Presidential elections consistently reveal the near 50/50 split in American political sentiment between the left and the right. In the RMN today, Mike Rosen described the audience split between conservative Fox News and the rest of the liberal networks at 2 million for Fox News and 25 million for the rest. This split is 7% to 93%.
Let’s assume that politically slanted journalism is persuasive, if only because the thousands of journalists and journalism students desperately need it to be so. And let’s assume that the average intelligence of people is uniform across the political spectrum.
It is fair to conclude that the 93% of the media that is liberal is as effective as the 7% of the media that is conservative. In other words, conservative media is approximately 13 times more persuasive than liberal media.
- Could it be that conservative media is 13 times more truthful than liberal media?
- Could it be that conservative media is 13 times better written than liberal media?
- Could it be that conservative media is 13 times more logical than liberal media?
- Could it be that conservative media is 13 times more realistic than liberal media?
- Could it be that conservative media can predict the future 13 times more accurately than liberal media?
- Could it be that conservative media has 13 times less propaganda than liberal media?
Whatever the reason, and it’s probably a combination of things, when measured by effect, conservative media has 13 times more influence.
It would be interesting to look at comparative advertising rates between liberal and conservative media to see if they support this theory. Since conservative media is, minute for minute, much more influential than liberal media, one would expect its’ advertising rates to be significantly higher.