Reeves AM, Shellman SM, Stewart BM. Fair & Balanced or Fit to Print? The Effects of Media Sources on Statistical Inferences. 2006.Abstract
This paper examines the effects of source bias on statistical
inferences drawn from event data analyses. Most event data projects
use a single source to code events. For example most of the early
Kansas Event Data System (KEDS) datasets code only Reuters and
Agence France Presse (AFP) reports. One of the goals of Project
Civil Strife (PCS) –a new internal conflict-cooperation event data
project– is to code event data from several news sources to garner the
most extensive coverage of events and control for bias often found
in a single source. Herein, we examine the effects that source bias
has on the inferences we draw from statistical time-series models.
In this study, we examine domestic political conflict in Indonesia
and Cambodia from 1980-2004 using automated content analyzed
datasets collected from multiple sources (i.e. Associated Press,
British Broadcasting Corporation, Japan Economic Newswire, United
Press International, and Xinhua). The analyses show that we draw
different inferences across sources, especially when we disaggregate
domestic political groups. We then combine our sources together
and eliminate duplicate events to create a multi-source dataset and
compare the results to the single-source models. We conclude that
there are important differences in the inferences drawn dependent
upon source use. Therefore, researchers should (1) check their
results across multiple sources and/or (2) analyze multi-source data
to test hypotheses when possible.
