THE "ESTABLISHMENT BIAS" OF THE MAINSTREAM PRESS
Now, to address some of the specifics of the points you have raised, Christopher.
First of all, I do not think you have a very clear idea of the procedures/philosophy/etc. of print journalism.
1) "Publishers have little to say about content." What planet have you been living on, Christopher? Do you really think that publishers like Henry Luce and Katharine Graham had "little to say about content"? And even publishers that may have little to say about content have a great deal to say about overall approach and overall approach (i.e., bias), which is even more important. This is especially true of news magazines like Time, Newsweek,, etc., where the "personality" and even writing style of the individual reporter (who often does not even have a byline) is completely submerged in the magazine's "Collective Personality."
You also completely overlook the influence of advertisers. Not that they dictate content. But the desire not to "offend" advertisers often leads publishers, editors, and reporters to engage in sometimes almost unconscious self-censorship, a very prevalent phenomenon. The time when newspapers and magazines supported themselves through sales to the general public is long gone; if they make money at all, it is through advertising revenues.
2) The role of reporters. The higher up on the totem pole of your media organization you are, the more latitude you have in choosing what stories you are going to write about. But most reporters are assigned stories. What usually happens is that every day the top editors get together, decide what the most important stories of the day are, and then assign the appropriate reporters to cover them. When reporters propose their own story ideas, they often cannot persuade their editors that those stories are actually worth covering.
3) The political affiliation of reporters. I don't doubt that you will find more registered Democrats than registered Republicans among reporters than among engineers. (That would be true of any group of the "humanistically" educated.) But I certainly would not draw the same conclusion from it that you evidently do: namely, that their party registration, or "liberal" inclinations, affect their coverage. Absolute objectivity is humanly impossible, of course. Nevertheless, reporters do try, especially if they are writing under their own bylines. "Objectivity," after all, is the mantra of the profession. And as someone who has worked in the profession (as well as in others), I personally reject the implication that journalists (in this country, anyway) are witting or unwitting propagandists for their own points of view, whatever they are writing (or not writing) about.
Besides, what is a "liberal" point of view, anyway? Can you be "liberal" in one area, but not in another? (Sure.) But I will save that for another post.
4) How to determine the "bias" of a publication. You do it from the editorial page and the op-ed page, of course. And as Herman quite rightly points out, IMO, if there is any bias there, it is towards the right. I would submit that here are more Bill Safires than there are Anthony Lewises.
4) The effects of media consolidation. When I was a child, living in New York City, there were a zillion daily papers -- both morning and evening papers. I especially remember the "radical" newspaper, P.M., the appearance of which would be simply impossible these days. Now, most of those papers have simply disappeared, or have been swallowed up by one media giant or another. Many cities don't really even have their "own" newspaper any more: they have a chain newspaper. Most of the news is "centrally" produced, with the local news plugged in. Quite obviously, this has led to a certain homogenization, and has "screened out" more radical points of view (of the left as well as of the right).
This leads me to my characterization of the mainstream press as "Establishment." There is a spectrum of "accepted views," from "left" to "right," and of "accepted topics for discussion." The problem with the mainstream press, in my opinion, is not that it is politically "biassed" towards the left or right wing of this spectrum, but that it is not intellectually adventurous and/or inclusive enough.
Finally, let's remember why I challenged your remark about "the prejudices of the liberal press" in the first place. You made the remark in a post to Del, challenging his characterization of Limbaugh as a "dickhead" and his "conservative friends" as "ditto-heads." My point was that your remark revealed as much unexamined "prejudice" as his did.
Joan
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