CQ POLITICS NEWS
Dec. 11, 2009 – 12:14 a.m.
Liberal Bias? Show Me
By Richard L. Connor, CQ Guest Columnist
In my business the most often heard complaint is one of liberal bias in the media.
Examples are cited over and over again about favoritism, most perceived and some real, being showered on Democrats and liberal causes.
In a strange, ironic display of friendship, most of the barbs come from a cadre of those I consider to be among my best buddies. They seem to delight in demonstrating how their claims of bias are correct and I am wrong.
That’s because I contend that most evidence of media bias shows my business as often sloppy but not purposely slanted — that, as a group, we are neither clever nor well-organized enough to succeed in a coordinated effort to perpetrate such a ruse.
I’ve been waiting all week for them to send notes about last Sunday’s New York Times, considered by them to be the worst example of a liberal press.
Why?
There was lots of criticism of the president and his administration in the paper’s coverage that day.
If you only read the opinion section you would have seen the likes of Frank Rich taking wide swipes at President Obama for his decision to send 30,000 new troops to Afghanistan.
Wrote Rich, “Obama’s speech, for all its thoughtfulness and sporadic eloquence, was a failure at its central mission. On its own terms, as both policy and rhetoric, it didn’t make the case for escalating our involvement in Afghanistan. It’s doubtful that the president’s words moved the needle of public opinion wildly in any direction for a country that has tuned out Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq alike while panicking about where the next job is coming from.”
Actually, the Obama decision did move the needle of public opinion. National polls indicate that while Democrats’ opinion of him dipped on this issue, his stature with Republicans rose. The net total was a gain in public opinion regarding his handling of the war in Afghanistan.
Overall, his poll numbers for total job performance are falling and now rest at 50 percent approval rating or below.
My guess is that his standing, at least on the issue of war, will rise after Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech Thursday. He defended past administrations’ military successes providing safety and stability throughout the world.
“Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this,” Obama said. “The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms.”
Later in the speech his declarations were even stronger. “We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend,” he said. “And we honor those ideals by upholding them not when it is easy, but when it is hard.”
Wrote a New York Times reporter: ”The president conceded that there was ‘a deep ambivalence about military action today,’ which he said was rooted in ‘a reflexive suspicion of America, the world’s sole military superpower.’ But he offered a forceful defense of the United States, saying that the lessons of history should ease those suspicions.”
It will be hard for my conservative friends to twist those quotes.
And back to the Sunday edition of the Times, there were other voices skeptical and critical of the president and his administration.
Thomas L. Friedman weighed in lightly by acknowledging he believes Obama has made a mistake in Afghanistan but offering advice on what could happen to give us a chance of success there.
Maureen Dowd took a meat cleaver to the White House social secretary Desiree Rogers for believing she is somehow almost as important as the man who hired her, the president.
Dowd also criticized the administration for claiming Rogers cannot be subpoenaed to testify before Congress about her role in the Salahi debacle. There are those in Washington who do not believe this transgression is important but it was. It was a major security breech for those entrusted to guard the president.
One edition of a Sunday New York Times does not change the other 364 editions of the paper and its views or my friends’ perception of it and the media at large.
It should at least elicit an e-mail or two from someone admitting they might be wrong about one-sided reporting and slanted news coverage.
Richard L. Connor is CEO of the Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Publishing Co. and MaineToday Media, owner of newspapers in Portland, Augusta and Waterville, Maine. A newspaperman for 40 years, he has served on two Pulitzer Prize for Journalism nominating committees.
Comments
What about all the CONSERVATIVE BIAS coming out of DC? After all, its a culturally conservative town that mostly thwarts good forward legislation from being passed along to the rest of America
So, your big argument that liberal bias does not exist in the media is that the NY times was actually critical of President Obama and his administration ........ for not being more liberal?
I am pulling my hair out as I read this and screaming. Liberal bias is NOT liberal comments by opinion pages or columnists - it is in the NEWS stories. The front page, the 6pm news, etc. It is supposedly objective reporters telling one side of the story, not both sides. i.e. the liberal side. That has NOT gone away and is getting worse (look at the coverage of the Climategate scandal) No one cares what the editorial pages or a columnist says, those are opinions and not news.
Is this column supposed to be ironic? Your "evidence" that the NYTimes is not liberal consists of the NYTimes criticizing the Democratic President for not being liberal enough. And then you note that the NYTimes suddenly became more critical of Obama at the same time that Democrats became more critical of Obama. I can only assume that this column is some kind of modern theater piece on self awareness.
Try this website that tracks liberal bias on a daily basis. That's how much there is in the mainstream media: http://newsbusters.org/
You're kidding right? There's no liberal bias in the NYTimes because in one issue Frank Rich and Thomas Friedman criticized Obama for being too conservative (though Rich did appreciate Obama's "thoughtfulness and eloquence") and Maureen Dowd criticized Desiree Rogers for not falling on her sword for the One? Unbelievable!
This column is hilarious and delusional. Even the NYT has admitted they lean left, as if anyone needed them to admit it. For clear examples of liberal bias - or at the least bias in support of illegal activity - see my collection of cookie cutter puff pieces designed to promote an anti-American bill: http://24ahead.com/s/piipp Bear in mind most of those are "news" stories; they've appeared in papers coast to coast and they're all designed to promote the same, anti-American bill. For more bias, type the name of an MSM "journalist" into the tag search box on every page at my site.
Rich, if you will come home to Texas and publish as a conservative again we will treat you nice. We still have to make a distinction between news stories, opinion columns and editorials but we can do it within your comfort zone. We really would like to see the old S-T get a new owner/publisher and go to the glory days again. Best regards, Bill
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