The study, released March 29, is titled Politics and
Professional Advancement Among College Faculty. Its authors are Stanley
Rothman, director of the Center for the Study of Social and
Political Change and Smith College professor emeritus of government;
S.
Robert Lichter, George Mason University professor and director
of GMU's Center of Media and Public Affairs; and University of
Toronto professor Neil
Nevitte. The study was sponsored by the Randolph Foundation, a
private philanthropy that funds many
conservative organizations, such as Americans for Tax Reform,
the Independent Women's Forum, and right-wing pundit David
Horowitz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture.
The Washington Times reported in a March 30 news
article that the study found that "nearly
three-quarters" of faculty members describe themselves as
liberals, according to 1999 data from the North American Academic
Study Survey (NAASS), up from 39 percent in a 1984 survey by the
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Relying on this
comparison, the Times described a "shift to the left
among college faculty [that] has become much more pronounced in the
past 20 years." In fact, the two surveys examined such
dissimilar samples that one cannot draw valid conclusions about a
trend.
According to the study, the NAASS "American sample"
included 1,643 faculty members from 183 universities and colleges.
The responses came from "81 doctoral, 59 comprehensive and 43
liberal arts institutions." The 1984 Carnegie survey, however, contained
"data obtained from over 5,000 faculty employed at a variety of
institutions from Two-Year Community Colleges to Research
Institutions." * Remarking on these two contrasting samples,
the weblog Critical Montages observed
that "the NAASS's exclusion of two-year colleges and
overrepresentation of doctoral institutions is a recipe for
accentuating the proportion of liberals":
Research has shown that faculty and students at research
institutions are more liberal than those at primarily teaching
institutions (see, for instance, Gordon Shepherd and Gary
Shepherd, "War and Dissent: The Political Values of the
American Professoriate," The Journal of Higher Education
65.5 [September/October 1994], especially p. 586; and Richard F.
Hamilton and Lowell L. Hargens, "The Politics of the
Professors: Self-Identifications, 1969-1984," Social
Forces 71.3 [March 1993], especially pp. 608-609, 613-614,
616), so the NAASS's exclusion of two-year colleges and
overrepresentation of doctoral institutions is a recipe for
accentuating the proportion of liberals.
On the question of ideological orientation, the study's
comparison of the 1984 and 1999 surveys violates a fundamental
principle of survey research. As decades of research have shown,
altering questions in even subtle ways can produce dramatically
different results. Rothman, Lichter, and Nevitte base their
conclusion that "a sharp shift to the left has taken place
among college faculty in recent years" on questions asked in
two entirely different ways in the two studies, one asking
respondents to place themselves on a ten-point scale, and one asking
them to select from a list of descriptions.
Does this mean that there has been no shift to the left among
faculties? Not necessarily -- but with the available data we have no
idea whether such a shift has occurred, and neither do Rothman,
Lichter, and Nevitte.
The study attempted to depict an epidemic of "liberal
bias" on campus by contrasting the alleged "sharp shift to
the left" among college faculty to the "relatively
stable" ideological makeup of the general public over time.
This comparison has little illustrative value, however, since the
vast majority of the general public lack the necessary credentials
for a professorship at the surveyed schools. Moreover, available
data suggest that highly educated Americans may be more left-leaning
than the general population. Exit
polls from the November 2004 presidential election indicate that
55 percent of voters who have postgraduate study experience voted
for Democrat John Kerry, compared to 44 percent for Republican
George W. Bush. (Interestingly, when New Yorker staff writer Nicholas
Lemann asked Bush adviser Karl Rove how to identify "who's
a Democrat" as opposed to a Republican for a 2003 profile,
Rove answered: "Somebody with a doctorate.")
Both the news report and an April 4 Times column
by Fields quoted Lichter -- whose Center
for Media and Public Affairs states on its website
that it conducts "scientific studies of the news and
entertainment media" but receives funding from numerous
conservative organizations -- saying that "this is the
first study that statistically proves bias [against conservatives]
in the hiring and promotion of faculty members." But Lichter's
own study undermines this claim. The study specifically notes:
"The results do not definitively prove that ideology
accounts for differences in professional standing" [emphasis
added]. Rather, the study concluded more modestly that the findings
are merely "consistent with the hypothesis" of bias
[emphasis added]. According to Lichter's study:
The results do not definitively prove that ideology
accounts for differences in professional standing. It is entirely
possible that other unmeasured factors may account for those
variations. That said, the results are consistent with the
hypothesis that political conservatism confers a disadvantage
in the competition for professional advancement. ...
