Liberal Media Bias Shows Up in the Strangest Places (Even in their "100 Best Places" list)

American Thinker ^ | 01/07/2010 | Warren Cole Smith

[SeekAndFind]

The mainstream media love lists. On almost any day, open up the paper or log on to your favorite news website, and there's some sort of list: The Richest Americans. The Best Colleges. The Most Powerful Political Leaders. Whatever.

These lists are designed to look like valid studies. They may even tout a rigorous methodology. But most of these lists are generated using arbitrary -- and often ideologically driven -- criteria. The lists that I find most frustrating are those that rate cities. The Happiest Cities. The Best Cities to Raise a Family. And this week's entry: "The Best U.S. Cities For Business," by a business news service called MarketWatch.com.

This list caught my attention in part because Des Moines, Iowa, ranks #1. Nothing against Des Moines (my sister and her family live there, after all), but what set of criteria would allow Des Moines to be #1, and put Washington, D.C. -- a very different kind of city -- at #2? The list is especially baffling when you consider that Des Moines scored fifty points (on a thousand-point scale) more than D.C., even though most of the other 99 cities on the list are separated from each other by less than five points.

The reasons for the strange rankings: bias and ideology. To begin with, it turns out that the rankings take into account ten criteria. Each criterion is worth one hundred points. With so many criteria, the cities that did best -- such as Des Moines -- are those that were not necessarily excellent in one or more categories, but didn't bomb any of them. In other words, the rankings reward not true excellence, but consistent above-average-ness. MarketWatch's Russ Britt put it this way: "How did this small metropolis plunked down in the middle of corn country win out? Nothing flashy, really. It just had above-average scores in every one of 10 metrics that MarketWatch examined. Well, not just above average; it was in the top fourth of all but one metric."

What should we call this bias? An addiction to mediocrity? More charitably, we might call it "The Lake Woebegone Effect," where innovation and excellence are frightening, and where the best thing you can say about someone is that he is "above average," but not too much above average.

Now, consistent above-average-ness wouldn't be so bad if what was evaluated actually mattered. But that's the next problem with this pseudo-study. For example, one would think that the ability to produce jobs would be a pretty solid indicator of a city's business health, but not according to the Marketwatch list. Every single city on the list lost jobs except McAllen, Texas. And where did McAllen, Texas rank? Number 83 -- near the bottom of the list!

And what about taxes? Economic development experts say that low taxes are vital to business health. Cities, counties, and states routinely offer tax exemptions to entice companies to move. So what role did tax rates play in the MarketWatch.com ratings? None. Tax rates were not included in the ten criteria. In fact, high-tax cities such as Boston and Washington were in the top ten.

Another common characteristic of the top ten cities? The government is the largest employer in at least six of them. Five of them -- Des Moines, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Boise, Denver, and Salt Lake City -- are state capitals with huge state government payrolls. Washington, D.C. is of course the quintessential government town.

One more thing: In the MarketWatch survey, size matters. If your city has a Fortune 1000 headquarters, your rank goes up, regardless of if those Fortune 1000 companies employ less than five percent of the American workforce.

Here's another way size matters in the rankings: Only metropolitan areas with more than 500,000 people are included. That's 101 American cities. No matter that other surveys say the future of American business is the smaller city. Improvements in transportation and communication erase the competitive advantage that cities like New York, Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco had in the 19th and early 20th centuries -- when they had unique access to capital, talent, railheads, ports, and raw materials. Today, a raw material is more likely to be an idea than a railroad car full of iron ore, and a "finished good" is more likely to be a software program than a pallet of widgets. Today's goods and services are increasingly likely to go to market over an information superhighway, not a concrete one.

All of this explains why a recent CareerBuilder study said that the best cities in America to find a job were (in order) Bismarck, ND; Casper, WY, and Logan, UT. Of the thirty best job-producing cities on the CareerBuilder list, only one of them (Salt Lake City) was large enough to make the MarketWatch list.

So what does the MarketWatch list teach us? It certainly doesn't tell us what it claims to tell us: which cities are best for business. Indeed, you could argue that the cities that are best for business weren't even considered. Rather, this list teaches us that we should value government jobs over those created by private investment, that bureaucracy is better than entrepreneurship, and that large corporations matter more than people.

The MarketWatch list -- and others like it -- is the product of pseudoscience and junk journalism. But that doesn't stop the mainstream media from eating it up.

-- Warren Cole Smith is the associate publisher of WORLD magazine.

