No, I am not a super secret analyst spy set to crush conservative media

Stand up, listeners! Today I am waving the flag for truth and transparency in media, taking a stand against baseless accusations hurled at Ad Fontes Media. With gloves off, I'm diving headfirst into the debate – and you're all invited to join in. Have you ever wondered how media outlets are rated for bias and reliability? I'm ready to satisfy your curiosity and arm you with knowledge.

Strap yourself in for a ride through the exciting world of content analysis, as I unveil the science-backed methodology used to dissect media bias. I'm rolling up my sleeves to dissect the Media Research Center's claims, defend the integrity of Ad Fontes Media, and show you how content analysis reduces subjective bias. 

I'm challenging misrepresentation and celebrating diversity of thought. This isn't about putting up walls – it's about defending the transparency of Ad Fontes Media, and its analysts, and explaining why as a conservative, I think it's important to have a seat at the media literacy table. So, listeners, let's journey together towards a more informed appreciation of media consumption – it's time to join the conversation!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey there, doing something very different today. This is a special report and the title of this episode is no, I am not a super secret analyst spy set to crush conservative media, and if that episode title makes you think that there is something afoot, well you would be correct. The Media Research Center recently published a quote study where they accuse AdFontes media of rigging news ratings to favor left leaning media. They also accuse me of supporting the company's supposed quote leftist slant in a recent news article that they published on news busters. This is my personal response to their accusations, where I set the record straight and explain everything. They get wrong, and they get a lot wrong about the company, about the CEO, about me, about our analyst core. My main points are number one we are not nameless and faceless analysts. Number two content analysis is actually a real methodology. Number three having different political points of view is actually really good for democracy. Number four how to read the media bias chart, because clearly there is a misunderstanding or there's confusion on how to actually do that. Number five yes, I am a conservative, regardless of what you choose to say and believe. Number six ethics in journalism. You should do better when you are in the business of analyzing the news. Like I am, you get used to being accused of being unfair by those on the left as well as those on the right. Not too long ago, the young Turks spent half an hour sharing inaccurate information about AdFontes Media, the company for which I am the director of communications. Left-leaning media accuses us of not being harsh enough on right-leaning media, and right-leaning media accuses us of not being harsh enough on left-leaning media. I guess those are the breaks, so why am I making this response? The MRC quote study is making its rounds and it has now been referenced by many other news outlets, including Daily Wire, breitbart, the Federalist Newsmax and the Mark Levin Show. By extension, they are also sharing misleading and inaccurate information about us. The bandwagon is a big problem and this is a pretty long episode, but I hope you will listen to the whole thing and, as you're listening to it, I hope that you will consider the types of media that you personally consume and how they might be impacting your point of view of various topics of the day. All right, let's get going.

Speaker 1: 3:14

Welcome to the Communication 24-7 podcast, where we communicate about how we communicate. I'm your host, jennifer Furlong, so this is looking a little different. I recognize that it's going to sound a little different. I don't have a guest for you today. I'm not doing an interview today, although I am going to share with you a video of an interview, but I'm not the one doing the interview. So why is this so different?

Speaker 1: 3:54

Today, I felt the need to share a special episode with you based on some of the things that have been going on in my life over the past five days. Now, those of you who have known me for some time, you have a pretty good idea of what my background is in. Obviously, my background is in communication. That's what this podcast is all about. For those of you who don't know, I've been in the communication field for 30 years now and I have held a lot of positions within the communication realm, from journalist to editor to public relations specialist to media analyst. I've also been an educator. I taught communication and public speaking at the college level for about 18 years. I am a Marine Corps veteran. I'm a mom. I am a very proud Southerner. I'm a very proud American. One thing that is important to this conversation that I'm having with you today is the fact that I'm also a very proud conservative. I have been a registered Republican my entire adult life since I first registered. I think that was in my early 20s, I can't even remember, but in my early 20s I've been a registered Republican. I have very strong conservative values. The reason I bring that up, that's the reason why I maybe I'm taking this really personally.

Speaker 1: 5:33

Here's what's going on. Several days ago, the Media Research Center released a quote study on the organization I work for as the communications director at Fontes Media. If you're familiar with Fontes Media, it's the creator of the MediaBias chart. We rate news and news like sources for reliability and bias. We have what's called the MediaBias chart. We place all of those different pieces of content over 67,000 pieces of content now, by the way, over 3,200 different news outlets are on the chart. Now, that's what I do for my daytime job as the communications director for at Fontes Media. The reason I have right here as my title as a conservative media analyst, because that's really important to what I'm going to share with you today and why I'm having a special episode of the Communication 24-7 podcast.

Speaker 1: 6:44

Getting back to the Media Research Center, they released a quote study about at Fontes Media. They have accused our organization of trying to purposefully harm conservative voices, specifically conservative-leaning media outlets, while lifting up on a pedestal left-leaning media outlets. Now I'm going to show you how this is so completely not true. It's absolutely false. What I want to do is I'm going to show you a video of an interview that happened. Again, if you are listening to the podcast on Spotify or Apple whatever, just listen very carefully to the interview, because it's going to be really important to what I'm discussing with you tonight regarding the accusations they have launched against at Fontes Media. They've mentioned me by name as well in this particular article that I'm going to share with you. This is my response to all of the accusations that are being launched against my company at Fontes Media, who I absolutely believe in, and I support 100% the accusations against myself and the other right-leaning analysts who work for at Fontes Media. That's why I feel so impassioned to do this response.

Speaker 1: 8:23

Let's go ahead and get to the actual video itself I'm going to share with you Again. If you want to join me on the Communication 24-7 YouTube channel, you'll be able to see everything that I'm sharing on my screen right now. This is the president and founder of the Media Research Center, brent Basel. Again, I don't know if I'm pronouncing his name correctly, but he is sitting on the left, and then on the right is Dan Schneider, who is, I believe he's the VP of their Free Speech Center. I'll say a little bit more about that. Anyway, I'm going to shut up now. I'm going to play you a little bit of the video. I'm going to stop it every now and again so I can share with you my thoughts on some of the information that they are sharing in this video the accusations. Now, the video itself is a little over nine minutes long, so it's going to take me a while to get through this, because there are a lot of things that I need to respond to, but let's go ahead and get started.

