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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (56061)	7/25/2004 9:47:04 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793914

Initial reaction to Okrents article. Outside the beltway blog. Frankly, as Okrent himself notes, this is all rather obvious. It's also perfectly legitimate. All newspapers, anywhere, are biased in their coverage. The idea that papers should be "objective" is a relatively new one, going back a century or so and, ironically, associated with the New York Times. The earliest papers in the Republic, though, were unabashedly partisan. Further, they didn't even pretend to be fair in their coverage. Aside from ideology and partisanship, reportage is filtered through the lens of publishers and editors with worldviews who, even if not particularly political, have to make judgments about what is important (what to cover and not cover) as well as how important the things important enough to cover are (how much space they get, where they are positioned in the paper, how often they're covered, etc.). My only problem is when the paper pretends otherwise. Among the early risers reacting to this story: Betsy Newmark: "I wonder if the Times editors are paying attention." Joe Gandleman: "DUH!" Jeff Jarvis: "To the point." Allah: "Hey, what's that elephant doing in here?" Wind Rider: "...a version of the 'nature versus nurture' argument..." Michele Catalano: "Liberalism. It's new elitism." Kevin Aylward: "[P]erhaps coming out of the closet will force Times reporters and editors to rethink injecting their own politics into their reporting." Paul at Wizbang: "Strange that the very liberals whose twin holy grails are tolerance and acceptance have none for any viewpoint but their own." Kathy Kinsley: "True enough." Prestopundit - IS THE NY TIMES A LEFTIST NEWSPAPER? Are lemons bitter? Is ice cold? Does rotten milk stink? Believe it or not the NY Times has given up the charade that its an objective source of journalism. Next thing you know the good ol' NY Times will come fully clean about its long history of covering up for Uncle Joe, Alger Hiss, and Fidel Castro -- or its contemporary record of covering up for Joe Wilson, John Kerry and Sandy Berger. Quotable: "Articles containing the word "postmodern" have appeared in The Times an average of four times a week this year - true fact! - and if that doesn't reflect a Manhattan sensibility, I'm Noam Chomsky." Well, Daniel "Noam Chomsky" Okrent, I think I've heard even my daughter's grandmother use the term "post-modern". All the way out West, the city of Portland, Oregon has had well-known "post-modern" city hall since the 1980s, and even "red stater" from Eastern Oregon know about it. Time for this navel gazing New Yorker to learn something about the country he live in, don't you think?