Hating the media is our reason for living. And we think intentionally misleading news stories are almost as pornographic as pornography. Like the one ABC News ran the other night.
At IHateTheMedia.com, we admit right up front that what we do is commentary. On a good day, mildly amusing commentary. We would never call ourselves a news organization, and after this so-called news report, maybe ABC News shouldn’t either. “Porn in the USA: Conservatives Are Biggest Consumers,” ABC’s report, said “Those states that do consume the most porn tend to be more conservative and religious.”
The background
According to a study (view PDF) conducted by Benjamin Edelman of the Harvard Business School, there’s very little difference between porn consumption in red states and blue states. In fact, Edelman concludes that “When it comes to adult entertainment, it seems people are more the same than different…The differences here are not so stark.”
Unfortunately, ABC started its report by stating a starkly contrary conclusion, then went off on a circuitous safari in search of data to support it. In reality, there’s absolutely nothing in the study to support ABC’s flimsy conclusion that conservatives consume more porn than liberals, because there’s nothing in the study that asked the respondents if they were conservative or liberal. Nothing.
But above and beyond ABC’s outrageous claims, we believe the study itself has serious problems. Continue reading “An IHTM Editorial:
Debunked: Porn in the USA, Conservatives are biggest consumers”