Our findings on the more controversial issue of discrimination
against conservative faculty should be regarded as more
preliminary. [PDF p. 15]
Considering that, according to Lichter's bio
on the Center for Media and Public Affairs website, "Dr.
Lichter also directs the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS), a
nonpartisan organization dedicated to improving the quality of news
involving statistical or scientific information," his statement
is little short of shocking. Cross-sectional studies like those
cited in Lichter's study seldom "prove" anything; at best
they can demonstrate associations and relationships.
Furthermore, the study does not even show, much less
"prove," that conservatives have been discriminated
against in hiring and promotion. Few would doubt that liberals
outnumber conservatives among university faculty. But justifying
claims about hiring and promotion would require data on the number
of conservatives and liberals who applied for various positions or
came up for tenure review. Despite Lichter's comments, the study's
authors present no data addressing the issue. (Academic promotion is
extraordinarily complex; in such a study, researchers would have to
determine, for instance, which respondents were denied tenure at a
first-tier institution, then received tenure at a second-tier
institution, then decide how such a person should be classified.)
The conservative claim of bias (as opposed to mere
underrepresentation) rests on the idea that there are significant
numbers of conservative Ph.D.s who have been denied faculty
positions or tenure because of their political views. Lichter,
Rothman, and Nevitte provide no evidence to support this assumption.
Study of Bias or Biased
Study?
The Lichter Method and the Attack on PBS Documentaries
By Jim Naureckas
The Center for Media and
Public Affairs, a conservative media research group, timed the
release of its study of public TV programming to coincide with the
congressional debate over public broadcasting reauthorization. The
group’s report lends what appears to be empirical support to those
who claim that PBS is biased to the left: "On the social
and political controversies addressed by PBS documentaries
across a full year of programs," it concludes, "the
balance of opinion tilted consistently in a liberal direction."
An examination of the
group’s findings, however, demolishes this conclusion. The
study relies on methodology that ignores the overwhelming majority
of material in PBS documentaries. It then draws sweeping conclusions
based on the remaining, out-of-context material, and frames these
conclusions in ways that are often misleading or deceptive. [eRiposte
emphasis]
The Center for Media
and Public Affairs
The Center for Media and
Public Affairs was founded in the mid-’80s by Robert and Linda
Lichter, two academics who have made a career out of claiming to
document leftist bias in the news media. Their stated mission was
"to conduct scientific studies of how the media treat social
and political issues," and they put great stress on their claim
to non-partisanship. "It’s not in a scholar’s blood to have
an ideology," Robert Lichter told the Washington Post
(2/10/92).
The Lichters’ funding
and history belie this stance of objectivity. From 1986 to 1988,
Robert Lichter was a fellow at the conservative American Enterprise
Institute. Fund-raising letters for the launch of the Center for
Media and Public Affairs contained endorsements from leading
right-wing figures like Ronald Reagan, Pat Buchanan, Ed Meese and
Pat Robertson.
Robert Lichter’s
writings and public statements also indicate a conservative
worldview. At a conference sponsored by Accuracy In Media after the
Gulf War, according to an AP report (4/27/91), "He said
he was disappointed in statements by [Peter] Arnett upon his return
from Baghdad that he was in the enemy capital on behalf of all CNN
viewers, not just Americans. ‘I see a trend toward journalists
seeing themselves as citizens of the world’ rather than patriotic
Americans, Lichter said."
...Mainstream reporters
initially tended to report, based on the Lichter’s right-wing
funding and their predictable claims of leftist bias, that the
Center was "conservative" or "right-wing."
Lately, however, journalists seem to be giving the Center’s claims
to be apolitical more credence. The L.A. Times’ Tom
Rosenstiel praised their "non-partisan" approach in an
interview in the D.C.-based City Paper (2/30/90). USA
Today (6/28/91) also called them "non-partisan," and Newsday
(3/4/92) referred to them as "non-ideological."
The Lichter
Methodology
Despite the Lichters’
objective posture, the methodology used in most of their research is
not scientific. They have used it in the past to "prove"
entirely dubious claims, such as the idea that Jesse Jackson was the
candidate with the most positive news coverage in 1988, or that
George Bush got as much negative coverage as Saddam Hussein during
the Gulf War.
