webby snippets

AP Photo; Getty Images (2) The left may be pressuring President Obama to exit Afghanistan. But their heroes—from FDR to JFK—promoted U.S. involvement in more wars than all modern GOP presidents combined.

Should President Barack Obama continue his escalation of the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, it will be the liberal thing to do.

What too few Americans realize—especially the president’s anti-war supporters, who accuse him of betraying liberal or "progressive" values—is that if he accedes to General Stanley McChrystal's request for more troops in Afghanistan and intensifies the drone attacks in Pakistan, he will follow squarely in the footsteps of the great liberal statesmen he has cited as his role models. Though opponents of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cheered loudly when Obama spoke reverentially in his campaign speeches of Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John F. Kennedy, those heroes of the president promoted and oversaw U.S. involvement in wars that killed, by great magnitudes, more Americans and foreign civilians than all the modern Republican military operations combined.

Though liberals are routinely chastised for their “secular relativism,” as Bill O’Reilly puts it, American statesmen who waged the largest wars were driven by the Christian doctrine of “good works,” often enunciated in Obama’s speeches as the duty to be “our brother’s keeper.”

What should be even more troubling to those who call themselves progressives but oppose the current wars: Obama's motivations for pursuing them are rooted in the central tenet of progressivism, enunciated by his idols, that the American national government is responsible for the reform and uplift of those "we" deem to be living below "our" standards, and that "they" must be protected from their oppressors. Obama's role models followed the logic of that moral calling to the ends of the earth.

And though liberals are routinely chastised for their "secular relativism," as Bill O'Reilly puts it, liberal statesmen who waged the largest wars were driven by the Christian doctrine of "good works," often enunciated in Obama's speeches as the duty to be "our brother's keeper." Whereas the traditional conservative notion of Christian communal obligation is limited to one’s family or nation, Obama’s political ancestors extended it to the world.

Both Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson declared that God had given American leaders—"Christ's Army," according to Wilson—the divine duty to "improve" the backward peoples of America and the world. Roosevelt and Wilson used that rationale to establish modern progressivism and American imperialism, both of which were part of what Roosevelt called "the long struggle for the uplift of humanity." They argued that greater government intervention, through social welfare and regulatory programs at home and military incursions abroad, would remake American slums and all the countries of the world into the Puritan ideal of a "city on a hill."

To fulfill this mission, Roosevelt championed many social-welfare measures, including pure-food and worker-safety regulations, but he also pushed the United States to attack Spain and occupy Cuba and the Philippines—the so-called Spanish-American War, which historians characterize as America's "first imperial war.” The assault and subsequent occupations resulted in the deaths of more than 10,000 Cubans, several hundred thousand Filipino civilians, and 4,541 American soldiers.

Wilson believed that to "Christianize the world" required the radical expansion of government power. Along with fellow progressives in Congress, Wilson established three classic progressive institutions: the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Reserve Board, and the federal income tax. But Wilson's self-appointed obligation to rescue and “redeem” all the world's people compelled him, beginning in 1916, to push the country toward intervention in Europe with what many historians call a "missionary zeal." The United States, he said, "must assume the messianic mantle" and had "the right and duty to intervene whenever and wherever" its leaders thought necessary. Some 116,000 U.S. servicemen were killed and more than 200,000 wounded in World War I, which ended in a virtual stalemate.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the next president to take up the liberal mission. According to Robert Dallek's award-winning biography, the origin of FDR's commitment to social-welfare programs and international interventionism was "the Christian gentleman's ideal of service to the less fortunate: the conviction that privileged Americans should take a part in relieving national and international ills."

H Jennifer και το λουκούμι!

After the ad video, you will be able to watch a discussion on youth's future of employment, or I should say unemployment. The social repercussions of the global financial crisis are pushing forward the fading of a whole generation in the background of the human history.

It's a pity that such affluence in talent and skills is neglected in an era when creativity might be the solution to exit this crisis.

And for those who didn't visit my tumblelog last night, I'm posting also here the ultimate MacBook sleeve! Don't forget to check the hand graft website for more items.

Campaign Desk — October 08, 2009 09:17 AM

Journalism Should Own Its Liberalism

And then manage it, challenge it, and account for it

By Thomas Edsall

• Single Page
• Print
• Email
• Comments
• Digg Facebook Reddit StumbleUpon Delicious

The floodtide of e-mails and letters to New York Times ombudsman Clark Hoyt after his September 27 column on the paper’s failure to promptly investigate the conservative-initiated stories about Van Jones and ACORN testifies to the failure of the mainstream press to deal with the issue of liberal bias.

“Many readers were not buying [the] contention that liberal bias had nothing to do with the slow response to ACORN and, before that, to the resignation of Van Jones, a White House aide,” Hoyt wrote this past Sunday.

Hoyt quoted correspondence from angry Times readers: “‘So, beside Jill Abramson, Bill Keller and Barack Obama, were you able to find anyone, not resident in a cemetery, who was so tuned out?’ asked Charles Harkins of Spartanburg, S.C. Jerry Komar of Collingswood, N.J., charged that Times editors ‘hoped the story would blow over. They were caught in their own web of bias.’”

Glenn Beck, FOX, and a couple of conservative video reporters have, in effect, forced the editors and ombudsmen at two of the nation’s leading newspapers, the Times and The Washington Post, to assume a full-scale defensive posture regarding charges of liberal bias.

At the Times, according to Hoyt, managing editor Abramson and executive editor Keller have assigned an editor to keep an eye on the “opinion media.” At The Washington Post, executive editor Marcus Brauchli confessed to ombudsman Andrew Alexander that “we are not well-enough informed about conservative issues.” Brauchli announced to Alexander his intention to “challenge our reporters and editors with great frequency to look at what is going on across the political spectrum … at the extremes, among the rabble-rousers, as well as among policymakers.” Undoubtedly, Alexander (and Brauchli) are experiencing the same e-mail campaigns that plagued Hoyt.

