Media Tenor International claims to be "the world's leading provider of international media content analysis". I can't really judge that claim, but I like their Slant-o-meter because the September 21 edition cheered me up considerably:
It's not clear to me how they derive the numbers; for instance, of 120 statements regarding Crusader Codpiece by ABC news, "the share of negative reports exceeded the share of positive reports by 32.5%". So then
POS + NEG = 120
POS/NEG = 1.325
solves to NEG = 51.6. If NEG = 52, I get POS/NEG = 1.308. But never mind all that maths bollocks, look at the pretty picture! Fox "News" doesn't count, because they are the broadcast arm of the RNC. ABC news is strongly pro-Kerry and even NBC and CBS, despite being "more negative" about Kerry than about Bush, talked more about Bush and so made more negative comments about the Chicken-in-Chief than about THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, JOHN F KERRY. Ahem. 'Scuse me.
I would wonder whether there is something to all that whining about "liberal media bias" after all, except if you're talking about Chimpy it's impossible to say much positive without telling outright porkies (like, say, Fox). So maybe the US mass media is showing a teeny bit of spine after all.
(Via the spousal unit's sidebar.)
editor bias, but it exists in all news organizations and is a worsening problem as more and more people rely on fewer and fewer news sources. (When all you have is a hammer, etc, and I'm a biologist: diversity is a Good Thing™.)
I don't watch TV news either, and only half-listen to NPR news when it's on. I get my news from my blogroll -- the news section lists heavily to port, but for plain coverage I find the NYT and BBC feeds pretty good. Whenever I go looking around for more news, I don't seem to have missed much by just reading those two -- although I really should add a couple more from other countries, like maybe an al-Jazeera feed, just to see what other people are seeing as news. I find the science news feeds a good antidote to the regular news, but YMMV.
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P.S. scratch the al-J feed, just read Juan Cole. Everyone should read Cole. But my point about more diversity in my news section stands. I could use a good local news feed too, but the spousal unit has been looking for one of those for a while and still hasn't found one.