Twitter and other social networks have provided social scientists with unprecedented means of measuring human interaction. As it turns out, that fact has implications for the media bias debate.
In a study to be released next month, three Duke University researchers rank politicians and other public figures by political ideology as measured by a formula that incorporates whom they follow on Twitter, and who follows them. "The results dovetailed with ideological ranking systems based on the politicians’ voting records," the New York Times reported on Monday.
If the study is accurate, it demonstrates just how liberal some of America's most prominent journalists really are. Check below the break for some key findings concerning on the not-so-neutral news media.
According to the Duke study:
- NBC's Chuck Todd and CBS's Katie Couric are almost as far left as the Daily Kos,
- The Washington Post and MSNBC are more liberal than far-left blog Firedoglake,
- NBC's Brian Williams and the Los Angeles Times are further left than Andrew Sullivan's blog the Daily Dish,
- MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman, is significantly left of center.
Conspicuously absent from the chart of the study's findings was the New York Times, which, as mentioned above, reported on those findings Monday. One wonders where the Gray Lady would fall on the list.