The actions at both the Post and the Times are ad hoc reactions to the latest blow up, and do little or nothing to address the underlying reality at most papers.

The mainstream press is liberal. Once, before 1965, reporters were a mix of the working stiffs leavened by ne’er-do-well college grads unfit for corporate headquarters or divinity school. Since the civil rights and women’s movements, the culture wars and Watergate, the press corps at such institutions as The Washington Post, ABC-NBC-CBS News, the NYT, The Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, etc. is composed in large part of “new” or “creative” class members of the liberal elite—well-educated men and women who tend to favor abortion rights, women’s rights, civil rights, and gay rights. In the main, they find such figures as Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Pat Robertson, or Jerry Falwell beneath contempt.

In a UCLA study of media bias, reporters were found to be substantially more liberal and more Democratic than the public at large. Hoyt, in a column last year, acknowledged this finding: “Being human, journalists do have personal biases, and a long line of studies has shown that they tend to be more socially and politically liberal than the population at large. There is no reason to believe Times journalists are any different.”

If reporters were the only ones allowed to vote, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, and John Kerry would have won the White House by landslide margins. More specifically, reporters and editors tend to be social liberals, not economic liberals. Their view of unions and the labor movement is wary and suspicious. They are far more interested in stories about hate crimes than in stories about the distribution of income.

But, and this is a mega-but, even though the mainstream media are by this measure liberal, ending the discussion at this point would be a major disservice to both the press and the public. While the personnel tend to share an ideological worldview, most have a personal and professional commitment to the objective presentation of information, a commitment that is not shared by the conservative media. FOX News, The Weekly Standard, National Review, The Washington Times, Drudge, The Washington Examiner, The American Spectator, CNS News, Town Hall, WorldNetDaily, Insight Magazine are all explicitly ideological. FOX makes the bizarre and palpably untrue claim of ideological neutrality, “We Report, You Decide”—a claim it violates so routinely that no one takes it seriously.

While the mainstream media often fail to live up to their own standards, their committed pursuit of neutrality and objectivity is crucial to the quality of American journalism. That commitment is the main reason the mainstream press is so intensely sensitive to allegations of bias. The refusal of mainstream media executives to acknowledge the ideological leanings of their staffs has produced a dangerous form of media guilt in which the press leans over so far backward to avoid the charge of left bias that it ends up either neutered or leaning to the right. This happened at The Washington Post and was reflected in weak and sometimes fawning coverage, first of the opening years of the Reagan administration, and even more so during George W. Bush’s first term—when not only the lead-up to the Iraq invasion but key domestic initiatives went largely unexamined, with disastrous consequences.

So, to quote Lenin on behalf of the mainstream media, What is to be done? There are a few things.

An important first step is to abandon the notion, popularized by Thomas Frank in What’s the Matter with Kansas?, that white working class voters are suckers, willing to cast ballots against their economic interests because corporations and evangelical Christians have scared the bejesus out of them with phony issues like gay marriage, abortion, government takeover of the healthcare system, and distribution of condoms in the schools.

• 1
• 2

• Single Page
• Print
• Email
• Digg Facebook Reddit StumbleUpon Delicious

Subscribe to the Columbia Journalism Review at our special Web rates.

Comments Post a Comment

Mr. Edsell,

Thank you for writing a much needed piece.

However, in your slam against Fox News, you neglected to mention that Hanitty on Tuesday had on Michael Moore and O'Reilly hosted Medea Benjermain (of Code Pink).

Can Olbermann and Maddow say the same?

And if Newspaper Editors look, there are platforms where Conservatives are learning about reporting and editing (and about being neutral in news stories, but always wary of Power, which is where modern news is failing today -- see the NYT).

Two questions. One for Mr. Edsell and one for the CJR Editors:

Mr. Edsell, when "Republicans," or "Conservatives," are quoted, usually they are people who are not known or active within the political spehere. In fact, those usually quoted take the contrary positions of actual activists. This never happens with Liberal and Democratic Party activists.

What will it take for News Reporters and Editors to find actual activists on the Republican and Conservative side?

Heck, if you guys need one -- I'm here. I can direct you to others.

My next question is to CJR:

Will you invite journalists from Pajama media to write here as well? And will you use them as source material regarding the Right's views?

Posted by JSF on Thu 8 Oct 2009 at 11:30 AM

You say "The mainstream press is liberal." And you also say "the press leans over so far backward to avoid the charge of left bias that it ends up either neutered or leaning to the right."

If I call myself a vegetarian and believe with all my heart that eating meat is both immoral and unhealthy, but I enjoy a nice steak dinner twice a week, does it make sense to refer to me as a vegetarian?

http://mediamatters.org/blog/200910080038

Posted by Jamison Foser on Thu 8 Oct 2009 at 06:02 PM

JSF: Olbermann, no, but Maddow regularly invites conservatives onto her show. Most ignore her requests. A few, however, have picked up the gauntlet, including Rick Berman on Oct. 6.

Posted by Catbus on Thu 8 Oct 2009 at 06:41 PM

The lack of coverage by whatever "liberal" paper you wish to choose should not be politics. Liberal thinking should not leave morality to everyone else. As my son told me in high school I may be a liberal political voter but a very conservative teacher in my methods and demands for student output. Those ladies in ACORN were not only unprofessional in their actions, they were both unethical and immoral in setting someone up for taxation for prostitution etc. My bigger complaint with ACORN is the lapses of oversight by management. None of this would have happened in Baltimore, Virginia or San Diego if the management were checking and also re-teaching the necessity of professional ethics on the job. If Wall Street CEO/CFO's forget their ethics in time of money, one can hardly expect every person off the street or out of high school will understand what must be done in terms of taxation or other unsavory actions someone comes in to talk with them. Those are the situations that they call the manager to handle. Cell phones make contacts much easier and if they can't contact them, they must ask the person or persons to return at another time. Reputations of persons or organizations take years to build up and one incident to demolish. NY Times reporters may have been late but none of them specified the illegal and unethical actions. One would think analysis at this time would have worked better than simple facts that most people already knew.

