Mainstream Conservative Media Bias?

I consider Media Matters to be one of the more inane organizations funded by unscrupulous leftists. No matter what the topic, and no matter how many facts get in the way of their narrative, they always find a way to massage the truth in a manner that eventually points to a "mainstream conservative bias" in the news. One of their more recent stories was no different. As usual, they summarized their statistical findings in a manner that conjured a larger scope than the data defines, and then they editorialized against the larger topic that was never addressed by the numbers:

This project did something that has never been done before: It amassed data on the syndicated columnists published by nearly every daily newspaper in the country. While a few publications, most notably Editor & Publisher, cover the syndicated newspaper industry, no one has attempted to comprehensively assemble this information prior to now. Because the syndicates refuse to reveal to the public exactly where their columnists are published, when Media Matters for America set out to make a systematic assessment of the syndicated columnist landscape, we had no choice but to contact each paper individually and ask which syndicated columnists are published on their op-ed pages.

The results show that in paper after paper, state after state, and region after region, conservative syndicated columnists get more space than their progressive counterparts. As Editor & Publisher paraphrased one syndicate executive noting, "U.S. dailies run more conservative than liberal columns, but some are willing to consider liberal voices."

Though papers may be "willing to consider" progressive syndicated columnists, this unprecedented study reveals the true extent of the dominance of conservatives.

The rest is here. They go on to list their easy-to-follow talking points that the netroots can disseminate to the four corners of the blogosphere. The problem is that the study was about syndicated columnists only. The study's summary eschews the differences between staff editorialists and syndicated ones, so the reader is left with the impression that opinion sections around the country are weighted to the right. Did Media Matters ever consider that maybe, just maybe, more liberal journalists are already on newspaper payrolls, so the editors have to shop around for a conservative viewpoint to put on the op-ed page? Did that possibility really never occur to them, or is this just another creative interpretation of data by a disingenuous 'progressive' organization?

Moreover, I didn't see their criteria for what constitutes conservative versus moderate versus liberal in an opinion editorial. In the comments section, someone laughs at the idea that Chris Matthews, a former democratic political operative, is perceived by some to be on the left. Another commenter goes as far as to say "I also think it is maybe a stretch to call Maureen Dowd a progressive." Right. I know a site shouldn't be judged by its readers; but then again, Media Matters is so oft-quoted by the netroots that they seem to share a brain.

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UPDATE 9/14/7:

Speaking of "creative interpretations of data," here's some recent news:

Dr. Ioannidis is an epidemiologist who studies research methods at the University of Ioannina School of Medicine in Greece and Tufts University in Medford, Mass. In a series of influential analytical reports, he has documented how, in thousands of peer-reviewed research papers published every year, there may be so much less than meets the eye.

These flawed findings, for the most part, stem not from fraud or formal misconduct, but from more mundane misbehavior: miscalculation, poor study design or self-serving data analysis. "There is an increasing concern that in modern research, false findings may be the majority or even the vast majority of published research claims," Dr. Ioannidis said. "A new claim about a research finding is more likely to be false than true."

Then again, if the good doctor is correct, aren't his conclusions about the data likely false as well?