Water is Wet!

Snow is cold.

And NYT and WaPo are soft on liberals and hard on conservatives.

Here's the famous commentary at WSJ, Nov. 12:

The release of former CBS reporter Bernard Goldberg's book, "Bias," first prompted our examination of the degree to which the news media deviate from objective coverage. Mr. Goldberg wrote of how, during Bill Clinton's impeachment trial, Peter Jennings consistently labeled Republican loyalists as "conservatives" or "very determined conservatives." Meanwhile, the ABC News anchor did not refer to Democratic loyalists as "liberals," treating Mr. Clinton's allies, instead, as mainstream lawmakers. So we asked ourselves, was the media's tendency to label particular senators isolated to the Clinton impeachment trial? Or is there a more pernicious generality? After a study of New York Times and Washington Post articles published between 1990 and 2002, we conclude that the problem is endemic....

If you read it all, note their significant qualifier: We excluded editorials. IOW, they examined only what was purported to be news, not opinion.

The first finding of our study is consistent with the results found for media stories on institutions such as corporations, Congress or universities, namely, that most of the time the story is straightforward -- as in "senators X, Y, and Z visited the European Union Parliament." However, when there were policy issues at stake we found that conservative senators earn "conservative" labels from Times reporters more often than liberal senators receive "liberal" labels....

We have detected a pattern of editorialized commentary throughout the decade. Liberal senators were granted near-immunity from any disparaging remarks regarding their ideological position: Sen. Harkin is "a liberal intellectual"; Sen. Barbara Boxer of California is "a reliably outspoken liberal"; Sen. Paul Simon of Illinois is "a respected Midwestern liberal"; Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York is "difficult to categorize politically"; Sen. Kennedy is "a liberal icon" and "liberal abortion rights stalwart"; and Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey is a man whose "politics are liberal to moderate."

While references to liberal senators in the Times evoke a brave defense of the liberal platform (key words: icon and stalwart), the newspaper portrays conservatives as cantankerous lawmakers seeking to push their agenda down America's throat. Descriptions of conservative senators include "unyielding," "hard-line" and "firebrand." ....

This labeling pattern was not limited to the Times. Liberal and conservative senators also received different treatment from the Washington Post. Distinctly liberal senators were described as bipartisan lawmakers and iconic leaders of a noble cause.... In contrast, the Post portrayed conservative senators unflatteringly. Republican loyalists were often labeled as hostile and out of the mainstream....

Our preliminary results for other papers -- USA Today, the San Diego Union Tribune, the Los Angeles Times -- reveal similar patterns to those described above. The major exception is The Wall Street Journal and even here the labeling of conservatives to liberals is a little less than 2 to 1. The effect of these findings on senators' re-election, fund raising and careers is little understood, but the relationship is complicated. However, one can conclude fairly from this survey that conservative senators, consistently portrayed as spoilers, are ill-served by the political reporting in two of the leading general-interest newspapers of the United States. Liberals, on the other hand, get a free pass. If this is not bias, pray what is?

I have been noting lately, here and elsewhere, how recent coverage of the Episcopalians' having "consecrated" an "openly" "gay" "bishop" has freely employed the words "conservative" and "conservatives" but has rarely, if at all, used the words "liberal" and "liberals".

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 11/14/03 07:59:00 AM
Categorized as Media.