Posted by Patricia Wilson on Thu 8 Oct 2009 at 06:57 PM

The Fallacy of Begging the Premise, meet Thomas Edsall. Thomas Edsall, meet The Fallacy of Begging the Premise. You two should REALLY get to know one another. Because anyone who says the press leans right while saying the "press is liberal" has obviously never become acquainted with The Fallacy of Begging the Premise.

Good grief. When will a stake finally be driven through this dopey, RNC-sponsored idea that all that really matters is the ideology of the reporters themselves, and not, you know, the actual work product that the reporters, their editors, the managing editors and the publisher produce. Seriously, when?

Posted by SB on Thu 8 Oct 2009 at 07:13 PM

This article is simply stunning in its myopia.

Why did the NYT ignore the Great Acorn Scandal? Because Acorn has received $53M from the US over a decade. The documented videos showed a risk that a few tens of thousands of dollars might by misused. Total.

Now: How much did Halliburton, Boeing, Lockheed, any one of the top 10 Katrina no-bid contractors, or the worst of Duke Cunningham's cronies steal? In each case, easily at least $10M. EACH. And we don't know how much, because there hasn't been much investigation.

So the NYT was exercising good news judgment. It has nothing to do with whether or not college educated newspaper reporters tend to think like other educated Americans.

Such as stupid, stupid article that is simply a disservice to truth and proportionality in news reporting.

Posted by Dollared on Thu 8 Oct 2009 at 08:13 PM

Thomas Edsall is a deranged fruitcake. That this moronic fraud would write in the Columbia Journalism Review, I think, is an embarrassment.

At the same time Nixon speechwriter Pat Buchannan first put forth the Myth of the LIberal News Media, the right wing was busy buying up media outlets. Journalists may be liberal in their private opinions but owners of the media are ultra-right wing -- and journalists bend over backwards trying to pander to the conservative think tanks and pundits who dictate how issues are framed.

Using the ACORN story as your litmus test is just stupid. This was something that was blown way out of proportion by the right wing media. To accuse anyone who thinks that Bush et all might have looked the other way when they saw the 9-11 attacking coming is evidence of liberal bias is simply accepting right wing doctrine as truth. Cheney and the ultra conservatives are perfectly capable of such extreme deception.

As I note in my book Politics in the Human Interest, you can’t know what’s going on and not be somewhat liberal in your views. That is why both social scientists and the physical scientists are more liberal than the general population.

Similarly, journalists who explore issue in depth find that the conservative mindset of individual responsibility, cutting taxes, ignoring social causes, abolishing social programs and relying on prisons and the military to make people behave is ideology and does not fit the contours of most social problems.

Mr. Fruitcake, aka Edsall, does journalism a disservice.

Bill Du Bois, Ph.D.

Posted by Bill Du Bois on Thu 8 Oct 2009 at 08:16 PM

I was honestly suprised by your story. It is finally refreshing to hear that yes you do hear us (American Citizens) when we say just give us the truth. Infact it's so simple, I don't know why the so called "mainstream media" didn't get it sooner. Although you took shots at Fox News that I believe are unfair. Yes, they do lean to the right, but they also report both sides of the story. The "mainstream media" leans way to the left and stays there, stuck and doesn't report the whole story. The American People just want to come home from a long day of work (if they are still working) and watch the news, get the truth and the facts. More Americans watch Fox News because they do give the truth and the facts. You certainly do not give Americans enough credit. Have you been hiding under a rock? Most people know not to believe everything you hear. I believe I learned that in the 1st grade. We actually know how to go to the library to research on our own, imagine that! Cross reference stories that we're not so sure about. Talk with our friends and neighbors about the "things" that are on our mind. The "things" we worry and wonder about. The American People doesn't need news stations to waste our precious time with half of the story. We don't even have time for all of the story. Just give us the facts and report the truth and there will be nothing more to discuss. Journalists have a great job that I admire. I wouldn't feel good about myself if I only got paid for my opinion. That is NOT what journalism is about. If you want to give your opinion, write a book and see how many people buy it. Glenn Beck did and look how many copies he sold! ;)

Posted by Christine Brennan on Thu 8 Oct 2009 at 08:34 PM

Wow. What an incredible bunch of nonsense. The mainstream media are "liberal" because on ACORN and Van Jones they echoed the extreme right's talking points somehwat slowly rather than immediately as they usually do? By all means, hold ACORN to account for any misdeeds by some of their employees, but would how do Edsall and other rightwing nutcakes feel about holding say, Blackwater or Cigna or United Healthcare or Lockheed to the same standard? Edsall flatly states "the mainstream press is liberal." Poppycock. Oh, but a 4 year old UCLA study co=authored by one Jeffery Milyo (put Milyo in the search box at www.bradblog.com to see what kind of sefl-fulfilling 'studies' he does) proves it because reporters are "more liberal and Democratic", as if those were the same thing these days, than the public at large. How about their bosses, the owners of the mainstream media. CJR could do better than publish this nonsensical crap.
Tom Klammer
www.tellsomebody.us

Posted by Tom Klammer on Thu 8 Oct 2009 at 10:45 PM

"More Americans watch Fox News because they do give the truth and the facts."

Chistine - More Americans watch Fox News because the most knowledgeable audience has abandoned television news as a source of information. Thereby making Fox king of the less-discerning viewers. I'm not sure congratulations are in order.

