Out of 667 American political news stories aired on Univision or Telemundo between November 2013 and the end of February 2014, 300 tilted towards the liberal perspective compared to 43 which leaned to the right, MRC Latino Director Ken Oliver-Méndez noted today at a symposium at the Newseum in downtown Washington, D.C., unveiling MRC Latino's inaugural study, "Hispanic Media in the Balance."
Having broken down the numbers by issue, Oliver-Méndez observed that the bias was particularly stark on the issues of health care and poverty, with Univision and Telemundo reporters and anchors heavily promoting liberal/Democratic messaging on ObamaCare and "income inequality." [watch Oliver-Méndez's presentation below the page break]
In the 667 stories surveyed, Democrats and liberals were featured in 1,011 soundbites to only 370 for Republicans or conservatives. "On ObamaCare, the tilt was even more pronounced, by a margin of nearly 5-to-1," Oliver-Méndez noted. What's more, "[c]overage of ObamaCare on both networks included anchor-read promotional material on" Affordable Care Act enrollment as well as on-air promotional graphics.
In the four-month study period, 17 stories were aired on poverty/income inequality and of those, 14 leaned towards liberal/Democratic policy prescriptions while three were judged neutral or balanced. Zero stories leaned in a conservative/Republican direction.
On the positive side of the ledger, Univision and Telemundo paid significant attention to political unrest in Venezuela and, by a 2-to-1 margin the soundbites in stories favored the political opposition over Nicolas Maduro's authoritarian socialist government.
Also a bright spot: both networks were generally neutral or favorable to the Catholic Church, with only 17 percent of the stories in the survey period skewing against the Church.
To read the full study, go here.
To see video of MRC President Brent Bozell and Rand Paul participating in a question and answer session at MRC Latino, go here.
To see Senator Rand Paul's speech at the launch of MRC Latino, go here.
To see a panel discussion on the event, go here.
To see Bozell offer concluding remarks on the event, go here.