[SeekAndFind]

Click here for the 100 Best places to do business list

[SeekAndFind]

Marketwatch's 100 BEST PLACES TO DO BUSINESS

Rank	Metro area	Score	...	Rank	Metro area	Score
1	Des Moines, Iowa	851		51	Miami	497
2	Washington, D.C.	796		52	Knoxville, Tenn.	495
3	Omaha, Neb.	788		53	Provo, Utah	493
4	Minneapolis-St. Paul	746		54	Rochester, N.Y.	491
5	Boston	739		55	Cleveland	489
6	Boise, Idaho	728		56	Columbia, S.C.	481
7	Denver	726		57	Virginia Beach, Va.	480
8	Salt Lake City	723		58	Poughkeepsie, N.Y.	476
9	Dallas-Ft. Worth	713		59	Palm Bay, Fla.	472
10	Bridgeport, Conn.	709		60	Portland, Ore.	470
11	Houston	704		61	Baton Rouge, La.	469
12	Madison, Wis.	703		62	Oxnard, Calif.	468
13	New York	697		63	Buffalo, N.Y.	467
14	Richmond, Va.	687		*64	Hartford, Conn.	462
*15	Raleigh, N.C.	679		*64	Los Angeles	462
*15	Nashville, Tenn.	679		66	Allentown, Pa.	449
17	Austin, Texas	658		67	Greenville, S.C.	445
18	Charlotte, N.C.	646		68	Lancaster, Pa.	443
19	Columbus, Ohio	645		69	Tampa-St. Petersburg, Fla.	441
20	Milwaukee, Wis.	643		70	Honolulu	440
21	Kansas City, Mo.	631		71	New Haven, Conn.	438
22	Little Rock, Ark.	627		72	Akron, Ohio	422
23	Pittsburgh, Pa.	619		*73	Albuquerque, N.M.	416
24	Oklahoma City	615		*73	Modesto, Calif.	416
25	Tulsa, Okla.	607		*75	Toledo, Ohio	408
26	St. Louis	599		*75	Grand Rapids, Mich.	408
27	San Jose	598		77	Colorado Springs, Colo.	407
*28	Philadelphia	594		78	Cape Coral, Fla.	399
*28	Jacksonville, Fla.	594		79	Wichita, Kan.	398
30	Memphis, Tenn.	589		*80	Greensboro, N.C.	395
31	Seattle	580		*80	Albany, N.Y.	395
32	Birmingham, Ala.	578		82	Lakeland, Fla.	393
33	Indianapolis, Ind.	571		83	McAllen, Texas	385
34	Harrisburg, Pa.	569		84	Springfield, Mass.	384
35	Atlanta	568		85	Sacramento, Calif.	372
36	Jackson, Miss.	559		*86	Dayton, Ohio	364
37	Portland, Maine	558		*86	Providence, R.I.	364
*38	Chattanooga, Tenn.	557		88	Bradenton, Fla.	348
*38	San Antonio, Texas	557		89	Syracuse, N.Y.	346
40	San Francisco	554		90	El Paso, Texas	340
41	Phoenix	550		91	Riverside, Calif.	331
42	Ogden, Utah	544		92	New Orleans	325
43	San Diego	537		93	Bakersfield, Calif.	312
44	Baltimore	535		94	Detroit	303
45	Cincinnati	531		95	Tucson, Ariz.	298
46	Orlando, Fla.	526		96	Augusta, Ga.	297
47	Charleston, S.C.	521		97	Worcester, Mass.	286
48	Las Vegas	520		98	Stockton, Calif.	280
49	Louisville, Ky.	512		99	Scranton, Pa.	267
50	Chicago	510		100	Fresno, Calif.	233
	--			101	Youngstown, Ohio	164

[P-Marlowe]

The mainstream media love lists.

I feel a Neener Hijacking coming on.

[5thGenTexan]

Meanwhile in the real world, companies are moving to either Texas or off shore...

[clintonh8r]

DC #2 isn’t surprising....they’re always doing the business there......

[SeekAndFind]

DC #2 isn’t surprising....they’re always doing the business there......

Monkey Business.

[Mad Dawgg]

"DC #2 isn’t surprising....they’re always doing the business there......"

To be more precise DC is giving the American people the Bidness (in a "hiking the Appalachian trail" sorta way)

[boocoowell]

I believe organizations like AP have a big vault somewhere shaped like an ass that they pull these lists out of. Very sorry list, sorry, I’m not buying it.

[notpoliticallycorewrecked]

Who would have thunk. Check out # 100.

[YHAOS]

Yep. Detroit made the list. ( ^8 }

[dangus]

I don’t know if I’d scream too loudly about bias. That’s a pretty good representation by red states. As for DC being #2, where do you think that trillion dollars of stimulus is going to go? Good for democracy, no. Good for free enterprise, no. Good for business? Just ask Volkswagon.