Posted by Duncan on Thu 8 Oct 2009 at 11:57 PM

A typical newsroom atmosphere isn't exactly welcoming to conservatives who are mocked, criticized, shunned and, the best part -- either not hired or not promoted.

Much like academia, journalism is self selecting and, as such, most conservatives either select out or eventually leave. I've seen it at numerous news outlets.

So this fantasy of liberal superiority in the newsroom is rooted in a pretty institutional bias against the right. That said, thanks for being honest about how left wing the media really are.

Posted by Dan Gainor on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 12:14 AM

The idea of the press"bending over backwards" to hide its liberalism reminds me of the story of this man, who was so dirty that he had to wash very often so that no one notices.

Posted by Christophe Thill on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 06:28 AM

For those who are shopping for a good college education for their children, let the record show that it was Oklahoma State University that issued a Ph.D. to Bill Du Bois, whose above criticism of Mr. Edsall's thoughtful and balanced editorial was to call him "a deranged fraud" and "Mr. Fruitcake."

Professor Du Bois, the admissions departments at every other university in the Sooner state owe you a debt of gratitude for your public act of devaluing an OSU degree and giving them a better shot at top high school graduates next spring.

Posted by L.N. Smithee on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 06:53 AM

Mr du Bois- your idiotic reduction of American conservatism to "individual responsibility, cutting taxes, ignoring social causes, abolishing social programs and relying on prisons and the military to make people behave" shows your incapacity to delve outside the constraints of your own bias to consider other people's points of view, and thus your lack of that admirable liberal trait of "empathy and [...] willingness to see the good in human nature." You do your profession a disservice by showing to the rest of the world what the academia produces: facts in service of callous name-calling and partisan cat-fighting. Give us facts and thoughtful analysis man, not divisive witticisms.

To all- read the article and stop picking and choosing which facts you want to absorb. The writer clearly argues that "the press leans over so far backward...that it ends up either neutered or leaning to the right" on the premise that "most [of the liberal media] have a personal and professional commitment to the objective presentation of information, a commitment that is not shared by the conservative media." The existence of a liberal media is not disproved by its extreme contortions to showing the other side of the political spectrum. Only, that it endangers the existence of a liberal media by not standing up for its own biases. Bottom line, liberal media is more preferable from conservative media because of its committment to fairness, but only as long as it fully commits to that fairness. The "liberal media" being a myth or not is secondary to the idea that all members of the media have their biases, and it is in the reader's and publisher's benefit to highlight these biases instead of forcing a "bland, forced neutrality."

Posted by John on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 07:44 AM

Conservatives are so obsessed with this silly "liberal bias" idea that they are now stripping "liberal bias" out of the Bible. Yes, that's right. The Bible. Because, I guess, Jesus, that long-haired, sandal-wearing ex-hippie must be too commie-socialist now for the rightwingers -- you know, he shared his fish and wine and told us all to love our neighbor and do for the "least" of us. THAT'S LIBERAL!!!!! AND FEMININE!!!! Get rid of that liberal bias!
Conservative Bible Project - Conservapedia ah hahahahahahaha! How looney is that?

Oh, they didn't write fast enough for your taste about the resignation of a minor official in charge of energy jobs? They didn't write fast enough about a couple of rightwing operatives dressed up in clown outfits trying to get local front-office workers in a community-based organization to mess up on the tax advice they gave? You know, maybe those were stupid, minor, uninteresting stories to us NORMAL people, especially with serious domestic problems like a recession, two wars, and a myriad of other actually noteworthy, serious ACTUAL news items that reporters needed to cover. Doh-hhh!

Posted by Tom on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 08:28 AM

Mr. Edsall makes some very good points, but risks his credibility by citing that widely discredited UCLA study. The methodology on that study is so seriously flawed, it's is actually laughable. However, IF more journos vote Democratic, which I don't accept and noone can prove, it doesn't follow that their actual reporting output is biased. In any case, voting patterns aren't the same thing as bias in news writing.

There is no "liberal bias" in the mainstream media. Conservatives are always whining about "liberal bias" yet when you ask them to point out "liberal bias" they can't do it. Because it doesn't exist in the mainstream media. To conservatives, reporting on anything that the Conservatives DON'T LIKE constitutes "liberal bias." Stating an opinion that Conservatives DON'T LIKE is "liberal bias." Not jumping up and saluting the confederate flag and immediately reporting stupid conservative obsessions on demand is "liberal bias."

I can definitely show you where mainstream national news media is biased on the conservative side. You have business reporters, you don't have labor reporters, for example. You have a 3:1 Republican-to-Democratic representation on all of the news talk shows. It is common practice in news talk shows to allow the Republican to have both the first word and the last word. You have a Washington Post that is literally LARDED with neoconservatives with NO liberal columnists. Even the vaunted NYT has only one real liberal columnist, Paul Krugman.

You have about ten ex-Bush officials such as Perino, Townsend, Rove, as "news analysts" on CNN and MSNBC, to say nothing about FOX. You have rightwing extremists as exec news producers on CBS and ABC. Charles Gibson and Brian Williams are known to be Republican, as is David Gregory, who can't suck up enough to every Cheney advocate or Republican in Congress. You have NO liberals as network anchors, nor on CNN. On CNN you have Campbell Brown married to a rightwing operative, Kyra Phillips as a rightwing operative, and Wolf Blitzer, who hosts three Republicans to every Democrat, is also an outright rightwing sympathizer. You have Bush operative Fran Townsend outright advocating for and serving as spokesperson for Dick Cheney in her CNN position as "news" analyst. The only neutral, unbiased CNN anchor is Anderson Cooper. Even NPR is larded with frank, outright rightwing operatives. And let's not even go into the frank rightwing bias in Time Magazine and Newsweek. Even the so-called "liberal" MSNBC has three hours of conservative Scarborough to three house of "liberal" news shows.

