased news, distorting their frame of reference. The Knight-Gallup data provides some evidence for this. Respondents were asked: “Is there a news source that you trust to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly?” Those who responded “yes” were then asked to list the source.

There were very large differences in measured bias across the various news sources people regularly consume. Those who turn to Rush Limbaugh, Breitbart and Fox News tend to generate the most biased ratings of news content. Rush Limbaugh listeners demonstrated large rating bias in 52 percent of news content rated, and it was 50 percent for Breitbart readers. Fox News watchers showed large bias 45 percent of the time.

The PDF of the full study is here:
https://kf-site-production.s3.amazonaws.com/publications/pdfs/000/000/257/original/KnightFoundation_NewsLens1_Client_Report_070918_ab.pdf

Interesting, but I don't think it's too shocking. Especially the last part. Limbaugh, Brietbart and Fox have made their money by telling people everyone else is lying and out to get them/their guns/their money. And everyone is anyone who isn't a conservative. So, it shouldn't be shocking that someone who thinks everyone else is out to get them would only believe the people who tell them "everyone is out to get you."