Should Conservatives Give The New York Times a Break?

Townhall.com ^ | 8/6/05 | Mark Tapscott

[wagglebee]

Thanks to a virtual blackout by his fellow editors elsewhere in the media, odds are good that you haven’t heard or read that Executive Editor Bill Keller of The New York Times recently capitulated in the debate over bias in America’s newspaper of record.

Keller’s capitulation came in a lengthy memo he distributed in the Times’ newsroom in May as a response to an updating of a massive report by a committee appointed in the wake of the Jayson Blair scandal to recommend measures to restore the gray lady’s credibility.

In a section of the memo headed “The News/Opinion Divide,” Keller conceded that "even sophisticated readers of The New York Times sometimes find it hard to distinguish between news coverage and commentary in our pages." The Times will always carry both news and opinion, but, Keller argued, “we should make the distinction as clear as possible.”

Think about those statements for a moment. Here we have the top man in the newsroom at the nation’s most important daily – the newspaper that more than any other sets the mainstream print and broadcast media’s agenda – essentially conceding what countless critics have argued for years. Thus we see a storied institution admitting its need to rededicate itself to achieving a standard previously claimed as the daily norm of performance.

Not only that, but Keller also conceded one of the major problems facing the Times in the aftermath of the Blair scandal is the cultural isolation that marks the paper’s newsroom. To counter that isolation, Keller encouraged his colleagues to undertake "a concerted effort to stretch beyond our predominantly urban, culturally liberal orientation, to cover the full range of our national conversation."

To drive the point home, Keller also noted that "our news coverage needs to embrace unorthodox views and contrarian opinions and to portray lives both more radical and more conservative than those most of us experience. We need to listen carefully to colleagues who are at home in realms that are not familiar to most of us."

Again, think about those words. Critics have charged for years that the Times newsroom is out of step with the majority of the country because the editorial staff represents but a small atypical slice of American demographics and opinion. That narrowness in turn has handicapped the daily’s ability to identify, assess and credibly report much of the news deemed important by the rest of the nation. Now Keller says it’s time for the newsroom to get in touch with the rest of America.

A significant part of the effort to reach out to the rest of the nation concerns the Times’ ability to understand the one-third of Americans who identify themselves as religious conservatives (i.e. evangelicals and fundamentalists of all stripes, plus conservative Catholics and Orthodox Jews).

To that end, Keller encouraged the daily newsroom staff to listen to colleagues working on the Times’ magazine for lessons “about portraying religious conservatives in an interesting and three-dimensional way.” He also warned about “the misuse of [the phrase] ‘religious fundamentalists’ to describe religious conservatives.”

Perhaps Keller would be willing to host an internal editorial seminar featuring Christian journalists like David Neff of Christianity Today, Christian philosophers like Nancy Pearcey and Christian bloggers like Joe Carter of Evangelical Outpost to explain the lay of the religious conservative land?

So how should long-suffering critics of the Times react to Keller’s words and actions? Much of the commentary on the Right side of the Blogosphere has been rather predictably negative, snarky or sarcastic, or some combination thereof. I believe that approach is mistaken.

How about instead we offer Keller encouragement and praise for ‘fessing up’ to serious problems of longstanding and for putting his own career and prestige on the line in making the effort to deal with those problems in a systematic and reasonable way?

It wouldn’t hurt, either, for Times critics on the Right to show some patience because changing an entrenched culture like that of a newsroom isn’t going to happen overnight, nor will it occur without some unexpectedly abbreviated careers and a surplus of discontent bred by an inability or refusal to change.

There will certainly be times when Keller and his newsroom allies will wonder if it’s really worth the effort. A good word from those who have been on the outside critically looking in may be the difference between throwing in the towel and fighting the good fight another day. I say give the man a break. And some encouragement.

[America's Resolve]

I notice that a month later there's been not a single letter typeset in the Ol' Gray Whore about AAR stealing from little "inner city" kids and alzhimers patients.

The problem isn't going to be cured by a memo.

Most of the people on the news/editorial staff were chosen BECAUSE of their Liberal biases. Asking a Liberal to be less liberal is like asking a pit bull to be less canine.

Fire em and start again or shaddup already!

[EQAndyBuzz]

"The NYT is liberal because the Sulzberger family which OWNS the NTY is. It will continue to be so, until the publisher "Pinch" Sulzberger changes his views.
"

When you are vey wealthy and having a failed business, you use it as a write off. If the NY Slimes just reported just the facts and left out the commentators opinions(they are not articles, they are left wing opinion pieces), then maybe the readership will go up and they will begin to make money.

Wow, what a concept. Telling the truth and gettig paid for it.

[dr_who_2]

No.

[Carling]

I live in the Portland, Oregon area and have been barraged with calls from the NYT over the past two weeks to become a subscriber.

I finally answered one and told the poor lady selling this pathetic rag that I will never again believe a word the NYT writes following their "missing weapons" collaboration with John Kerry the week before the election.

[untenured]

I'm not even sure if Brooks is pro-life or not, but the column was superbly placed and timed.

I remember that column, and the core argument (IIRC) - that the Court never should've removed abortion from state legislatures - was certainly an interesting and provocative one. But there is still a large constituency of social conservatives who are a big part of the American right and, to many NYT readers, are a bunch of 19th-century knuckle-draggers. To acknowledge the strength of their agenda would, I think, be too uncomfortable for NYT opinion manufacturers.

[Eagles Talon IV]

Let's also keep in mind that bias as often means what is NOT said as well as what is said.