A computer code used to analyze the Twitter habits of New York Times employees reportedly confirms what many have claimed about the bias of the major newspaper: Its employees live in a leftist “cocoon.”
San Francisco web developer Tyler Pearson used the code to analyze which Twitter accounts are being most commonly followed by the 780 staff members listed on the Times’ Twitter account.
The results, Mickey Kaus of The Daily Caller reported, are “as you would expect, embarrassingly cocooned: Times staffers follow people who share the liberalish/leftish viewpoint of the Times itself, meaning these staffers are less likely to even find out discordant information.”
On the ranked list of 1,000 Twitter accounts most commonly followed by Times staff, the vast majority of the top spots belong to Times staffers themselves.
The highest-ranking non-staffer, followed by 456 of the 780 Times employees, is Jim Roberts, executive editor of Mashable, who also happens to be the former chief editor of NYTimes.com.
Next comes the ABC News correspondent and statistics guru Nate Silver, who is a self-admitted Barack Obama supporter who began his writing career at the decidedly leftist Daily Kos blog. Silver later wrote for the New York Times before moving his blog to ESPN.
Kaus analyzed Pearson’s Times data from six months ago and identified Reuters columnist Jack Shafer as the first “non-liberal” on the list, followed at the time by 235 of 677 Times staffers. Pearson’s updated Oct. 17 data found 279 of the 780 staffers following Shafer.
Kaus notes that calling Shafer a “non-liberal,” however, may be a bit of a stretch, explaining he is “less liberal than anyone with more followers and has more followers than anyone who is less liberal.”
“But as far as I can see, you have to go a long ways down, past acceptably self-critical conservative David Frum, to get to a genuine, partisan, ‘winger Tweeter,” Kaus comments, “@Karl Rove, who’s followed by 67 Timesers.”
In the updated data, Rove is followed by 89 Times staffers, New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie nets 86 followers and the popular news site Drudge Report garners 80.
Notably, the nation’s top radio host, Rush Limbaugh, isn’t in the top 1,000. Neither are Michael Savage, Sean Hannity nor WND.
“Of the [top] 1,000,” Kaus summarizes, “you could count those who oppose comprehensive immigration reform on the fingers of one hand, and you wouldn’t need the thumb (and maybe not the pinkie).”