Show me where mainstream media is "liberal biased." You call it "biased" but you can't demonstrate it, because it doesn't exist. Now you want to talk about Huffington Post and Talking Points Memo, yes, those news organizations have a liberal bias, which they proudly acknowledge. And Politico and Drudge have a well-known rightwing bias. But you can't point to actual "liberal bias" is mainstream media. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Posted by James on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 08:43 AM

The article is about how crippled and blinded the mainstream media is by its own liberal bias, how these things routinely skew their reporting…yet the guy still can’t resist a dig at conservative media’s “bizarre and palpably untrue claim of ideological neutrality”.

Here is an idea…stop crying about the guys consistently exposing your own ideological bias and get your house in order. THEN we can talk about the conservative media.

Posted by RAB on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 09:29 AM

James,

Check this out.

Most Americans see press as liberally biased (Pew):

http://people-press.org/report/543/

Journalist donated money to Democrat causes and candidates by a 9-1 ratio in 2006 (also known as "follow the money"):

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19113455/:

Is it just a coincidence that most of the public sees the press as liberal AND that the press donates overwhelmingly to Democrats and liberals politically?

Or is it everyone else's imagination that we need you to save us all from?

Posted by Good Lt. on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 09:30 AM

Thank you for an insightful article. You are correct; we are not "suckers", ill-educated, unread, country rubes who inhabit the vast "fly-over" region of the country. You are correct also regarding the "routine" coverage we see and read daily. I used to believe that a liberal bias alone drove the coverage and treatment of the stories I saw at 6pm and 10pm, and read in the local newspaper. Today, I think it's more than that. As I watch the local newscasts and read the local paper, I wonder why the reporters do not ask the really relevant questions and the follow-up questions. A case in point: I called a local station a few years ago to inquire about a story of a local activist group demanding more money for city libraries even in the face budget shortfalls. In the story, the group's leader was given a pulpit to promote the cause, giving all the reasons the libraries should get the money when all other aencies were having to reduce spending. My question to the producer was, "Why did the reporter not ask the spokesman where he thought the extra money would come from; a tax increase or take the money from another agency?" The producer hesitated and then replied, "We're not supposed to take one side or the other," as though posing a tough question would be cconstrued as being "against" the group and its goals.

The locals are not well-educated in their own craft or in the areas they are assigned to cover, and specifically they seem to have abandoned critical thinking in favor of currying favor. They are busy trying to move to larger papers or bigger markets. Their allegiance is to their own careers rather than a professional creed. Sadly, they are losing credibility each day with their audiences. Even sadder is that they do not realize it.

Posted by D.Matthews on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 09:48 AM

Hey Tom,
Did you miss the part where Jesus said "give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime." I'm so sick of libs saying how generous and caring they are. It's not generous or caring if the government forces you to do it. It is if you do it on your own, and if you caught the 20/20 segment a while back, you would know that conservatives, by a large margin, are more giving of what they have than libs.

Conservatives are so obsessed with this silly "liberal bias" idea that they are now stripping "liberal bias" out of the Bible. Yes, that's right. The Bible. Because, I guess, Jesus, that long-haired, sandal-wearing ex-hippie must be too commie-socialist now for the rightwingers -- you know, he shared his fish and wine and told us all to love our neighbor and do for the "least" of us. THAT'S LIBERAL!!!!! AND FEMININE!!!! Get rid of that liberal bias!
Conservative Bible Project - Conservapedia ah hahahahahahaha! How looney is that?

Posted by Michelle on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 09:54 AM

What's up Good Lt. my fellow HotAir reader!

You should know better to fight a liberal with facts.

Posted by uknowmorethanme on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 09:59 AM

In the midst of observing the fact of liberal media bias, Tommy types: "FOX makes the bizarre and palpably untrue claim of ideological neutrality, “We Report, You Decide”—a claim it violates so routinely that no one takes it seriously."

...and conveniently "forgets" to document the proof for his claim.

Probably the same way the liberal media "forgets" to mention the party affiliation of Democrats when they are caught misbehaving or breaking the law.

Posted by Hyman Roth on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 10:05 AM

Sure, go ahead and embrace your liberal bias. Let it be the lead weight around your neck bring about the ultimate end of liberal main stream media. You are correct when you say conservatives are not baffons or sheep. Personally I'm a College graduate in finance and engineering. I am a Christian and a conservative. The only use I have for liberal media is to help police fake "conservatives" beyond that I think Liberals are anti-American and anti constitution with the exception of 1st and 5th amendment. Until you come around you will continue to be run out of business and called out for the bed of lies that you espouse or cover up to suit you and your agenda.

Posted by MarkR on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 10:15 AM

It's Fri Oct 9. Upon awakening I read this column and another about Obama being awarded the Nobel prize. I am now trying to survive having nearly drowned in my corn flakes from the laughter occasioned by these two fraudulent stories. This column is simply further evidence that liberals are indeed the inhabitants of some weird, alternative and dangerous universe. The Nobel folks, in their cynical attempt at manipulating the world scene with bogus prizes, instead show themselves to be utterly delusional. God help us all.

Posted by Truth Searcher on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 10:15 AM

Mr Esall - Outstanding piece. My biggest gripe with the liberal media has always been their failure to admit their bias. If they simply admitted their leftwing views then I would care less.

For example I was watching PBS's (great) piece "Inventing LA/The Chandlers." It was buring me up as the narrators continued to describe the Chandler family as "right wing" (which they were) while referring to the new direction under Otis Chandler as "centrist." Which it was not. It was iberal. This is the fraud that burns conservatives about liberal media bias.