In analyzing media
coverage, the Lichters single out what they judge to be
"thematic messages"—explicit statements of opinion or
evaluation. Usually the Lichters determine that such statements make
up a very small proportion of the statements found in news
reporting—yet proceed to generalize about coverage as a whole
based on this tiny percentage.
The Lichters’ tendency
to generalize from a narrow sliver of data is the main way that
their studies end up supporting their preconceived conclusions of
left bias. Take the Center’s report on Gulf War coverage (Media
Monitor, 4/91) and its widely cited claim that "nearly
three out of five sources (59 percent) criticized U.S. government
policies during the [Gulf] War." This, of course, is not 59
percent of all 5,915 sources, but of those 249 sources (4.2 percent)
who in the Lichters’ judgment stated an explicit position. This
leaves only 148 sources, or 2.5 percent of all sources, who made
explicit criticisms of U.S. policy (from the left, right or center).
On what basis can you
generalize from the 4 percent of sources who supposedly expressed
overt opinions to the 96 percent who didn’t? Doing so results in
absurd claims, such as, "Surprisingly, the U.S. government
fared little better than its Iraqi counterpart in the soundbite
battle." That would be surprising, considering that 44 percent
of total news sources were from the U.S. government, according to
the Center’s own research.
The Lichters have also
been known to stress partial data when a more comprehensive
statistic would not prove the bias that they seemed to be looking
for. For example, the Center’s report on abortion coverage (Media
Monitor, 10/89) trumpeted this finding on the front page:
"Pro-choice activist sources outnumbered their pro-life
counterparts by a five to three margin." What wasn’t noted on
the front page is that the anti-abortion position was often
represented by government officials and other non-activist sources
(who may speak with more authority than activists to the average
news consumer). There is a statistic in the report that includes
viewpoints from all sources: "On our summary measure of views
on abortion policy, the pro-choice side had a slight edge (53
percent to 47 percent)." This is the more inclusive but less
dramatic statistic—and it was buried on the last page.
Under the guise of
revealing patterns of bias, what the Lichters really uncover are
patterns of rhetoric. The Center’s abortion study found that 75
percent of media sources on abortion favor abolishing Roe v. Wade,
yet 66 percent think abortion should be legal. Are these sources
schizophrenic? No: The Lichter method simply picked up on the way
activists talk. Pro-choice people favored the slogan "keep
abortion legal," while anti-abortion forces rallied around
"overturn Roe v. Wade."
Yet the Lichters
constantly treat such semantic differences as if they indicated real
biases in the media: "The pro-choice side dominated the
legalization debate. But the pro-life side won out in the debates
over Roe v. Wade’s status, government funding, morality and
the outset of life." (For more on the Center’s abortion
study, see FAIR’s research memo, "Do the Media Have a
Pro-Choice Bias?")
The PBS Study
The Center’s study of
PBS looked at 225 documentary programs, which took up 222 hours of
airtime between April 1, 1987 and March 31, 1988. (The broadcasts
are nearly five years old because the Center abandoned the study
when it failed to get sufficient funding, then picked it up again
when PBS became a hot political issue.)
The Lichters’ study of
PBS is notable for what it leaves out: It excluded talkshows
such as William F. Buckley’s Firing Line and Morton
Kondracke’s American Interests, news reports like the MacNeil/Lehrer
NewsHour, and business programs like Louis Rukeyser’s Wall
$treet Week. The Center claims this is to ensure "a group
of programs that were similar in style and content, to maximize the
comparability of judgments."
The study’s focus,
however, removes those PBS shows most often criticized for
having a conservative slant—programming that takes up more of the PBS
schedule than the documentaries that the Center’s study is limited
to. Firing Line and American Interests —programs
underwritten by the Center’s biggest funders—provided
approximately 50 hours of programming a year between them.
The Center’s
researchers broke down 225 documentary programs into 35,094
segments, an impressive-sounding number that features prominently in
the summary of the report distributed to the press. However, most of
these 35,094 segments were not analyzed for political content. Only
614—1.7 percent of all segments— "clearly stated a thematic
message," and these were the basis of all the Center’s
conclusions about the politics of PBS documentaries. The
other 98.3 percent of statements in documentaries have no bearing on
political slant, according to the Center’s methodology. A
"thematic message" occurs, on average, approximately 2.7
times per PBS documentary, according to the Center’s study.
