Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site harvard.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!matthews From: matthews@harvard.ARPA (Jim Matthews) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Mr. Sevener's mythical media bias (second try) Message-ID: <424@harvard.ARPA> Date: Tue, 5-Mar-85 19:23:01 EST Article-I.D.: harvard.424 Posted: Tue Mar 5 19:23:01 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 8-Mar-85 02:46:17 EST Distribution: net Organization: Aiken Computation Laboratory, Harvard Lines: 56 Mr. Sevener's arguments to prove the existence of a conservative media bias continue to miss the mark. By concentrating exclusively on the mass of small-town newpapers, and endorsements made by their ownership, he misses the most fertile areas for bias. In particular, he distorts several critical issues: News vs. Editorial Endorsements are the most explicitly subjective statements that a publication makes, and for that reason I'm not sure they *can* be biased. News, however, carries the burden of being free of opinion, and thus any injection of ideology is a matter of concern. But news is largely mono- polized by the national news organizations, a group Mr. Sevener grants to be liberally inclined. My hometown paper, in Moses Lake, Washington, doesn't have reporters in Moscow or Pretoria, so it picks up stories from the N.Y. Times and runs them. This makes the circulation figures cited by Mr. Sevener meaningless -- the various news services reach farther than their own editorial pages. And, I would argue, they are more significant. Newspapers vs. TV In several postings on this subject, Mr. Sevener has never touched on the subject of TV networks, and with good reason. They are uniformly liberal, by their own admission (this past election night a CBS commentator informed us that the American people were "making a mistake"!!! Just voting isn't enough--we must vote correctly!) And they have far more influence than the hometown paper. When the choice is between a page and half of clipped articles from news services, (and that's often all the national news a small paper will run) and Dan Rather in full color, it's no surprise that people go to the latter for news. As above, the local tv stations have little say, since they just relay clips from the networks. Management vs. Reporters In Sevener's eyes, the media is twisted by a bunch of conservative newspaper owners. In the first place, I'm not sure that owners are that conservative. To say they are on the basis of their position is a pitiful piece of pseudo-Marxist analysis, and totally unsubstatiated by evidence. And for every anecdote you have about the former chairman of Time, Harry Luce, there's another one about the Post's liberal owner Katharine Graham or her sidekick Benjamin Bradlee. Furthermore, I would contend that owners don't have the influence of the liberal reporter corp. They can't deal with every piece that goes out, and they concentrate their influence on the op-ed page. Every news story, however, comes through the eyes of a reporter, who, 80% or more of the time, is a veteran McGovern supporter. I don't see how the most conservative owner could even neutralize this leaning, much less turn it conservative. Where's the center? Finally, the whole question of bias necessitates picking a center of political belief and condemning anything that deviates. Mr. Sevener identifies as "conservative" the fact that the Times runs articles on Afghanistan. As if *not* running such articles is "middle-of-the-road"!! Maybe the media is conservative when seen from Mr. Sevener's vantage point, but that still leaves it to the left of most of the country. Jim Matthews matthews@harvard