Posted by Jeff on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 10:20 AM

"FOX makes the bizarre and palpably untrue claim of ideological neutrality, “We Report, You Decide”—a claim it violates so routinely that no one takes it seriously."

Prove it.

Straight news blocks, not talk shows (Beck, O'Reilly, etc.)

Posted by texican on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 10:26 AM

Your entire argument is based upon the assumption that admittedly liberal media maintains a standard of impartiality in reporting the news and choosing which news to report. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth, making your entire article a useless effort.

Posted by Jenny Ling Po on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 10:33 AM

I know we're human and it's difficult to remain unbiased, but I miss the "just the facts" type of reporting. As it is, I don't trust any mainstream source of the news. I have stopped watching the news. I have stopped reading the news also - and that includes The Times and Newsweek which I have read all my life. Don't wonder why subscriptions have gone down. Subscriptions have gone down because we don't trust the source of our news. So now I get my news from different sources (especially International) available in the internet. If ever our mainstream news becomes news instead of biased opinions I will come back. For now, it is just pathetic and just plain wrong, especially because I don't like to be manipulated.

Posted by Mary on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 10:42 AM

@Good Lt.

What I said was, you rightwing buffoons cannot ever SHOW any liberal bias. You don't even know what liberal "bias" is. YOu can't even define "liberal bias." You think it is a story that you don't like. You think it is an opinion that you don't like.

You rightwing lunatics are always spluttering about "liberal bias" and you can never demonstrate it. You can never prove where it exists. The way people vote or don't vote is completely irrelevant, and a stupid, nonsensical argument. You people just blather on making sweeping, fact-free statements without any evidence whatsoever as is apparent in this thread.

Show me some liberal bias in the mainstream media. Go ahead.

Posted by James on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 10:46 AM

A moronic column. "Their ideology does not seem to make for good journalists".
So an unshakable belief in centralized government power does make for good journalists, but a healthy skepticism towards that does not.
Why waste words, a truly moronic piece which nails the real problem of contemporary American journalism, stupidity amazingly combined with arrogance.

Posted by johnt on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 10:56 AM

"FOX makes the bizarre and palpably untrue claim of ideological neutrality, “We Report, You Decide”—a claim it violates so routinely that no one takes it seriously."

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!

No one take Fox seriously, but the Fox show "Red Eye" has better ratings in the wee hours of the morning than CNN, HLN, and MSNBC combined in their best hours in primetime? Fox News does, of course, do both news shows and opinion shows. What distinguishes Fox from CNN. HLN,MSNBC, and the lame stream media as exemplified by the NYT is that Fox doesn't try to blur the lines between news and opinion. You, Edsall, are a purblind fool, only slightly less foolish than the purblind fools of the lame stream media, led by the leftist ideologues at the NYT.

Fox is popular because people believe they get something far closer to fairness and objectivity there. The lame stream media is falling into irrelevance and bankruptcy because people are tired of being misled, misinformed, and uninformed by the profoundly and pervasively leftist and liberal propaganda the former titans of the press have been spewing like nauseous drunks for decades.

I have known since the early sixties that the so-called professionals of the so-called news media could not be trusted, when the reporting on the Viet Nam War diverged spectacularly from the information I got from veterans who had been in theatre. No one I know who has the capacity for critical thought takes the news at face value, but considers the source and conducts further research from a variety of sources whenever the subject commands sufficient interest.

Edsall, you might as well put a seashell at your ear and report what you hear as publishing the end-product of the liberal meme digestive tract that apparently resides behind your eyeballs.

Posted by novaculus on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 10:59 AM

This is where you lost me:

While the personnel tend to share an ideological worldview, most have a personal and professional commitment to the objective presentation of information ....

Objective presentation of information MY ASS.

Posted by Mister Tan on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 11:05 AM

I was tracking with you until you referred to the potential for Govt takeover of Healthcare as a "phoney" issue.

Posted by jack tatum on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 11:11 AM

The fact that this was meant as a "thoughtful" piece, as opposed to "parody" is a bigger indictment of the Media's failures than their actions.

Posted by Mondo Frazier on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 11:37 AM

Instead of attack the mainstream media for its supposed "liberal bias," this writer should examine the blatant ideological opinions passed off as "news" by Fox, WorldNet Daily, and their ilk. Spreading false information promoted in order to influence public opinion or the government is a dangerous trend in journalism.
Their assault on real journalism has been well established in the documentary "Outfoxed." A recent Pew poll found Fox ‘News’ viewers came in last regarding their comprehension of national and international affairs. And Mr. Edsall wants reporters to pander to their audience by offering more of the same? God help journalism and the Fourth Estate.

Posted by MC Burton on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 11:39 AM

Liberal James, you want some examples of liberal bias. Here are 5 off the top of my head:

1. Dan Rather fakes documents to further an Anti-Bush story.
2. ABC gave Obama an entire hour to talk up his healthcare reform, but refused to give even a few minutes to a dissenting viewpoint or even allow commercials from opponents of the reform to air.
3. Wolf Blitizer on CNN "fact checked" a SNL skit on Obama, something that NEVER happened when Ferrell was doing his Bush impersonation.
4. Positive coverage of Obama during the election was double or triple those for McCain in all main stream media outlets. The actual figures vary, but it was a large margin.
5. Anderson Cooper referred to those attending Tea Parties as teabaggers, an overt seedy, sexual reference that had nothing to do with the story of why those people gathered together in protest.

There are 5. I can't take the time to go through all. The sad part is, many times the liberal bias is simply omission, or pointed adjective, or telling adverb.

Liberal James, you probably won't care about this and will laugh off my examples. If facts were the main issue, you would not have made your comments.

