A Pew study on media usage was released yesterday, and it represents the worst kind of false equivalency that denounces the left and the right as equally bad even when the evidence says otherwise. The Pew study blames “media ‘echo chambers’ on the left and the right” for our political divides, with Republicans and Democrats equally blamed.
The study announced: “Takeaway #1: About a quarter of Republicans and Democrats consistently turned to partisan news media bubbles.”
So what are those “bubbles”? Pew defines right-leaning partisan media as Fox News and talk radio, which makes sense. So what counts as left-leaning partisan media? CNN, MSNBC, NPR, New York Times, and the Washington Post.
These are in no way comparable media outlets. The “left-leaning” media are overwhelming straight news outlets with a small amount of liberal advocates (and some Republican voices). The “right-leaning” media are explicitly partisan, ideological, one-sided outlets. Any survey that equates Rush Limbaugh and the New York Times as similar news sources is utterly worthless. In essence, the Pew study says that any media outlet ignored by Republicans is defined as “left-leaning” based on the audience.
Another important number in the survey was ignored by Pew: 39% of Republicans did not rely on any of these media outlets, compared to 20% of Democrats (who were far more likely to use network TV or right-leaning media). So what were they reading? Probably even more unreliable outlets on social media and the internet. It makes a huge difference that such a substantial proportion of Republicans not only ignore all mainstream media but also the corporate right-wing media.
Unfortunately, coverage of the Pew study reinforced its false equivalency. NiemanLab reported, “About one in four Democrats and Republicans turn exclusively to news sources with like-minded audiences.”
Oliver Darcy on CNN’s Reliable Sources newsletter also reported this top bullet point: "Overall, 24% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents consistently turned only to sources with right-leaning audiences ... and 25% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents chose only outlets with left-leaning audiences..." CNN was uncritically reporting a study that equated CNN and Rush Limbaugh as similar echo chambers.
“The echo chamber is roaring” reported AdWeek about the Pew study, noting: “About a quarter of Republicans and Democrats each said they receive their news from similarly politically-leaning news outlets....For Democrats, the defining feature of the echo chamber group is that members tend to be college-educated and white.”
Yes, this is actually being reported as the media crisis of our times: College-educated Democrats watch CNN and MSNBC, listen to NPR, and read the New York Times and the Washington Post. And this media diet, we are told, is a leftist echo chamber.
These five media outlets are generally the embodiment of the centrist establishment (and often a place to hear Republican voices). The fact that Democrats tend to use these media outlets is a sign of how open-minded Democrats are, and how few progressive alternatives are widely available. It is not evidence of an echo chamber on the left equivalent to what we see on the right.
When the leading media research organization treats the mainstream media as the left-wing equivalent of Rush Limbaugh, it shows how incredibly biased (and stupid) the public debate about media bias has become.