largely in the center without particular axes to grind, without ideologies which are represented in our daily coverage, at least certainly not on purpose.” 8
Time magazine’s Jack White denounced the suggestion of liberal bias in the media as “a lot of hokum.” Indeed, if anything, the press is right-wing: “There is no liberal bias in the press on the whole. In fact, if there is a bias, it’s on the other side. It’s hard to find a person really, truly, of the liberal persuasion who is making any important decisions in any important media institutions in this country now. I’ve looked for them, I consider myself one, I have very few birds of a like feather around.” 9
It is a peevish liberal trope to claim, as liberal pundit Lawrence O’Donnell, former aide to Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan, does, to get “mail and viewer reaction that says I’m just one of those awful Republicans, and then I get mail that says I’m just one of those awful Democrats.” 10 I’d like to see one of those letters accusing O’Donnell of being a Republican. I’d file them away with the ones telling Larry Flynt he’s not filthy enough.
Some people say the media is liberal, some say it’s conservative. In the end, who’s to say? Some people accuse Dan Rather of being too conservative, some say he’s too liberal. As Rather describes his role as a take-no-prisoners reporter: “I try to blow out lights on both sides of the street.” 11
NBC News correspondent Joe Johns argued that “it’s very hard to draw a very clear picture about what the media are. For every liberal-leaning newspaper, there’s the Washington Times.” 12 And for every person who is not struck by lightning, there’s one who is. Liberal fairness is: They get all major means of news dissemination in America, and conservatives get the Washington Times, the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, and now Fox News Channel.
In 1996, a longtime veteran of CBS News, Bernard Goldberg, wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal asserting that “the networks and other media elites have a liberal bias.” 13 In response to Goldberg’s statement of the biindingly obvious, Bob Schieffer, a CBS colleague, responded: “People are just stunned. It’s such a wacky charge ... I don’t know what Bernie was driving at. It just sounds bizarre.” 14 Dan Rather criticized Goldberg for writing his column for a “conservative” newspaper like the Wall Street Journal. Rather wrote this in a column published in the New York Times —which he hailed as an example of a “middle of the road” newspaper. 15 Norman Pearlstine, editor in chief of Time-Warner magazines, responded to Goldberg’s bemused citation of Dan Rather referring to the New York Times as “middle of the road” by earnestly repeating that “The New York Times is middle of the road.” And not only that, but “to call the New York Times left-wing is absurd,” Pearlstine said. 16
Evidently, to call any publication left-wing is absurd. Not one of them is—not one—not even the newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post that endorsed Walter Mondale for president the year voters in forty-nine states chose Ronald Reagan. As Pearlstine explained: “There is no active, aggressive, important publication of the left in America.” 17 Either he means left-wing compared to Pravda or he was accusing the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Detroit Free Press, and the Philadelphia Inquirer (among many, many others) of being slothful, passive, and unimportant publications.
When Goldberg expanded upon his thesis in his number one best-selling book, Bias, Tom Shales, the Washington Post TV reporter, accused Goldberg of “haul[ing] out the old canard about the media being ‘liberal.’ “ In addition, Shales made the point that the Emmy Award-winning Goldberg was a “full-time addlepated windbag,” “a no-talent hack,” “laughably inept,” “not a bright shining star,”
Time magazine’s Jack White denounced the suggestion of liberal bias in the media as “a lot of hokum.” Indeed, if anything, the press is right-wing: “There is no liberal bias in the press on the whole. In fact, if there is a bias, it’s on the other side. It’s hard to find a person really, truly, of the liberal persuasion who is making any important decisions in any important media institutions in this country now. I’ve looked for them, I consider myself one, I have very few birds of a like feather around.” 9
It is a peevish liberal trope to claim, as liberal pundit Lawrence O’Donnell, former aide to Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan, does, to get “mail and viewer reaction that says I’m just one of those awful Republicans, and then I get mail that says I’m just one of those awful Democrats.” 10 I’d like to see one of those letters accusing O’Donnell of being a Republican. I’d file them away with the ones telling Larry Flynt he’s not filthy enough.
Some people say the media is liberal, some say it’s conservative. In the end, who’s to say? Some people accuse Dan Rather of being too conservative, some say he’s too liberal. As Rather describes his role as a take-no-prisoners reporter: “I try to blow out lights on both sides of the street.” 11
NBC News correspondent Joe Johns argued that “it’s very hard to draw a very clear picture about what the media are. For every liberal-leaning newspaper, there’s the Washington Times.” 12 And for every person who is not struck by lightning, there’s one who is. Liberal fairness is: They get all major means of news dissemination in America, and conservatives get the Washington Times, the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, and now Fox News Channel.
In 1996, a longtime veteran of CBS News, Bernard Goldberg, wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal asserting that “the networks and other media elites have a liberal bias.” 13 In response to Goldberg’s statement of the biindingly obvious, Bob Schieffer, a CBS colleague, responded: “People are just stunned. It’s such a wacky charge ... I don’t know what Bernie was driving at. It just sounds bizarre.” 14 Dan Rather criticized Goldberg for writing his column for a “conservative” newspaper like the Wall Street Journal. Rather wrote this in a column published in the New York Times —which he hailed as an example of a “middle of the road” newspaper. 15 Norman Pearlstine, editor in chief of Time-Warner magazines, responded to Goldberg’s bemused citation of Dan Rather referring to the New York Times as “middle of the road” by earnestly repeating that “The New York Times is middle of the road.” And not only that, but “to call the New York Times left-wing is absurd,” Pearlstine said. 16
Evidently, to call any publication left-wing is absurd. Not one of them is—not one—not even the newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post that endorsed Walter Mondale for president the year voters in forty-nine states chose Ronald Reagan. As Pearlstine explained: “There is no active, aggressive, important publication of the left in America.” 17 Either he means left-wing compared to Pravda or he was accusing the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Detroit Free Press, and the Philadelphia Inquirer (among many, many others) of being slothful, passive, and unimportant publications.
When Goldberg expanded upon his thesis in his number one best-selling book, Bias, Tom Shales, the Washington Post TV reporter, accused Goldberg of “haul[ing] out the old canard about the media being ‘liberal.’ “ In addition, Shales made the point that the Emmy Award-winning Goldberg was a “full-time addlepated windbag,” “a no-talent hack,” “laughably inept,” “not a bright shining star,”
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