Speaker 2: 9:34

May I remember that back during the Obama administration there was a plan that the federal government had that was exposed and stopped where the administration was attempting going to attempt to put minders in every network around the country to make sure that the right, left-wing narrative was coming out. Then, during the beginnings of the Biden administration, there was a second effort, the Disinformation Governance Board, where again they were going to try to control free speech in America by telling the public that conservative thought was disinformation. That too was exposed. But now a third form has emerged which we have uncovered, and in a way it is worse than the first two, perhaps combined, because of the audience it's going to. There's a complexity here, so we're going to do a two-part video. I have with me Dan Schneider, who is a VP of the Media Research Center and runs our free speech America organization. I want to ask Dan to walk us through what he.

Speaker 1: 10:37

Okay, I'm going to stop it right there. You'll notice at the very beginning. Now, one thing he did get correct at the very beginning is that, yes, this is complex, so that's why I'm going to take my time with this video and respond as much as I can to some of the more egregious inaccuracies that they're sharing on this video. I want you to first mention, or notice, that he does mention the federal government a couple of times during his introduction. I'm not sure why he's mentioning the federal government. There really is no connection. We have zero ties At. Fontes Media has zero ties with the federal government. So I really don't know the purpose behind that, except for maybe he's just trying to plant a seed, like the little conspiratorial seed in your head. So that's an important thing I wanted to point out at the very beginning. All right, I'm not going to spend any more time on that, so let's go ahead and listen to a few more minutes of this interview he has uncovered through his investigation.

Speaker 2: 11:52

First we're going to talk about the mechanics, and then we're going to talk about what is being done by the federal government with these mechanics. I want you first to explain.

Speaker 1: 12:03

There's no relationship.

Speaker 2: 12:04

What is at Fontes?

Speaker 3: 12:06

Well at Fontes is the left's newest weapon to silence and harm conservatives while championing and promoting the left's narrative. There are other kind of media outlets or media rating firms that do this, but this is the catalytic effort to crush us, and publicly.

Speaker 2: 12:29

what do they purport to do? What are they saying? They?

Speaker 3: 12:32

are Well, they say that they rate media outlets and media personalities and programs and podcasts along two different measures one reliability and the other the bias.

Speaker 1: 12:44

Okay, let me stop here real quick before I let it continue on, because again, there are so many inaccuracies here that I'm going to have to take my time in order to respond to this video. So the claim that we are out to harm conservatives while championing liberal outlets is completely false and I'm going to show you. You'll be able to see for yourselves when I take you through the chart as an example. I mean, I am 100% confident that you're going to realize that that accusation is completely false and there is nothing that they have to be able to substantiate that claim.

Speaker 1: 13:28

And the second thing that is inaccurate is we don't rate media personalities. We don't do that. We rate news, and news like sources, and so the different types of media that we do rate we read through articles on different news outlets, websites, we listen to podcasts of different podcasts that are connected to politics or connected to the news in some way, and we also, of course, pay attention to television shows, so anything that's connected to news on TV. So those are the three media types that we actually do rate on our media bias chart. So, no, we don't rate media personalities. So again, that is inaccurate.

Speaker 3: 14:20

All right, we'll continue on Political bias, left versus right, and they claim to be scientific and to try to be as objective as possible in doing this, but of course our analysts have figured out that nothing would be further from the truth. So is it science? They don't use science at all. They try to present their data as if it's objective, even going to the hundredth of a decimal point in their rating system. But instead they use these nameless, faceless analysts of their own, using their own subjective analysis, to assign numbers, ratings, to different media outlets. And of course, what we have discovered is that they are really, really harsh toward conservative voices and conservative media, but alternatively, they are more than gracious. They are very helpful amplifying the voices on the left. Okay, so two.

Speaker 1: 15:23

All right, I'm gonna pause yet again, because there are a few things that I need to respond to. All right, we are not nameless, faceless analysts. Hello again, my name is Jen Furlong, and you can see me if you're watching the video. You can hear me if you're listening to the podcast. As a matter of fact, it was probably about a year ago give or take a month or two, I can't remember exactly when I had some of the other analysts on this show. You can look it up.

Speaker 1: 15:56

I asked a couple of the left-leaning analysts. I had one of the center analysts on there and I had another fellow right-leaning analyst on the show, and we talked about what it was like being media analysts. It was a fantastic conversation. We talked about the things we loved about it. We talked about some of the challenges that we faced as analysts. We talked about some of the challenging conversations we would have to have during some of our shifts. As you can imagine, left, right and center, we're not always going to agree on things. So it was a wonderful episode. I encourage you to go look that episode up and either watch it on the YouTube channel or listen to it, and we were just a tiny fraction of the analysts though.

Speaker 1: 16:47

So, yeah, we're not nameless or faceless analysts. As a matter of fact, there is this really awesome place on our website at fontesmediacom that you can go to and it's called, I believe, the little link at the top. It's called About Us. I'm sure you might be familiar with it. So if you click on that link, the About Us link, and you scroll down and you see where it says Meet Our Team or Get to Know the Team, that will take you directly to the page where you can see who the analysts are. You can see our names For the most of us. You can see our pictures. Some of the analysts, for their own privacy concerns, they didn't want their pictures up there, and that's perfectly fine, but all of our names are up there and you can even see our bios.

Speaker 1: 17:46

So, yeah, we are not nameless or faceless analysts. That really hurt, dan, that you said that, because I feel like, as part of the Media Research Center, that would have been something really easy to research. But OK, I'm going to move on. We'll probably get back to that in a moment. I want to listen to a little more of what you have to say, and then I'm going to talk about our science-based content analysis methodology, because I have a feeling that you have a very serious misunderstanding of what that entails.

Speaker 2: 18:24

To look at the ideology of this corporation.

