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Times Battles Stranger for Most Conflicted of Interest Media Outlet, We Cheer

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In the old days, when men were men and trees fit in the ground, newspapers were no less biased than the average KVI caller. Most were organs of one political party or the other, and as a result were very entertaining.

Then some wisenheimer got the idea that newspapers should be unbiased, and as a result you get the awful flabby boring unreadable product that is the modern American daily newspaper, with headlines like those in today's Seattle Times: McGavick seeks panel to advise president on Iraq war or County Council OKs new absentee-ballot equipment after plan completed.

And they actually wonder why circulation is declining.

But there is hope! On Sunday the Seattle Times, endorsed Republican Dave Reichert for Congress. On the left, they're howling that the Times endorsed Reichert only because of his opposition to the estate tax, a key personal issue for Times publisher Frank Blethen. Is it true? We hope so. This could finally be the return to biased journalism we've longed for!

And it's not just at the Times. Over at the Stranger, a person who sold ads to music venues was writing concert reviews. HOORAY! But the Stranger, which of course the city counts on for its strict adherence to journalistic principles, fired her and the music editor, and claim there wasn't any bias in the reviews she wrote. LAME!

Give us some credit, people. If there's a huge ad from Neumo's in the Stranger, we fully expect a fulsome review. Meanwhile, if Chop Suey doesn't advertise, they should get a headline like this.

That's the way you run a newspaper. You think Hearst built San Simeon on the strength of County Council OKs new absentee-ballot equipment after plan completed? Negatory.

And speaking of running, don't do it. It could cause severe damage to your pondius joint. Instead, smoke Lucky Strikes, "your throat protection."

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By Seth in on October 17, 2006 9:21 AM

Comments [rss]

  • Jason Reilly

    This is why I'm waiting for objective, hard-hitting, robot reporters.

  • Daniel Genser

    I meant to end that post to say this:



    All of these factors have conditioned people to accept the watered down news that we receive, instead of real news.

  • Daniel Genser

    I think "objective" reporting is a myth. Even the most sincere reporter who wishes to present unbiased news to the public is often at the whims of politicians, corporations, lobbyists or others who withold and shape information for public consumption. And then there are the advertisers editors try not to piss off. And then there are the demographics of your target audience to consider.



    Plus, who decides what's worthy to be called news? Remember the earthquake in Pakistan last year? Not many do. Tens of thousands of people lost their lives and I didn't see hardly any reporting on it. Sure, there was the cursory story in the 'World' section at the back of the paper. So newspapers are inherently Anglo-American-centric, and this is accepted as 'objective'.



    All of these factors have conditioned people to accept marginalized real news.

  • Nobody gets the funny. Poor unfunny souls.



    Oh, except for Joe "W" Surfer's liberal bias idea... That is pretty funny -- kind of like people who believe in Bigfoot are funny.

  • bigyaz

    Geez, is it that hard to differentiate between the editorial pages and the news pages?



    It's not a conflict of interest to take an editorial position of any kind. That's what you're supposed to do. That's exactly where your biases are *supposed* to be displayed.



    Now, if the Times put that endorsement on the front page you'd have a point.

  • Except that the so-called "liberal bias" of the news reporters is counterbalanced by the "conservative bias" of their editors & publishers, so it comes out a wash.



    And this pretty much only applies to print media anyway. No reasonably intelligent person could possibly listen to 95% of AM talk radio, or watch CNN/MSNBC/FOX and accuse them of "liberal bias" without getting laughed out of the room.

  • Joe Web Surfer

    Newspapers went "unbiased" in order to be sold to people from all political persuasions. It is a good idea especially for national newspapers.



    Unfortunately more than 90% of reporters at major US newspapers are registered Democrats, which produces a distorted version of "unbiased". I think many reporters honestly think they are being unbiased, but because they're almost all liberals themselves, a strong liberal bias creeps into their reporting. It's unfortunate, but what can you do?

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