And for the "doctor" with his book, to stated that "you can’t know what’s going on and not be somewhat liberal in your views", you are quite the egotist, aren't you? What is "going on", doctor? Please inform those of us who just aren't smart enough to be liberal. I've always heard that if you are 20 and conservative you have no heart, but if you are 40 and liberal, you have no brain. My experience is that liberals don't live in the real world.

That is why demographics show that liberals are at the two extremes: poor and rich. Why? Because these are the extremes that government policy doesn't affect them adversely. For the poor, it is entitlement. For the rich, an additional tax won't hurt them. It is us in the middle class that suffer the most from liberal policy. Those that have struggled daily throughout our levels to better our situation, who have worked long hours, who have sacrificed certain luxuries in order to make a better life for ourselves, only to see our money taken away and given to somebody we don't know to give them something that we worked and paid for. No, on the contrary, doctor, WE are the ones who know what is "going on", despite the liberal media trying to keep it from us.

Posted by Conservative James on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 11:44 AM

Mr. Edsall, thank you for some insightful thoughts, but I will prod you to go one level deeper and ask, "What is objective reality? This is the heart of the political debate as well as the cultural/religious war in which we find ourselves.

Everyone has a worldview. To deny this and claim total objectivity is to delude oneself. The best any of us can do is to understand our own viewpoint and those of others and to declare our own biases. (I hold a Biblical, conservative Christian worldview. That is my starting point.) When presented with factual information, we automatically classify and attempt to understand the new input in light of our basic worldview.

We are dealing with four groups of people in the U.S. today: (1) traditional Biblical (including orthodox Judaism and most of Islam) holds that there is one God, creator and ruler of the universe, who governs our lives and establishes absolute standards of truth, morality and conduct in general, (2) secular atheism/existentialism, developed in its present form by the 19th century German philosopers (Hegel, Nietzche, Marx) and French writers such as Sartre, and (3) pantheistic monism, primarily Hinduism and Buddhism. In the political realm, the first worldview gave us modern Britain and the U.S.. The second was the philosophical basis justifying tyrannical despots such as Hitler, Lenin and Stalin in the West, and Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh, Kim Il Sung and Pol Pot in the East.

What most journalists miss is that these viewpoints lead to opposing conclusions in the modern political context, but each is logical if you work from their starting assumptions about reality. Thus, most writers characterize political conservatives as uneducated, simple-minded and easily led. While this may be true of some of their followers--as well as the followers of liberal and hard left politicians--it completely misses the point when describing the conservative leadership.

It also explains why Christians and Orthodox Jews generally see Islamic fundamentalists in a different light than other writers. Ironically, we understand them better, because we share a common set of starting assumptions, and it is primarily in the understanding of the nature of God and His attitude toward people that we differ, leading us to opposite political conclusions, e.g., liberty versus Sharia law.

Much of contemporary Western liberal philosophy is based on ideas that are fundamentally Hindu in origin, now couched in western terminology. This was first brought to the West a century ago by Swami Vivekananda and popularized in the 1960s by the Beatles and their guru, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. This worldview believes that people are fundamentally good at the core, and it is the illusions of this world that make us do bad things. Communism combined this with some Christian ideas and led to the prevailing view that mankind is inherently good, but is corrupted by his environment. If you could just create a utopian environment, everyone would behave well. The empiric evidence shows that this has never worked. Every Communist state has degenerated into a corrupt mess.

The Bible teaches that people, though originally designed to be good, were corrupted by the entry of sin into the world. Since then, no one can be good, no matter how hard they try. This leads to an inherent distrust of political power. It was the reason why the authors of the U.S. constitution painstakingly established a system that separates power and provides checks and balances. This has now been short-circuited by the consolidation of power by one political element in the executive branch, with willing support from Congress and to some extent the Supreme Court.

I challenge you to contemplate these ideas and further editorialize on the subject once you have done so. Scientific and Medical journalism has taken pains in recent years to require authors of peer reviewed papers to consider and declare their conflicts of interest that could bias them. If all other journalists would do the same, the results would be eye-opening to the public.

Posted by THF on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 11:46 AM

Lib James, what color is the sky in your world?

Posted by CraigC on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 12:11 PM

I can't believe that anyone thinks there's a conservative bias, at least in the face of the massive NYT-WaPo-Boston Globe-etc. megaplex. MSNBC/NBC, CBS, ABC are completely in the tank for every liberal tool that comes down the pike.

Journalists--and I am one myself--are by and large VERY liberal in their worldview. I grew up in a newsroom during the early years of Reagan, and I can tell you truly that, just like there are no atheists in foxholes, there are no true conservatives on the editorial boards. Just varying degrees of liberals.

For moonbat James, here's an example of liberal bias: in the varying scandals involving politicians, how many times do you see a Democrat labeled with a (D) next to his or her name? If it's a Republican, there's ALWAYS an (R) on the screen. If you like, I can pull tape and send you a disc.

Posted by Ron on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 12:18 PM

Diversity should be a major objective of any news gatherer. The old press is a chorus. At least Fox has something different to say.

Posted by Gulfport, Florida on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 12:20 PM

To the defenders of the big urban media institutions on this thread - Edsall is only the latest writer who (a) has worked inside such an organization, and (b) is open about his own left-leaning political orientation, who is honest enough to concede that American political journalism is much more sensitive to 'liberal' issues than 'conservative' ones, and that it distorts political reporting, especially in its ability to accurately predict trends. For example, liberal activists just got through the hate-crimes bill with aid in keeping the issue alive from the big newspapers. The problem is that those papers know who Matthew Shepherd was, but Jesse Birkhising is a nobody to them. Just one example of what the media's consumer activists are talking about.

