Understanding media bias terminology

We received the following email from reader Peter Davenport in Santa Clara.

"Thank you for the refreshing free market take on local politics. It is astonishing that in an area characterized by so much free market success, our local media covers regional developments with a decidedly liberal bias, and it's getting worse every week.

I just finished Tim Groseclose's academic analysis of the science of media bias, Left Turn, and would like to share with local readers the four bias markers he points out so we can all be on the lookout for unfair coverage.

1.) Slant quotient. This is when reporters frame stories by emphasizing one perspective (just interviewing liberal voices) and ignoring facts and perspectives that disrupt that framing.

2.) Confusing absolute and relative bias. This is like the popular Overton Window analysis, in which reporters claim to inhabit a centrist position, which in fact it's only centrist if you live in a far-left universe.

3.) Answering normative, or ethical questions in stories, as opposed to positive, or factual questions. As your publication has pointed out, much local media frames Google Diridon stories around "how much affordable housing should Google be building" (an ethical question) as opposed to "how much housing is Google proposing to build" (a factual question). By embedding the normative perspective into stories, progressive journalists turn what is supposed to be a factual analysis into good guys v bad guys drama.

4.) Always consider the local Media Mu. ("Mu" comes from the Greek letter, which social scientists use to represent averages.) The current Silicon Valley media slant is tilting considerably more left given the arrival of San Jose Spotlight, a labor-funded and decidedly progressive attempt at community online news. San Jose Inside and Metro tilt reliably left, with a constant focus on (as they put it) "vast and systemic injustice." The Mercury News appears to be tilting even farther left in response to this competition, with news writers appearing to compete with Spotlight and Inside to take the most Woke position. That leaves the San Jose Business Journal all alone on the right side of the fulcrum. This media imbalance affects readership opinions as it covertly teaches us that the center of local opinion is much father to the left than in fact it is.

Keep it up!