Often, most segments
with a clear "thematic message" on a particular issue the
Center examined (such as nuclear power, or the right to privacy)
come from one or two programs or a single series—an indication
that the segments do not say anything meaningful about the general
drift of PBS programming.
The claim that PBS has
a liberal bias is argued in a section of the report called "The
Battle of Ideas," made up of nine subsections ("War,''
"The Environment," etc.). The "empirical" basis
for each section is an interpretation of the relevant "thematic
messages," and in each case is based on an extremely small
number of segments, and/or on a misleading, sometimes deceptive
presentation of those segments. Frequently, the descriptions of
findings contained in the executive summary of the report are at
odds with the more extended descriptions in the full report.
War:
In this category, the
most significant finding, in terms of number of segments analyzed,
was that war was more often described as "a personal
tragedy" rather than as "a geo-political event." But
in expanding on what this finding means, the report states that war
was most commonly described as "a personal rite of passage or a
moment of horror successfully survived"—not at all equivalent
to "a personal tragedy."
All other conclusions on
PBS’s "bias" about war are based on a mere 18
segments—only 0.4 percent of the 4,042 total segments about war,
and 11 percent of the "thematic messages." In general, the
report argues, PBS has a pacifistic bent—even though 1,309
military personnel appeared as sources on documentaries during the
period studied.
The report complains
that "there were no programs in our sample that set out to
justify war." The view that war is generally bad and is to be
avoided appears to the Lichters as an example of liberal bias.
Environment:
According to the
Center’s summary, on the question of "what balance (if any)
could be struck between human needs and protecting imperiled
ecosystems," 61 out of 100 segments analyzed said that
"the environment must be preserved above all else." But
that is not at all what the data showed. According to the full
report, "those who argued that environmental protection took
precedence over human needs usually offered one of two rationales.
Most common were arguments that preserving habitats and biodiversity
were beneficial to mankind because of the potential medicines and
other products that might be found among unknown species.... The
other major rationale was that squandering our resources would
eventually imperil our very existence." Clearly, these two
rationales are not arguments that preserving the environment takes
precedence over human needs; they are arguments that human needs
depend on preserving the environment.
According to the study,
"preservation and conservation...were the cornerstones of PBS
environmental documentaries." However, over the course of a
year, the Center found only 100 "thematic messages"
dealing with the environment—some opposed to environmental
protection—on 47 shows dealing with nature and environmental
protection. That amounts to about two messages (most
pro-environment, some anti-) on each show—hardly a drumbeat of
propaganda.
Disadvantaged Groups:
"Disadvantaged
Groups" is the heading that the Center uses to discuss PBS
coverage of minorities and women. Ironically, the section claims
that PBS coverage is biased because it acknowledges that
women and minorities are disadvantaged.
"Racial
discrimination was described as a condition of American society 50
times without a single dissenting opinion," according to the
report’s summary. Actually, discrimination was described as a former
condition of U.S. society in 37 of these 50 segments—only 13
segments dealt with contemporary U.S. racism. And the study must be
read carefully to find that both the 50 and 13 figures include
people who approve of segregation, or "criticized efforts to
increase integration." Whether they said it’s good or bad,
they all acknowledged that discrimination exists, so they’re
counted as "liberals."
The report implicitly
criticizes a statement from an African-American: "I think we
need to do for ourselves. We need to build our own institutions and
our own businesses and our own jobs, so that we can change the
conditions we’re in." The sentiment echoes the rhetoric of
black conservatives like Clarence Thomas who criticize federal
programs aimed at helping the poor, yet it is used by the Lichters
as evidence of liberal bias.
All analysis of
women’s issues is apparently based on just 13 segments. This is
remarkable evidence of how seldom women’s issues were discussed on
PBS.
The Constitution:
The Lichters’
examination of PBS discussion of the Constitution provides a
case study of how the Lichter method detects not media slant, but
standard patterns of rhetoric. Thus by a 7-1 margin, sources who
professed an opinion supported free speech and a free
press—neither liberals nor conservatives like to portray
themselves as opponents of free speech. By a 9-0 landslide, sources
took the non-controversial position that "the Constitution is a
good tool for governing." The Lichters found a broad right to
privacy supported in six out of seven cases—all but one of which
occurred in an interview with Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun.
