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This website is a part of a research project for MSTD 335.

The above stages demonstrate the process by which this project came about. If you would like to see how this site came to be, please explore
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Is there a Liberal Bias?

This area must be read in Conjunction with Is there a Conservative Bias? to receive a well-rounded view.

During the media's almost non-stop coverage of the 2000 Presidential Election there were many instances caught by media watchdogs that support the claim of a liberal bias during the election. As most may recall, there were many history-making events that occurred during the race for the White House, which may have caught the media off guard. In unexpected events such as the hanging chad dilemma, the false voter information, or the two false calls on the election outcome, it is easy to spot the media doing what it does best; analyzing the issue...to death. It is unfortunate but true that the media may have affected the outcome of the presidential race due to their expression of personal opinion as fact.

Examples of Liberal Bias

Kristina Sewell, a media analyst for the Media Research Center, caught one example of a liberal bias during the 2000 Presidential Election. During Election Day, voters of Palm Beach County, FL went to the voting booths as usual and punched their vote for the candidate of their choice. The problem that caught Sewell’s eye was when Alberta McCarthy, Lillian Gains, and Andre Fladell, all who are "savvy activists with political experience" were complaining that they might have voted for Buchanan instead of Gore. The reason this was alarming to Sewell was because these are all people who, one, have had no problem in the past with voting for the wrong person, and two, should know how to work a punch voting system. The truly alarming ordeal is when Sewell claims "But, so far, reporters haven't seemed particularly skeptical of Gaines, McCarthy, or Fladell, despite the obvious importance of their claims. "(Sewell, 2000, para. 9)
Click here to read this article

This is a common error made by many media outlets where very important facts go overlooked because they do not seem out of the ordinary to the media gatekeepers, those who give the go-ahead for a story to be printed. This bias is possibly not done consciously. I doubt many media gatekeepers sit around and ask "How can we pull one over on the conservatives today?" This is such a common example of bias because it comes from what writers, anchors, and, reporters see as common and uncommon. The only way to change this is to have the story evaluated by both a liberal and conservative medium to catch these biases before they are printed. This idea has not been enacted in many news networks due to the cost of such a solution.

Another example of bias during the 2000 Presidential Election that was also caught by the Media Research Center's Cyber Alert was an interview of John McCain conducted by ABC's Jack Ford. Cyber Alert stated that the interview was used to "portray George W. Bush as some sort of extremist noting how 'some have said he has mortgaged the soul of the Republican Party to the, the right wing conservatives.' " (Cyber Alert, 2000) This interview took place after McCain had already lost the Republican Party's nomination and Ford was asking why McCain was not supporting Bush. Throughout this whole article Ford makes false assumptions of Bush and asks McCain leading questions to try to paint a negative picture of George W.
Click Here to Read a Commentary On This Broadcast

This example of bias is slightly more dangerous than the previous example because the reporter is trying to influence John McCain's answers by bringing his own views of Bush into the interview. This type of reporting has no place in the media and the only way to stop this form of bias is for the media gatekeepers to recognize these cheap shots and never allow them to be printed or run on-air.

Final Thoughts on Liberal Bias

These two examples show pure evidence of media bias in the 2000 Presidential Election and affect the views of those consuming the medium at question. These forms of bias are dangerous because they can cause the public to take false truths as facts and could considerably change election results. It is here where the public must look at the interview with McCain and the story about the voters in Florida and then find another view on the same facts and perhaps do a little research on their own to make an educated decision of what is true and what is bias. It is unfortunate this burden has fallen onto the shoulders of the public but it seems this may be the only way to know what you are truly being fed by the media elites.