Speaker 3: 18:29

It is a for-profit corporation. Ok, and as a for-profit, is it run by scientists?

Speaker 2: 18:34

No, or is it run by activists?

Speaker 3: 18:36

No, the founder of this is a lawyer, Vanessa Otero, who is proud to announce that she is a Democrat, a liberal. She claims that she has a system that protects against her own bias, but of course that's all smoke and mirrors.

Speaker 1: 18:55

OK, so again, several things. I don't know exactly why the fact that we are a for-profit corporation matters, especially as conservatives. Right, we love capitalism. Right, I mean, go small business, right, go startups. We want to make sure that we employ Americans. So, bringing up the fact that we are a for-profit corporation, I don't understand how that matters at all. But hey, I love capitalism, so I think that's OK.

Speaker 1: 19:38

But let me go back to the methodology, because he seems to really have an issue with our methodology and he says that it's not science-backed. But, to be honest with you, yes, it is. I mean, content analysis, it is a methodology that it's not new at all. So I do want to take just a few minutes to explain what content analysis is. That way, anyone who is not familiar with it, you can understand more about the methodology and maybe this will allay some of the concerns. So, content analysis it has been around for a very long time. It is a research technique that is used by a lot of communication researchers, spanning back hundreds of years, and what it is is it's a methodology that's used to analyze text. You look at the presence of words and you try to determine whether you can figure out a theme that may exist or some patterns that may exist within that text. So it is a systematic analysis of the text and in systematically analyzing text, again, it's not a new thing. I mean it actually goes back as far as the 17th century, looking at text to try to figure out if you can learn or see different patterns that exist in that text. So, yeah, it's been around for some time and anyone who has studied communication would be familiar with content analysis as a scientific method in the history of communication, especially because it was actually applied in World War II to study the media and try to analyze different newspapers to detect signs of Nazi propaganda. So yeah, this kind of goes back a ways, the content analysis methodology and it has been refined over time. Of course, the way we communicate, the channels through which we communicate, have changed over time. So, going from World War II Nazi propaganda, trying to use content analysis methodology to discern that type of propaganda in American newspapers, to television news, radio, now we have social media, online news. So, yes, over time, just like any other methodology, that is a scientifically based methodology. It has been refined over time. So that's one thing about content methodology.

Speaker 1: 22:40

Another thing about content analysis methodology is. It is a very good methodology to use for analyzing news stories because it is systematic, it's structured, it's observable, it's measurable. And what I mean by measurable in terms of looking at the words and looking at the themes and then comparing sources across the board and looking at the framing of the information that's provided. We look at the headlines and the visuals and how does that impact the overall theme and are we able to look at any similarities across the board or comparisons across the board. So, being able to use that content analysis methodology, it really does reduce the subjectiveness that he's talking about in this video. It reduces your subjective bias and your personal bias. Now, does it completely eradicate our bias? Of course not, absolutely not. I mean we are human. I mean every analyst I work with that I know of, we are humans after all. But it is a fantastic methodology to try to mitigate that personal bias because, as analysts because this is again a scientifically based, systematic review of language and context that it is replicable. So, as analysts, we can actually compare and try to figure out different patterns that might exist. So it does allow for replication, which, if anything about research, that's kind of a big, important thing right there. It's kind of a big deal. So replication you're able to do that with content analysis. It allows for comparisons between the analysts. We can compare with one another what we're seeing in the text, which, in turn, being able to do that, that actually increases the validity of the results that we're coming up with.

Speaker 1: 25:01

And the thing about the statistics that he's referencing and I noticed that he had a little smile when he talked about that we even provide numbers to the 100th of a decimal. Well, that's kind of what happens when you're able to use a methodology that generates quantitative data. That's called quantitative analysis. It's a numerical representation that actually allows for statistical analysis. So actually I should say that I appreciate that Dan Schneider points out that we provide our data down to the 100th decimal point, because that is exactly what is.

Speaker 1: 25:52

That's what happens when you use a science-based methodology. It produces quantitative data and it gives you the opportunity to study the details. You can compare across different sources and over time, you can identify those patterns that may exist, especially if a source uses hyperbole or if they use logical fallacies or if they tend to share misleading or inaccurate information. We can identify that pattern using content analysis methodology, because it creates that quantitative data, which is actually a really cool thing. So anyway, let's move on. I think he has some more to say about how harsh we are to outlets on the right and that we're more gracious to outlets on the left. So let's hear what he has to say and then I think we'll probably pull up the chart here in a little bit so we can compare what they're saying about it to what we actually see with our own eyes.

Speaker 2: 27:02

So do they have conservatives and do they have liberal? Do we know who their analysts are? Do we know? Do we know who's doing what? Where they come up and they say this is gospel truth. These are our findings. This is objective truth, because this is exactly how we did it.

Speaker 3: 27:20

So we've gotten information about this group both through our FOIA efforts as well as through my own interview of this president of the organization. She says that they've got 60 analysts and she claims that these analysts that she hasn't named she hasn't told us who they are, where they recruit these analysts from, but she claims that these analysts are bipartisan Each team has three people across the political spectrum but she then admits that there's 99% conformity in the results that these so-called bipartisan panels produce. Basically, her very heavy hand has infected the way these analysts think they speak with one Okay.

Speaker 2: 28:07

So 99% of the conservatives agree with the liberals, or 99% of the liberal can agree with the conservatives. That's what she's saying. That's impossible. That's impossible.

Speaker 1: 28:19

Okay, no, no, no, no, no, no, that's not what she's saying. Okay, let's go back a little bit. He mentioned again that Vanessa, the CEO and founder of Act Fontes Media, is a Democrat. She's a proud Democrat. Well, I mean, I'm a proud conservative, so it's okay. We definitely have different opinions about policy, you know about different topics, but isn't that what we need for a democracy to thrive?

