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From: orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Liberal media bias
Message-ID: <277@whuxl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 5-Oct-84 09:04:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: whuxl.277
Posted: Fri Oct  5 09:04:53 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 6-Oct-84 04:46:35 EDT
References: <160@rlgvax.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: Bell Labs
Lines: 53

> 
> Wall Street Journal editorial of Oct. 1, 1984, first paragraph
> of which is quoted here:
> 
> 	"The ethicists of the press have been clucking
> 	about two things these past two weeks, and
> 	the comparison tells a lot about their standards,
> 	moral and professional.  Despite the release of
> 	a 385-page independent counsel's report, they
> 	have decided questions remain to be asked about
> 	the financial affairs of Ed Meese and his wife.
> 	But all questions about the finances of Geraldine
> 	Ferraro and her husband have been answered, and
> 	anyone insisting on asking more will get booed
> 	by the defenders of the public's right to know."
> 
1)Ferraro's finances have just been in the news again
2)Edwin Meese's finances have not been in the news since the
  release of the independent counsel's report
> At a conference some months ago in Washington attended by
> Rupert Murdoch (News America) and Ben Bradlee (Executive
> Editor of the Washington Post) the following question was
> addressed: "Is there a liberal media elite?"
> 
> R. Murdoch stated plainly, that, yes, there is.  B. Bradlee
> squirmed and fidgeted, waffled and evaded, and would not be
> pinned down to even *denying* that there is a liberal elite.
> 
> Scott Plunkett,
> ..{ihnp4,allegra,seismo}!rlgvax!plunkett
 
Are the New York Times and the Washington Post, two of the most respected
newspapers in the country, liberal? Yes, but then another member of 
journalism's elite, the Wall Street Journal, is just as unabashedly
conservative.  But how many people actually read these organs of
journalism's elite?  More people read the Wall Street Journal than
the New York Times, in fact the top 3 national newspapers are:
1)USA Today
  liberal bastion????
2)Wall Street Journal
  any comment necessary?
3)Daily News
 

The highest circulation is something on the order of several million.
How much influence then in terms of what people actually read do
these prestigious liberal papers have?  Most people read their local
paper--not the New York Times or Washington Post.  And of
those papers 75% endorse Republicans--despite the fact Democrats outnumber
Republicans by a substantial margin.  
I find the "liberal bias of the media" to be a very dubious proposition.
Tim Sevener
whuxl!orb