News outlets’ coverage of gay marriage tended to be significantly more favorable than unfavorable, according to a new survey Monday.
Stories focusing on support for same-sex marriage were five times more frequent than those focused on opposition, the analysis conducted by the Pew Research Center found.
Of the stories Pew focused on, 47 percent concentrated on supportive viewpoints, while 9 percent concentrated on opposition. Forty-four percent of stories were neutral or presented a balance of opinions.
On Twitter, the split was more even, Pew found. An analysis of tweets found 31 percent were supportive, 28 percent were opposed and 42 percent were neutral, a split more in line with public opinion, Pew said. A recent Pew poll found the public split 51 percent in favor of same-sex marriage to 42 percent against.
Pick any liberal cause -- pro-abortion, pro immigration reform, pros-medical marijuana -- and you'll find the same more-favorable coverage. In most cases, I don't think it's a conscious effort to be biased. It's just such a straongly held world view that those holding it are honestly mystified that anyone could have a different opinion.
Fascinating tidbit about Twitter. In the early days of blogging, it seemed that liberals were migrating to the digital world in greater numbers than conservatives or libertarians -- at least they were generating the most online traffic. Perhaps that's changing as more non-liberals are discovering the benefits of direct communication without a media filter.