Speaker 1: 28:50

Bias is not inherently bad. We should be open to different opinions because that actually helps us to avoid things like group think, confirmation bias. If you're only surrounding yourself with people who want to regurgitate everything that you say and that you believe and that you value, well, that doesn't sound very much like a free and open society. It doesn't sound very much like a democracy to me. So, yeah, it's okay to have bias. It's okay to have your values and your beliefs and your ideas of how policy you know should be, how policy should look. So I don't understand why it's a bad thing that she's a quote proud Democrat. I mean, I'm a proud conservative. So, okay, you do your thing, be proud, I'm proud too. And one thing I do want to correct.

Speaker 1: 29:55

They had mentioned one of them had mentioned that you know, we claim that what we have on the chart is the quote gospel truth, and you know we have never claimed that. As a matter of fact, if you look on our website, we will let you know in the FAQs on our website that the chart is not infallible. We are humans, so we're not infallible beings. Yes, the chart because humans are bias will have bias in it. Not to the extent that they are claiming, though. That's the value of having people that represent the ideological spectrum working together so that we can check each other's blind spots. We can check each other's bias, and so we don't claim that it is the gospel truth. As a matter of fact, we actually welcome the opportunity for you to look at any of the articles that we've looked at, listen to any of the podcasts that we have listened, to, watch any of the TV programs that we have watched, and if you honestly believe that we have an error in our rating, you believe that it is not rated accurately, it's not rated fairly, send us that article and let us know what you think about it and why you think it deserves to have a different reliability rating, a different bias rating, and then we'll actually review it.

Speaker 1: 31:32

We do have a shift called an accountability shift, and so that's one of the things about AdFontes Media If you point something out to us that you think we overlooked or maybe we were wrong in it, we will happily go back through and review it, because we want the work that we do to actually mean something. We want it to be good work. We want the information we're sharing with you to be as accurate as possible, to our best ability. So if you do find something that you believe to be inaccurate, please do share it with us, and thank you for sharing that with us, because it gives us the opportunity to perhaps write something that is a wrong on our own chart. So don't be shy about this.

Speaker 1: 32:22

And again, he talks about the analysis. If we don't exist, we're not. Again, we're not nameless or faceless boogie men who live in the shadows who are obviously up to no good. I mean, if you want to know who we are, just look us up. We're not hiding in the background. It explains everything about us on our website, so I don't know why he keeps going back to that.

Speaker 1: 32:47

But hey, probably the most important point about this particular clip is that they are right about one thing in particular you cannot have a liberal and a conservative agree on different topics 99% of the time. You cannot have a liberal and a conservative agree on all of the things 99% of the time. It's just not gonna happen. That's not reality. And so when he says that liberal and conservatives agree on 99% of the things, I'm assuming the things that he's talking about are things like abortion, healthcare, guns, all of those things I mean, yeah, you guys are absolutely right about that. There's no way liberal and conservative are going to agree on those things 99% of the time. But that's not what Vanessa said, nor is that what she's talking about.

Speaker 1: 33:50

One important thing to note and this is critical to understanding how we work as analysts it's not our job to advocate for a position. It's our job to see if the text that we're reading is advocating for a position. That's a very important distinction. So we are not advocating positions. When we're working together in these shifts, we're not arguing about abortion, we're not debating about healthcare, we're not having deep discussions about gun control or any of those things. We are having discussions about the text that's in front of us and how that text is expressing about those different topics. So that's a very, very important distinction that I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding about how we work and our shifts. So, no, I don't think we should be discussing about the content itself. No, we don't have 99% conformity. Conformity, no, no. What we do have are conversations, and about the text, about the podcast episode, about the content itself. That's what we have discussions about, and sometimes we even have robust conversations about the text that we're looking at. So that's how our shifts work.

Speaker 1: 35:26

So we do have a group of analysts. They are correct in this as well. We meet in what we call ourselves pods, so we have a pod of three. We meet on Zoom and, yes, we always have analysts that represent the ideological spectrum. So we will go from left to center to right. There are always three analysts and we have a group of analysts that are correct in that, and that's important, because when we have these discussions, it's important to be able to have pointed out to you where your own blind spots are.

Speaker 1: 36:06

Now, most of the time, we can agree on things like what is a news report? What is this news versus? Is this analysis versus? Is this opinion? Does this person use hyperbole? Does this person, does this headline represent the article accurately or is it clickbait? So those are some fundamental things that we can very quickly agree on in that respect, but sometimes we do have disagreements, and when we do have those disagreements, that's when we fall back on the content analysis methodology and the rubrics that we have. Those serve as our foundation. It's a very solid foundation we have to have conversations about with this particular article. Is it expressed as news or analysis or opinion? What is the validity? When we're looking at veracity, what is the likelihood that this is true? Again, looking at the headline. So all of these things go in together and you have to have a conversation with people who come from different points of view other than yourself, so that you can check each other's biases.

Speaker 1: 37:41

This is how we mitigate our own bias. We listen to one another because as human beings, we're not necessarily aware of our own blind spots. So, as the conservative of the group, when we read through certain articles, I might pick up on something with my conservative ears and my conservative brain that the other two analysts might not necessarily pick up on. And vice versa. If you are reading all conservative news and you have absolutely no idea what's going on on the left side of the spectrum, it's probably going to be pretty hard for you to pick up on some of those things. So, again, that's the value of having multiple viewpoints in the same session.

Speaker 1: 38:33

So sometimes, if we don't agree, sometimes the article is very, very difficult. We just cannot get to an agreement on where it belongs on the chart, and so what do we do? We actually send it to another pod. We have to get more eyeballs on that article because we obviously maybe it was our own bias. I've had this happen in SHEVS. I would read a certain article and I know my own bias and I just could not move my score because I just really believed that that article was as reliable as it was, or as unreliable as I thought it was, or as biased or as balanced as I thought it was. I've had those moments and all of us as analysts have had those moments. So when that happens, we take that article and we send it off to another pod so that they can take a look at it Again. So that's another way that we mitigate our own bias.