[j-damn]

*Yep. Detroit made the list. ( ^8 } *

Of course it did. They ranked all 101 cities above 500,000 people, or so says the information in the article.

[boop]

Youngstown,OH made the list? It’s almost as bad as Detroit.

[Revelation 911]

Neener? - you Neener, you brought her

[scrabblehack]

It looks like the top 101 SMSA’s were the only ones considered.

http://www.marketwatch.com/Story/story?Guid=%7BF69C76F0-8373-4353-8B17-33219D7FCEC5%7D

The 10 metrics:
1. Fortune 1000 companies per capita
2. S&P 500 companies per capita
3. Forbes Private Companies per capita
(How extensive is this list?)
4. Russell 2000 companies per capita
5. (concentration of companies, satellite operations,
annual payroll, employment)
I’m guessing the concentration of companies is
obtained from the first four metrics. It also doesn’t
explain how they obtained the number of satellite
operations.

6. Unemployment in September 2001
7. Unemployment in September 2005
8. Unemployment in September 2009.

It says they checked population growth since 2000 and job growth versus population growth — those can’t be additional metrics if there are only 10. The story does not say those are metrics, only that they looked at them.

9. real GDP
10. job losses from September 2008 to September 2009.

[P-Marlowe]

Neener? - you Neener, you brought her

EVERYONE is invited to Neener Hijacks. Even Anti-Neeners. :-)

1) Why do we park on driveways and drive on parkways?

2) Why are they called apartments if they are all stuck together?

3) If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?

4) If you are driving a car at the speed of light and turn on your headlights, what happens?

STEVEN WRIGHT

[Gamecock]

Top 10 signs you are a redneck fishermen (Jeff Foxworthy)

10. You have more fish on your wall than pictures.
9. You’re raising catfish in your bathtub.
8. Your wife has earrings that you use as fishing lures.
7. You’ve ever combed your hair with a fish scaler.
6. You video tape fishing shows.
5. You received a tube of crickets as a wedding present.
4. You keep bait in your refrigerator.
3. Your boat hasn’t left your driveway in years.
2. You’ve used your fishing license as a form of I.D.
1. YOU HAVE YOUR PICTURE TAKEN WITH OTHER PEOPLE’S FISH.

[blue-duncan]

An older, white haired man walked into a jewelry store one Friday evening with a beautiful young gal at his side.

He told the jeweler he was looking for a special ring for his girlfriend. The jeweler looked through his stock and brought out a $5,000 ring. The old man said, ‘No, I’d like to see something more special.’

At that statement, the jeweler went to his special stock and brought another ring over. ‘Here’s a stunning ring at only $40,000’ the jeweler said.

The young lady’s eyes sparkled and her whole body trembled with excitement. The old man seeing this said, ‘We’ll take it.’

The jeweler asked how payment would be made and the old man stated, ‘by check. I know you need to make sure my check is good, so I’ll write it now and you can call the bank Monday to verify the funds and I’ll pick the ring up Monday afternoon,’ he said.

Monday morning, the jeweler phoned the old man.

‘There’s no money in that account.’

‘I know,’ said the old man, ‘But let me tell you about my weekend!’

[Forest Keeper]

A bartender is sitting behind the bar on a typical day, when the door bursts open and in come four exuberant blondes. They come up to the bar, order five bottles of champagne and ten glasses, take their order over and sit down at a large table. The corks are popped, the glasses are filled and they begin toasting and chanting, "51 days, 51 days, 51 days!"

Soon, three more blondes arrive, take up their drinks and the chanting grows. "51 days, 51 days, 51 days!" Two more blondes show up and soon their voices are joined in raising the roof. "51 days, 51 days, 51 days!"

Finally, the tenth blonde comes in with a picture under her arm. She walks over to the table, sets the picture in the middle and the table erupts. Up jumps the others, they begin dancing around the table, exchanging high-five's, all the while chanting "51 days, 51 days, 51 days!"

The bartender can't contain his curiosity any longer, so he walks over to the table. There in the center is a beautifully framed child's puzzle of the Cookie Monster. When the frenzy dies down a little bit, the bartender asks one of the blondes, "What's all the chanting and celebration about?"

The blonde who brought in the picture pipes in, "Everyone thinks that blondes are dumb and they make fun of us. So, we decided to set the record straight. Ten of us got together, bought that puzzle and put it together. The side of the box said 2-4 years, but we put it together in 51 days!"