http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/0442/041020_news_mossback.phpterrific article reflecting comments of many at DU ....
Some newspaper endorsements just don't pass the smell test.In the mainstream newspaper business, the news department and the editorial page are divorced from each other. Sometimes, they're also divorced from reality.
Take last Sunday's New York Times, with its ringing endorsement of John Kerry for president (Oct. 17). It's great stuff. It calls George W. Bush's tenure as president "disastrous."....
Wow, a stinging indictment.
But it rings hollow. Why?
Because, if George W. Bush really is as bad as the New York Times editorial page says, you'd never know it from reading the Times. If our American Empire is on the verge of collapse under Nero's reign, the paper of record has been fiddling while Rome burns. They've been chasing nonexistent weapons of mass destruction and cleaning up after the serial fabrications of that madman with a press pass, Jayson Blair. But worse, they've been covering for Bush by offering stories and analysis that present the administration as legitimate, mainstream, just like any other but with a Texas twang.
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The cognitive dissonance generated by tension between news and editorial pages can also be felt when a paper makes a political endorsement that contradicts the usual logic of its editorial stances. Nearly every campaign season, The Seattle Times gives us a fresh example. The generally mainstream-to-liberal endorsers at the Times have backed right-wing GOP loonies Linda Smith and Jack Metcalf for Congress. And then there was 2000, when, after earlier endorsing liberal Bill Bradley for president because he was so sensitive about race issues, they chose Bush over Al Gore (and race was never mentioned again).
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more....
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