Speaker 1: 39:31

So now this is where I want to put the video on hold, and I'm going to go over to the article that they posted last week specifically, because it mentions me by name and I wasn't too happy about that. So I'm going to read for you a couple of the paragraphs and then I'm going to play for you a video that they have embedded in the article itself that it supposedly is included because it's proof, it's quote evidence of the quote leftist slant that exists, you know, in our training, and then we'll get back to the article. So here's what the article says about me. Add Fontez's leftist slant is not just visible in its emails. Take what communications director Jennifer Furlong admitted during an explainer video to educators using its media bias chart. In it she discussed how bias infects, the way individuals grade media. That's not what is happening, but so let's go over to that. Remember it's how it infects the way individuals grade media. This is what I have to say.

Speaker 1: 40:59

So the rubric that we use as analysts looks something like this. You know, if we determine overall, after putting all of those factors together, and we think that that was pretty high effort. They had to do a lot of digging to find this information out. They corroborated their sources. You know this is high probability. This is very likely that it's true. I'm going to give it a really high score up here on down the line. So anything that is what we consider the green zone in here, anything that's above a 40, because this is pretty good fact reporting, even if it's just simple bare bones fact reporting, like the example I gave you just a few minutes ago with the, the, the, the wreck on I-95 bare bones fact reporting, that's still. That's still high quality. You're still getting good, reliable news there. So anything above 40, we're going to consider this is pretty high quality news.

Speaker 1: 42:06

When we get below 40, from 40 down to 24, these are the variations in analysis on down to opinion, this is where we probably have the most disagreement when we're analyzing an article, because this is where our own bias could potentially get in the way. If we agree with it, we'll call it analysis. If we disagree with it, we'll call it an opinion. So that's a really good way to look at this. So make sure that you check yourself in each other when you're in this area especially. Okay, so notice they cut that off. Notice they cut the clip short because I continued to explain, just like I just explained a minute ago. You know why it's important to be able to work in teams with people who differ in political ideology from yourself, because it helps you mitigate your own bias.

Speaker 1: 43:06

What I was talking about there is when we get into our conversations and we're talking about is this article analysis? Is this article opinion? You know, a lot of times analysis will have some opinion. Sometimes the opinions will have some analysis where our own bias gets in the way. And this is what I'm talking about as individuals, when we have our own blind spots. If I'm reading an article and I happen to agree with that article because I'm biased on that topic, if I agree with that article, I might be inclined to say you know what, that was good analysis. I'm going to rate this a little bit higher as a good analytical piece. But if I were to disagree with the premise of the article that I'm reading Because of my own bias, I might be more inclined to say you know what, I don't think that was actually a good analysis at all. I think that was more opinion than anything. They didn't really didn't substantiate anything with good quality evidence throughout there. So you know, I think that's more opinion. So I'm going to knock it down. You know, lower on the reliability scale. But I don't even realize that what's happening is that's my own bias getting in the way, but someone else from a different political point of view could call me on that, just like I could call them out on that, and that's the part of the video that they left out. That's why there is value in having discussions about these things with people of different political ideologies, because, yes, our own bias can get in the way. So what that means is no bias is not infecting the way individual analysts rate the media. It's not infecting anything. If anything, it's actually helping us rate in a more honest way. We're mitigating our bias, we're checking each other, we're calling each other out for own bias. That's actually a good thing.

Speaker 1: 45:27

One more thing I wanted to point out with this article before I get back to the other video. I told you all this was going to take a while. This is a long response video. I apologize, but there's just so much that needs to be responded to that was just really misrepresented and inaccurate in the reporting. I feel that it's only fair that I get to spend enough as much time as I need to respond. If you need to go somewhere, do that. Press the pause button and go, do your thing, but then come back, because there's a lot more that I need to talk about in this response, the final paragraph.

Speaker 1: 46:08

It says furlong works as a quote right lean analyst for ad fontes. I take that to mean that they don't believe that I'm actually a right lean analyst. Like I said before at the beginning, I have been a conservative for as long as I can remember and I've been a registered Republican for my entire adult life. If you have conversations with me, although I am very easy to talk to and I'm very open to hearing different points of view, that doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to agree with your particular point of view. But I think that's a different skill set. I mean that doesn't mean that I'm not conservative. That just means that I'm open to listening to different points of view. So, yeah, I am a right lean analyst. We can have conversations about that all day long if you'd like. So furlong works as a quote right lean analyst for ad fontes.

Speaker 1: 47:10

Quote the methodology ad fontes uses for a long explained is the quote tool that helps us remain consistent. Yeah, it's a really good methodology that provides a systematic process in a foundation for us to go to. That's actually a good thing. But they say this consistency is vividly apparent Because ad fontes classifies as on the left are unjustifiably scored as more reliable and less biased and sources the firm labels as on the political right. So with that, let's go back to the video, because I think that's where this video is picking up, where we leave off on that particular paragraph. I think, if I'm remembering correctly, he's going to start listening some sources. I mean he's going to start talking about how we are unfair to right leaning sources over left leaning sources, and I want to show you on the chart all of the sources so that you can actually see with your own eyes that that is in fact not correct.

Speaker 2: 48:23

Possible. You can't add that you can't be a conservative, liberal and agree on 99% of the things. That's disingenuous.

Speaker 1: 48:32

Yeah, but that's not right.

Speaker 2: 48:34

Let's establish here it's disingenuous to be saying that If you're going to say that what you're presenting is objective truth, you have got to be accurate and you've got to be truthful. That's just not truthful. You've got so far what we have in this discussion. We've got a left wing who is running a for-profit company, reporting to be objective, putting forward that everybody agrees with her and with their findings, and yet they won't say who is there doing what?

Speaker 1: 49:08

Okay. So to recap, who cares that? Vanessa is a Democrat. We have a ton of conservatives, so what does that even matter? We all balance each other out. We all call each other out on our biases. We're not nameless, faceless analysts. So you can look us all up. We're there on the website. We do not have 99% conformity. That is not at all what she's talking about. When she's talking about, we have discussions and most of the time we're able to arrive at an agreement, somewhere close to an agreement, on where we think the source belongs. On the media bias chart, there's just so much in that big statement that he just made that is completely inaccurate in a gross misrepresentation of who we are as an organization. Okay, let's go on to the next thing.

