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January 6, 2006
In the game of squash, the winning strategy is to control the "T," the lines where the service boxes come together in the center of the court. Similarly, the pathway to credibility in the war of ideas is to create a public perception that you serve up information and analysis from the political center. That's why accurate political and ideological labeling matters. And it's why the liberal media deny their liberal bias, much as a vampire recoils from a cross.
Jason Salzman, Rocky Mountain News media commentator, rejected my claims of liberal bias on the news pages of Denver's dailies, especially The Denver Post, because I failed to cite a study proving it. He dismissed scores of incidents I've documented during the past 25 years as "anecdotal," with a glib assertion that "anecdotes are meaningless."
I'd agree that anecdotes might be meaningless if they're contrived to neutralize a valid generalization. For example, when the economy is booming, liberal news outlets are fond of offsetting robust economic statistics, such as a sharp drop in the unemployment rate, with a heart-rending story from someone who lost his job - especially if a Republican is president. But anecdotes that build to support a valid conclusion can be quite meaningful. Eyewitness testimony at a murder trial is by its nature anecdotal - with someone's life hanging in the balance.
My anecdotes about liberal bias in news reporting are, likewise, solid evidence. Salzman would be hard-pressed to find many credible examples of conservative bias in the news and features pages of The Denver Post.
If Salzman wants a study, he can read one just published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics by Tim Groseclose, a political scientist at UCLA; and Jeffrey Milyo, an economist and public policy scholar at the University of Missouri. They found that 18 of the 20 major media outlets they studied evidenced a left-of-center bias, with The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times among the most egregious. Salzman told me that he doesn't believe The New York Times has a liberal bias, which speaks volumes about his judgment and credibility. Since the study's findings contradict Salzman's own bias, he'll no doubt dismiss that, too.
It should be noted that the Rocky Mountain News retained him specifically to critique the media from the left, just as his opposite number, David Kopel, on alternate weeks critiques the media from the right. But Salzman is considerably farther left of center than Kopel and I are right of center. If you doubt that, read his Christmas wishes for news coverage by the Denver dailies in his column of Dec. 24. When you're that far left, mere liberals seem like conservatives. Salzman doesn't want less liberal bias in the news; he wants more of it.
Now, I don't believe that liberal newspaper reporters and editors are evil. They're just biased. And when they allow that bias to influence their work, which they routinely do, they become advocates, not objective reporters. Some of them don't even know they're biased, as they've always been surrounded by like-minded colleagues doing what comes naturally. Others do know they're biased but recognize that admitting it would undermine what's left of their credibility. There's a dominant newsroom culture, and that culture is laden with liberal values. It's partial to Democrats (except Zell Miller), government social spending, nannyism, political correctness, minorities, racial preferences, illegal aliens, higher taxes on the rich, regulation of business, enviros, feminists, gay activists, anti-war demonstrators, the homeless, labor unions, Hillary Clinton, Cindy Sheehan and Michael Moore. It doesn't like Republicans (except John McCain), military spending, intelligence agencies, the cops, oil companies, "urban sprawl," SUVs, free-market profits, Wal-Mart, Rush Limbaugh, George W. Bush, Tom Tancredo and James Dobson, just to scratch the surface. The occasional newsroom conservative who values his career would be wise to keep his politics in the closet. Reining in the passion and bias of the reporters who work under them would be the responsibility of news editors, if they weren't part of the problem. This is the kind of thing Bernard Goldberg talks about in his books,
Bias and Arrogance, a rare exposé from a CBS insider.
In a recent phone conversation and exchange of e-mails, Salzman expressed his concern to me that criticism of the media like mine "degrades the profession." My response was that by its overwhelmingly liberal bias and advocacy journalism - with editorials chronically masquerading as news stories - the profession has degraded itself. I'm just the messenger, exposing offending "reporters" and alerting the public. Based on recent poll results that reflect declining confidence in the establishment liberal media, the public seems to be catching on.
Mike Rosen's radio show airs daily from 9 a.m. to noon on 850 KOA.
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