Robert J. Barro must have been disappointed to see his column, promoting a study that purported to show a liberal bias in the media, was included in the June 14 issue of Business Week whose cover story asks “Does Your Vote Matter?”
The study Barro promoted determined whether a media source was liberal by coming up with a rating comparable to the ADA rating of a congressman’s voting record. Barro said the median ADA rating of U.S. House members of 39 “is a reasonable measure of a centrist position.”
The problem, as Business Week pointed out, is that gerrymandering of House districts has forced out moderates and made districts less representative. Business Week pointed out that Al Gore received nearly half of the votes in Florida in 2000 yet led in only 8 of the state’s 25 congressional districts.
With congressional districts drawn unrepresentatively, 39 is NOT a reasonable measure of a centrist position, and claiming a media source is liberal based on a score higher than 39 is questionable.
In addition, leaving editorial pages out of the study also skews the results. Will the Wall Street Journal, with its extremist editorial page, be classified as “moderate” because of its news pages?
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