Speaker 3: 50:08

That's right. They produce data on their website about the conclusions that they get to. But I was seeing about how I learned math in fifth grade. You had to show your work. You couldn't just give a number. They don't show their work, they just give the number. They rate newsbusters here at MRC. They rate CNS News here at MRC. They rate the Newsbusters podcast here at MRC. They do that by scoring Are we accurate? Are we reliable? According to me, or according to them? No, of course. According to them, we're abysmal, we are unreliable.

Speaker 2: 50:48

Okay, for the record, in 35 years there's not one single study out of hundreds that we've done that's ever been demonstrated to not be reliable. Just put them record.

Speaker 1: 51:00

Okay, let me ask you. Okay, so I can only attest to what's in front of me here and the article that I'm looking at that I just showed you a minute ago in the video that I'm watching here. In the video clip of me that was cut short so you could not hear the rest of the explanation. That provided important context. So he very well may be correct in that none of his other studies have you know, they haven't found any inaccuracies. I don't know, I haven't looked at those studies. I can tell you this particular study upon which these articles are based on, yes, it is full of inaccuracies. It is full of incorrect assumptions about what we do and how we do it.

Speaker 1: 51:49

And to answer the question about showing your math again, if you go on our website, go on to our methodology page, yes, you can see exactly how we arrive at our scores. You know, through the three analysts. There's actually a video on there and we show you the system that we use and how we arrive at the scores that we arrive at. So, yeah, we are showing the math. Just got to look for it Again. Research, media, research center that's research is good. Just go to the website, all right? So let's move on to the next thing.

Speaker 2: 52:30

What is there? I'm wondering to see what their North Star is. What is their example of reliability To them? Is NBC reliable?

Speaker 3: 52:43

Where are they on the chart. Nbc is very reliable and not biased.

Speaker 2: 52:51

There's not a conservative in America who believes that. By the way, most liberals don't believe that either. Abc Same, Same answer.

Speaker 3: 53:00

CBS. Cbs is very reliable and not biased, that's right CNN. Cnn is right up there with those three big networks.

Speaker 1: 53:09

Okay, so I'm going to bring you over to the interactive media bias chart. You can see the one that I'm showing you on the screen here. This is the full version of the media bias chart. So, again, we have over 3,200 sources and over 67,000 pieces of individual pieces of news and news like content that we've looked through. So they had mentioned ABC, nbc, cbs and CNN and that they were high reliability and not bias at all. So let's look to see what we have NBC News they didn't indicate whether they were talking about the website or the TV network, so I'm going to bring both of them up. So we have the NBC News website, which is above 40, and the bias is minus six. So it's just on that borderline of skewing left Not quite skewing left, but it's getting there. And, as you can see the spread, let me see if I can make this larger. Yeah, so that's all those of you who are watching on the YouTube channel. You can see this spread of individual articles.

Speaker 1: 54:35

There are a whole lot of them that, yes, fall reliable. Some of them are in the middle or balanced bias. And, by the way, being in the middle does not mean that it's not biased, it doesn't mean that it's centrist or that it's unbiased. What it could mean is that it was an article that just wasn't political at all. And so you know, like sports, a lot of sports articles, you know things like that, a lot of weather reports, even if you just come in as there's no, there's no politics at all. So how are you going to rate that? As you know, skews left or skews right, it's just, you can't. So we put that as in the middle, middle bias, balanced bias. It could be that you have an article that provides perspectives of both sides, a left leaning perspective as well as a right leaning perspective, and so that means that it's balanced bias. That doesn't mean that it's, you know, without any of that type of language, is there might be just an equal representation, a balanced representation.

Speaker 1: 55:49

So, nbc News, it's not quite true. At least NBC News website, that it's, you know, in the middle, unbiased. I mean it is right there on the border, just about going into skews left territory. So, nbc TV, let's bring that one up, since they didn't differentiate. Same thing. Nbc television looks like it is pretty close to the website, which is actually pretty good, you know, good for you, nbc, abc News Website. There we go. Okay, we just had a little hiccup. I think my computer is confused, alright.

Speaker 1: 56:42

So we have ABC News website which, yes, that is above the 40 line. So we consider that a mix effect reporting and analysis. And it is in the middle to balance bias range, minus 3, 3.82, so almost a minus 4, still in the middle or balanced bias. And then ABC News TV network oh, so this is, it's still above the green line. So, yeah, reliable. But look at this, the bias is actually SKUs left. So again, they were inaccurate in that characterization of ABC. Now, depending on which one they were talking, of course they weren't as specific and, as we know, in communications, specificity is important, clarity in communication is important. So that's why I'm being as specific as possible as I can with you. So ABC TV network yeah, that actually does skew left. That is not middle or balanced bias. And then they brought up they brought up CBS. Again, we'll look up both the website and then we'll look up the television show. So, yep, above the 40 line. So that is reliable and it is middle or balanced bias. Again, that doesn't mean that it's, you know, the unbiased. It could mean that it has representation, a pretty good representation, of both sides within that particular article. And then let's look at CBS News TV network. Pretty similar as far as you know the reliability, it went up a little bit.

Speaker 1: 58:35

Bias Again, it's right there on the border, that minus six line right there, borderline SKUs to the left. So it's getting into that SKUs left territory. So they didn't accurately portray that one as well. And so let's look at CNN, because they mentioned CNN, so again we'll break it down between website and television. Oh, look at CNN. Yep, this is definitely skewing left. So while it's reliable, yeah, it's skewing left.

Speaker 1: 59:13

Now again, remember, bias is not inherently bad. We have conservative leaning viewpoints, we have democratic leaning viewpoints. We get together, we talk about policy having those different points of view. You can still make a good argument, a good logical argument about your belief system, about how you think policy should go, and still be somewhat bias. We're just not hyper partisan, you know about it. And so the website yeah, that is skewing left. And let's see what CNN TV network is. So CNN TV you can say you can see that's lower than the website. It's actually just below the 40 line. So they didn't get that right either and it's a minus 10 bias. So this solidly skews left. So thank you for the opportunity to correct that information right there. Let's go back and listen to more of what they have to say. I think they're gonna bring up a few more sources, so let's see what they say.