Similarly, an interview with Robert Bork and Edwin Meese provided
nearly all of the soundbites that led the Lichters to declare that
strict constructionism won out over loose constructionism, 6-1. In
reality, of course, the views expressed in one or two five-year-old
documentaries say nothing about the overall slant of PBS
programming, either then or now.
Health Care:
Health care was the
topic of 3,066 segments in PBS documentaries, according to
the Lichters. Their report points to 20 segments (0.7 percent) that
have a "liberal" slant (questioning doctors or the medical
industry), and a further 15 (0.5 percent) that have a pro-medical
spin. Some of the examples the report cites to show
"liberal" bias are peculiar—for instance, a Catholic
priest questioning the morality of in vitro fertilization.
Religion:
The study found 20
segments arguing that "religion should advocate social
change." The study noted that this sentiment came from both
conservative and progressive religious sources, though it presented
no data about the political breakdown of such sources. No other
statistical information is presented about PBS’s depiction
of religion, though the topic is presented as if it backed up the
claim that on PBS, "the balance of opinion tilted
consistently in a liberal direction."
Foreign Topics:
"The only foreign
country to receive extensive treatment was South Africa," the
study’s summary claims, indicating that PBS might have a
disproportionate interest in a subject that might be considered a
left or liberal cause. Yet the study’s own data shows that South
Africa, the subject of five documentaries, did not receive
exceptional attention. The Soviet Union was featured in 12 programs,
while Japan and China were the subject of five each. Western Europe
as a region was the subject of 24 programs, while Eastern Europe was
the focus of 11. It is impossible to square this data with the
Center’s claim that "no other country or issue received
extensive treatment on the order of South Africa and its apartheid
system."
The treatment of South
Africa is quite revealing of the Lichters’ underlying politics.
The study makes the claim that "friends and allies of the
United States were targeted for criticism more than four times as
often as enemies or unfriendly nations." "Most" of
this criticism of "friends and allies," the study goes on
to state, was directed at South Africa, a nation then facing
sanctions from the U.S. aimed at altering its system of government.
A significant amount of the remainder of criticism of
"friends" was directed at "the Philippines under
Marcos," a ruler whom the Reagan administration helped to
depose. To use criticism of Marcos and apartheid as evidence of
anti-Americanism says more about the Lichters’ bias than that of PBS
documentaries.
The report notes that in
programs on South Africa, apartheid "was condemned by over two
out of three sources (69 percent)," then goes on to disclaim
the finding: "Even this division may be misleading, since the
statements from apartheid’s defenders tended to be so extreme as
to lack credence within the American political culture." In
other words, PBS already shows a "bias" against
apartheid, and the bias is "even" worse than it appears
statistically because the defenders of apartheid were too extreme to
be taken seriously. Besides implying that there is a credible,
moderate case to be made for apartheid, the statement points out the
weakness of the Lichters’ entire methodology: If a simple
tabulation of pro and con statements about apartheid does not
indicate the actual balance of the debate, then how can any similar
statistic, taken out of context, prove bias?
Four of the five
criticisms the Center could find of "unfriendly" (i.e.,
left-wing) countries occurred in one documentary, a conservative
critique of Angola. That the 31 programs on the Soviet Union, China,
Eastern Europe and Nicaragua only contained one statement
criticizing those governments for "undemocratic politics or
conditions of economic hardship" strains credulity.
PBS Sources
The Lichters prominently
acknowledge that those who speak on PBS are predominantly
white and male, and that women in particular are greatly
underrepresented in comparison with the general population. (Only 14
percent of program participants were women, and 17 percent were
people of color.)
The Lichters put less
emphasis, however, on a statistic from their research that greatly
undermines their thesis. They would have one believe that the agenda
of liberal groups controls PBS. Yet what the study terms
"special interest groups"—"the feminist movement,
the environmental movement, pro- and anti-nuclear power groups and
organized labor"—were heard in only 223 out of 35,094
segments (0.6 percent). In comparison with these "special
interests," PBS viewers were six times as likely to hear
from corporate representatives (1251 segments) or military personnel
(1309 segments), and nine times as likely to see government
officials (2101 segments). These ratios, rather than the highly
dubious sampling of "thematic messages," may provide a
truer picture of the slant of PBS documentary programming.
