I'M JUST A THUG-HUGGING, DOPE-SMOKING CORPORATE STOOGE

Recently, readers have e-mailed to inform me that I am a thug-hugging,
dope-smoking member of the liberal media elite that is cramming its
stinking socialist agenda down the throats of ordinary Canadians. Oh,
and I hate Western civilization.

Other readers do not share that opinion. They have been in touch to
explain that I am a climate-change-denying, cancer-promoting stooge of
the corporate media that is cramming its neo-conservative agenda down
the throats of ordinary Canadians. And I hate David Suzuki.

Occasionally, these e-mails arrive one after another in my inbox and I
am left with the impression that I am a dope-smoking, neo-con
socialist cramming David Suzuki's corporate agenda down the throats of
ordinary Canadians. Which is very confusing.

This is standard stuff for journalists, and not only opinion writers.
People with strong views react strongly to what they see in the media.
They also react predictably.

Psychologists call it the "hostile media phenomenon": Someone with a
strong opinion about a politician or an issue is far more likely to
perceive bias in the media's coverage of that politician or issue than
is someone who does not feel so strongly. And the bias is almost
always seen to be against the position of the person who perceives it.
Hence, the media are "hostile."

Research on the hostile media phenomenon began with a group of
psychologists at Stanford University. In 1980, three days before the
presidential election that pitted Jimmy Carter against Ronald Reagan,
the researchers surveyed 160 registered voters and asked them whether
the media had covered both candidates fairly or whether coverage had
been biased one way or another.

Two-thirds said the media had been fair. One-third said it was biased.
Of those who said the coverage was slanted, 89 per cent said the bias
was against the candidate they supported.

This is unsurprising -- to use a gross understatement -- to anyone who
has worked in a newsroom. We get this all the time, but it's
particularly common during elections.

Strong supporters of one party complain the media is wildly,
blatantly, shamefully biased against that party. Partisans on the
other side are equally furious because they see precisely the
opposite. To both, the media's bias is so obvious only fools and liars
would deny it.

To dig deeper into this phenomenon, the Stanford psychologists created
an experiment shortly after the 1982 massacre in the Lebanese refugee
camps of Sabra and Chatila. The massacre was a huge story at the time,
in part because Israel's responsibility was hotly disputed.

Using selective recruitment and surveys, the researchers formed three
groups of Stanford students. The first was strongly pro-Israeli. The
second was pro-Arab. The third was made up of students who didn't have
strong feelings one way or the other.

All the students were shown six segments from television news
broadcasts about the massacre and the controversy. They were then
asked to answer a detailed questionnaire.

The results were what any journalist would expect them to be.
Pro-Israeli students said the reports were strongly biased against
Israel. Pro-Arab students said they were strongly biased against
Arabs. And neutral students fell pretty much in between (they
collectively felt the reports were very slightly anti-Israel).

The pro-Israeli and pro-Arab students also tended to be confident that
they knew the personal views of the journalists who put the news
together. "Pro-Arab students believed that the editorial staffs were
somewhat pro-Israel," the psychologists wrote, "whereas the
pro-Israeli students believed they were somewhat anti-Israel."

When the researchers looked more carefully at the results within the
partisan groups, they found that the more passionately someone felt,
the stronger was their sense that the media was biased against their
side. The researchers also found that students who felt they knew a
lot about the situation gave higher ratings of media bias than those
who said they knew less.

This, along with later research, demonstrated the phenomenon exists on
a sliding scale: It is most extreme in fiercely committed partisans
who believe they are well-informed on the issues, but it also shows up
in more moderate form among those with more moderate views.

Lots of other studies have confirmed these findings but probably the
most intriguing is a 2004 experiment by researchers Albert Gunther and
Kathleen Schmitt. They did something very neat and simple with a group
that was equally composed of people with strong feelings against
genetically modified organisms and people who supported GMOs.

Half the test subjects were asked to read a piece of writing about
GMOs. It's a newspaper article, they were told. The other half were
given the same writing but they were told it was actually a student's
essay.

The group that thought they were reading a newspaper article reacted
predictably: Those who were pro-GMO thought the article was biased
against GMOs, while those were anti-GMO were sure it was biased in
favour of GMOs.

Meanwhile, the group that was told the writing came from a student
paper detected no hostile bias. In fact, both pro- and anti-GMO people
tended to believe the article supported their view.

What psychological mechanisms are at work here? Researchers have
debated that for years but there's still no conclusive answer.

The only thing we know for sure is that this phenomenon is real. And
it's a good reason for each of us to carefully examine our own
conclusions for bias before we get angry and send a letter to the
editor to complain about the media's bias.

Of course it is also possible that this whole column is nothing more
than a ruse to deflect attention from the masters I serve and the
agenda we are cramming down the throats of ordinary Canadians. Readers
who wish to condemn your correspondent, along with said masters and
agenda, are directed to the e-mail below.

Dan Gardner's column appears Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. E-mail:
dgardner@thecitizen.canwest.com