Speaker 2: 1:00:34

Because I guess CNN would deny it as well. I mean they're making no. No one's making any pretense of objectivity on these networks, yet this company is saying they are to be considered objective.

Speaker 1: 1:00:47

Well, I just showed you and I just explained to you with CNN. Clearly we show them as skewing left on the chart, so I really don't know what the problem is.

Speaker 3: 1:01:00

All right, let's continue and sort of my three big pet peeves, NPR, Washington Post and New York Times, Also very reliable and hardly a smidgen of bias among all of these groups. Okay.

Speaker 2: 1:01:13

So how do they see everybody else? What is it? What's the chart I'm gonna show you.

Speaker 3: 1:01:19

Okay. So when you look at the publicly accessible chart that AdVontes has created, it looks like a rainbow with organizations on the left and organizations on the right, and as you look at this rainbow, the higher up the more reliable the organization is, the farther down, the less reliable it is, and the chart makes it look as if AdVontes thinks that there are about as many organizations on the left as there on the right that they are treated equally. It's all a big lie.

Speaker 1: 1:01:53

Okay, so let's stop there. And if you're watching the video, I apologize, I completely forgot that. I showed the entire screen, so I was talking to you the whole time and you're just looking at the, you know, at the video, the pause video on the screen, and I'm just talking away to the camera. But anyway, if you're listening to the audio version, it just doesn't even matter. So let's look at the difference of what they were showing. I want to go back just a little bit. Yeah, there we go. Notice that the version of the chart that they're using to support their claim that they're showing a chart from the January 2023 edition of the static media bias chart. So if you have followed us for some time, you probably know that every month, we update our static versions, monthly static versions of the media bias chart, and what that means is what we'll do is we'll highlight some of the more popular outlets, as well as some of the outlets that are making their debut on the chart, and we highlight those you know on the chart, on the static version of the chart. Now, the reason we do that is could you imagine if we had all 3200 sources on this static chart? What would it look like? Well, it would look like that. I mean, there is absolutely no way you would be able to discern any type of meaningful information if you were to look at the static version of all of the sources that are on the interactive media bias chart. So it's not something that can be done. So that's why we do the static charts just to highlight most popular and highlight some of the sources that have debuted, and we do that month by month. I mean, what a confusing mess the static chart would be if we included all 3200 sources onto it. That would not be very useful at all. So if you do want to see a version of the chart that has all of the sources on it, then yeah, go to the interactive version of the media bias chart on our website Now. Oh well, let me correct myself. If you want to see a lot more sources, go to the free version of the interactive media bias chart on our website Now.

Speaker 1: 1:04:31

If you want to see all 3200 sources, then yeah, you're going to need to get a subscription. That's 67,000 pieces of individual pieces of content. So, yeah, you're going to have to get a subscription to be able to get access to all 3200 sources. Yay, capitalism for profit. Yeah, vanessa's employing a lot of people. What can I say? I think that's a good thing. All right, I digress.

Speaker 1: 1:05:01

So let's look at this. Let's take a moment, since I do have this chart up on the screen for you. I want to take a moment and just let's look at this, left versus right. This is not a farce. This isn't fake. This isn't made up.

Speaker 1: 1:05:22

This is based on the methodology that I explained to you earlier. You know thousands and thousands of individual pieces of content that we've been able to analyze to come up with these scores. The overall source score is an average, you know, of all of the individual pieces of content that come from that source. So it's really pretty easy to understand when you begin digging into the data. And you know, the thing that I actually love about this chart, and a lot of people love about this chart, is you can get granular. You know, if you want to look at the actual individual pieces of content, you can click on the little dots and it'll take you to the individual pieces of content so you can look at it. I mean, that's one thing. We're so transparent about everything. So if you have a question, just ask us and we will explain away everything to you, any question that you have, and we'll be upfront about it. And if we do make a mistake, let us know. And again, we will welcome the opportunity to correct any mistakes that we make. But there aren't 67,000 mistakes on here. I can guarantee you that.

Speaker 1: 1:06:36

All of those individual pieces of content, so you know, looking together left versus right, I really don't understand what kind of fuzzy math he's using. But whatever he's looking at, it, just don't add up. And if what he's doing is he's referring to this static version of the MediaBias chart, well, I mean, the whole premise is flawed if that's what he's doing, because he's only using a very small representative sample of the entire data source that exists, which. That's that a good math? You know, talking about math and showing your work, and not to mention when he's talking about the differences between left and right, he doesn't really explain. I mean, I don't know. Are they including the things that are up here in the middle? You know, like anything that's to the left of zero as bias to the left or anything that's to the right of zero as bias to conservative, because that's also not an accurate way to look at it. Again, you know, in the middle. It could mean that there's no bias in there because it's an article that is not political. It could mean that it's balanced bias. You know it's representative of both sides. It is political but it represents both sides. So that's an important, you know, nuance that I think he needs to have a better understanding about. So, yeah, I think the premise is flawed. If that's the chart upon which he's basing this entire study, it just doesn't add up All right.

Speaker 1: 1:08:31

So one thing I do want to share with you. I know I need to wrap this up. I've been going at this for some time In a Satutus day night and Ahsoka has a new episode out, and so I need to really get to that episode. It started 42 minutes ago, all right, so let me wrap this up. This is ridiculous. We all have other things I'm sure that we would like to do. If you have hung with me for this long, bless you. I don't know if I would have hung with me this long, but you must really be interested in the media bias chart and what you know some of these outlets are saying about us. So let's get serious here.

Speaker 1: 1:09:20

The mission of AdFontes Media, the entire mission of AdFontes Media. All we want to do is make a positive impact on society and we truly want to bring people together. It's really difficult to do when you have examples like this in the media ecosystem. It's very clear that we have a difficult job ahead of us. Even though we have different political beliefs, we still should be able to sit down together and have a conversation.

