Liberal vs. conservative media

You shall judge a man by his friends. Or his Twitter follows.

A group of researchers at Duke University found that public figures who are not openly political, as well as private citizens who use the site mainly for social purposes, unwittingly reveal their political leanings through whom they choose to follow, and who follows them.

In other words, it's not just what you tweet.

“The order just emerges from the patterns in followings, ” researcher David B. Sparks said.

The Duke analysis started by comparing the networks of a large number of Twitter accounts. The accounts of those in the political center will have networks that look similar, while the more liberal accounts will have progressively less in common with the more conservative ones. The two accounts that have the least in common will be the most conservative and the most liberal. Among members of the House of Representatives those accounts belonged to Michelle Bachmann and John Conyers, respectively.

We've culled the five most left-leaning and right-leaning media figures from the study.

But first, here's who missed the list: The O'Reilly Factor, Ann Coulter, and Drudge Report were not far enough right, while Katie Couric, MSNBC, the Washington Post, and Brian Williams were just left of center.