Most Americans have heard much discussion about “liberal media” and “conservative bias” in reference to major news network broadcasts, but no one has sought to prove its existence—or nonexistence—the way USU student researchers Kate Reeves and Kayla Woodring have.

By combining rankings given to U.S. senators by the Americans for Democratic Action and the American Conservative Union—two admittedly subjective organizations—Reeves and Woodring created a more objective metric of politicians’ ideological positions.  They then observed whether the labels given to senators on network news broadcasts accurately described their ideologies.  By coding nearly 6,500 story references from 10 years of broadcasts, the political science students were able to document clear patterns of media bias to individuals and groups.