Speaker 1: 1:10:03

Now, as a conservative, I can't appreciate some of these concerns because it is true, most of what we would call legacy media even by our own chart you can see a lot of that legacy media does tend to lean to the left. It skews left. That's a common complaint among conservatives and I recognize that. I agree with you on that. It's a concern. Another concern I also can understand is the concern of teaching media literacy in the schools. I have personally read articles with teachers who have, you know it's highlighting teachers who teach media literacy in the classroom and even using our own media bias chart and all of the examples that they used that indicated hyper-partisan, low reliability type of sources. They focused completely on right-leaning sources and completely just left out left-leaning sources. So as a conservative, I completely get that, but you know what? That's why I do this work. That's why I want to be involved.

Speaker 1: 1:11:23

I think it's important, as conservatives, to have a seat at the table, be involved in the work, be a part of the solution. It's very easy to tear things down. It's very easy to critique others' works. It's very easy to try to poke holes in what other people are doing, especially when they're trying to do good for society, and you allow your fear, you allow your lack of understanding of what it is that we're doing to create, you know, this type of misleading information, the inaccurate representation of what we do. I know that's out of fear and I can understand that as a conservative. But again, that's why I think it's important we have a seat at the table. That's why I work for AdFontes Media. That's why I'm a part of Media Literacy Now. I serve as the president of the board for Media Literacy Now because I want to ensure that when teachers are being taught how to use this as a tool in the schools to teach media literacy, I personally am the one who does the webinars to teach these teachers how to use the Media Bias chart as a tool to teach media literacy skills. So that's my contribution as a conservative.

Speaker 1: 1:12:59

Not only should they be able to identify the BS that I think comes out of the left, they should also be able to identify the BS that comes out of the right as well. I mean, let's face it, you know, and as far as the speculation that we're harsher on right-leaning sources versus left-leaning sources, you know that is something that we could do a study. Maybe we should do a study on that. But to speculate, to go directly to, well, it must be because they are punishing right-leaning organizations and elevating left-leaning organizations. That's like a big speculative thing to do right there. I think it's more likely, being the analyst and having read a lot of the news, I think it's more likely that the right-leaning outlets do tend to have a lot more analysis and a lot more opinion type of articles out there, and it's simply that you know there's less actual simple fact reporting or thorough, just fact reporting news, and you know instead of that there's just more analysis and opinion, but there's, you know, the speculation. I think that's particularly egregious.

Speaker 1: 1:14:34

So, as someone who is an educator, you know someone who's a communications professional, as a conservative, as a Marine Corps veteran, as an American, you know, I care very deeply about media literacy. I care very deeply about freedom of speech. Even if I don't agree with you, even if I don't like what you say, I will defend your right to say it. Even though I think it's a bunch of BS coming out of your mouth, I'll defend your right to say it. But I also very much, very much care deeply about clarity in communication, accuracy in messaging and, most importantly, above all else, this is my number one, most important quality, most important value. I care very deeply about integrity. That is number one for me. That is probably the one quality, the one value that I do hold above all else. That is integrity.

Speaker 1: 1:15:46

So if you have a platform and it doesn't matter if it is a podcast, it could be a blog, it could be a news outlet, whatever it is if you stand on any type of stage, you have any type of platform, social media platform even you have an ethical obligation to your audience to be accurate. You have an ethical responsibility to your audience to do your due diligence in the research that you do, in the information that you are sharing. You have an ethical obligation to your audience to not have a hidden agenda, to not share statistics in a way that aren't authentic, aren't truthful, aren't accurate. You have an ethical obligation to your audience to not propagate that us versus them mentality that is so pervasive in the hyperpartisan new space. You can't treat journalism like it's a sport, where we're on different teams and we just have to win. We got to pummel the other team so that we can win. Politics is not a sport. Journalism is not a sport. Again, we have an ethical responsibility and integrity, remember y'all.

Speaker 1: 1:17:13

Integrity, that's my most important value above everything else. So look at the end of the day, I think in order to have a strong democracy, we have to have a well-informed citizenry, well-informed citizenry. And in order to have a well-informed citizenry, I think we need to add here to the highest of ethical standards and we have to hold each other accountable to those high ethical standards, and I think anything less is unacceptable. Period, point blank, end of story, unacceptable. So that's my soapbox for the day.

Speaker 1: 1:18:06

Thank you so much for hanging out with me, for listening to me respond to some of the accusations, to some of the information that has been shared about the company I work for at Fontez Media, the company I care very deeply about as the communications director and as an analyst manager. You know to listen to me talk about the things that I care very deeply about as a conservative and as a veteran and as an American, I'm really concerned, you know, about the state of the news ecosystem, which is again why I do this work. So if you are like me and you are concerned about the state of the media ecosystem, I invite you to check out the chart, look at the individual pieces of content that are in there. Don't be afraid to contact us if you think that we're wrong on something we absolutely want to know. So let us know and then we can correct any issues that exist or we might explain to you if we disagree with you. You know we might explain to you better how we arrived at that conclusion, why we put it on the chart where we did.

Speaker 1: 1:19:24

But let's just open up the dialogue. Don't be afraid to do that. Be open-minded, be open to others points of view and don't be so quick to assume that there's some nefarious, underhanded, deep-seated, horrible thing going on. We're not nameless, faceless analysts working in some seedy, smoky, dark lit, you know, back room somewhere. We're not the boogeyman. I can assure you that.

Speaker 1: 1:19:55

All right, folks, that's it for now. That's the special. Let me know what you think about it. Shoot me an email or, you know, visit my website just, or comment on social media and let me know what you think. I'd love to hear your thoughts on any of this that I talked about today. All right, you guys. Have a wonderful rest of your evening, because it is almost 10 o'clock at night now. That's not signing off. Have a wonderful rest of your evening. If you listen to this the next day, have a wonderful rest of your day. All right, you guys, take care now. Bye-bye. ["the Post"]. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social media or leave a rating and a review. ["the Post"].