There are no, zero, 'conservative' writers who have said flatly that 'the media' leans Right. Nor are there former reporters, with conservative leanings, from mainstream media organizations, who have defended the big outfits against this charge. On the other hand, there are liberal writers who have conceded this charge - The NY Times' own ex-ombudsman, in his valedictory, said as much. More recently, he has asked an interviewer to face reality and accept that journalists are among the Democratic Party's most loyal occupational constituencies, and that this does present problems, notably a double standard in deciding what is important to consumers and voters. 'Conservative' trends therefore come out of nowhere, such as the resistance to Obama's health care plan, and orthodox journalism has to scramble to explain it. Sometimes in their embarrassment, they resort to the partisan condescension of which Edsall writes. Leftist activists are an urban journalist's friends and neighbors. These people at Town Hall dust-ups - they seem alien and frightening to urban journalists.

The mutual antipathy between conservative America and urban journalism - reporters, after all, being urban middle-class folk, a demographic coterminus with the most partisan Democrats - is part of the furniture of American politics, and has been at least since Eisenhower criticized the press at the 1964 GOP convention. Or you could go back further to Edward R. Murrow's soldierly efforts against the Republican Party, which are cited as journalism. Allan Drury's 1959 novel 'Advise and Consent' also glancingly portrays Washington reporters as cheerleaders for liberal causes. I still don't agree with Edsall's analysis in many ways, but at least he gets beyond the huffy defensiveness of liberal reporters and their liberal constituency among consumers to engage the issue.

Anyone out there who professes to disbelieve by the 'liberal bias' charge who claims to be solidly on the political Right? I didn't think so. Only the Left defends the mainstream media against this charge. Gee, I wonder why?

Posted by Mark Richard on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 12:36 PM

Dear colleagues,

This is strictly an American journalism-related story, but how come that the WSJ was included among mainstream liberal papers?! Consider just James Taranto's obsession with so-called left-wing conspiracy embodied in the NYT and his"former Enron adviser Paul Krugman", repeating it day by day as a mantra ...

Sincerely,

Dusan Babic, media and political analyst, Sarajevo,
Bosnia-Herzegovina

Posted by Dusan Babic on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 12:42 PM

There was a time that news media was trusted, probably because there were few alternative sources, and news media could control what was known.

If every reporter/journalist bent over backwards to present all sides of every issue, there would still be editors filtering the news. Most of us have learned to read the bias in wording, framing, and most importantly, what is not covered at all. The stories completely ignored are indicative, and since we do have alternative sources of information, quite revealing. Expecting us to believe they ignore stories like Van Jones because the issue only interests fringe kooks implies, once again, that they think we're stupid and will believe anything.

To much of the public, the news media during the last election took the role of cheerleaders, rather than responsibly provide information. If, for instance, the question of Obama's background and associations had been honestly researched and presented, the course of the election could have been entirely different.

The topics in which the research is not done, the information is not presented, are the topics which could favor conservatives and/or the GOP. If editors and management wanted it to be fair, they could make it so. In fact, they are driving their own demise by not doing so. As a business model, this is insane.

Are we to believe ideology trumps competent business judgement? A reputation, once lost, is hard to regain. Unless they have the expectation of support from sources other than their customer base, these business models are suicidal. Somehow I doubt the public will support a bailout for news media. Dereliction of responsibility should not be rewarded.

Posted by jodetoad on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 12:51 PM

"While the mainstream media often fail to live up to their own standards, their committed pursuit of neutrality and objectivity is crucial to the quality of American journalism."

Bullshit. They're no less advocates for their pet causes than are Fox News, WorldNetDaily, et al; they just try to couch it in neutral terms.

Posted by Jeff on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 12:57 PM

If the nedia is so liberal, why did the New York Times and Washington Post smear and lie about Bill Clinton and Al Gore?

Posted by Alan Snipes on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 01:05 PM

Rather's producer Mary Mapes spent 5 years trying to get the goods on George W. Bush's National Guard service. Then Mapes and Rather go with a story using blatantly phony evidence that was blasted out of the water in a day by real experts on the internet. Stories like this are why conservatives like me no longer pay a penny for the liberal news baloney. I subscribed to the local paper, Newsweek, and Time for years, but they will never get another nickel out of me.

Posted by Mkelley on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 01:08 PM

It is not that conservatives can't make good journalists, they just don't get hired.

Posted by Srednas on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 01:18 PM

In order for Conservative reporters to meet your idea of non biased, they would have to "Agree" with the insanity of Liberalism, that's not non biased it's just understanding the facts and refusing to play make believe for the Liberals.
On the other hand the Liberal media continuously misrepresent the FACTS, and that is the Problem.
Bias is not the biggest problem, it's that truth has no place in modern Leftist journalism, it's all propaganda all the time.

Posted by Durward on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 01:24 PM

I watch Fox News regularly. I also read the NYT, HuffPo, WaPo, WSJ, and at least a couple dozen columns weekly, spanning the spectrum from Maureen Dowd to Ann Coulter.

What I've observed is that if I ONLY watched Fox News, I would hear every fact that I hear elsewhere, and most of the arguments from both sides. Are the hosts of the commentary shows biased right? Make no mistake; they don't claim to be objective, they are COMMENTARY. But they always have representatives from the left on to make their case, and almost always give the lefty the last word. Also, anyone who thinks Shep Smith is a right winger is nuts, and (now retired) Brit Hume was probably the best newsman since Cronkite took sides on Viet Nam.

I'd like Fox to be a little more frank that most of their people lean rightward to various degrees. But to imply that they fail to deliver all the facts is just plain wrong.

Posted by RegularJoe on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 01:32 PM

>>If the nedia is so liberal, why did the New York Times and Washington
>>Post smear and lie about Bill Clinton and Al Gore?
>>Posted by Alan Snipes on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 01:05 PM

To what lies, specifically, do you refer?

Posted by RegularJoe on Fri 9 Oct 2009 at 01:36 PM

"most have a personal and professional commitment to the objective presentation of information"

My paraphrase: