Newspapers practicing conservative bias in commentary

[kevinbgoode]

I stumbled upon this Editor and Publisher story about the nastiness surrounding Ms. Coulter's latest array of stream-of-conscience babbling - particularly her celebration of everything promoting hatred and bigotry. It seems that no newspapers (what a surprise) have pulled Ms. Coulters columns, offered to scrutinize them more, or indicated any outrage about them - my own local paper apparently received quite a few complaint calls and emails, which prompted the editor to issue a faux moderation editorial explaining that while she is sometimes "over the edge" she does offer meaningful commentary. It is interesting that the newspaper's idea of meaningful commentary is "to inflame" rather than encourage thoughtful discussion, and even more interesting that the idea of "imflaming" appears to be reserved exclusively for conservatives.

Naturally, he dragged out the old "freedom of speech" and "freedom of the press" lines which rightwingers love to use in defense of their rights to insult and attack others - except those freedoms disappear when there is another viewpoint that might attack or insult THEM. Now it's not like Republicans aren't already well-known for hypocrisy, but I'm beginning to think the following two examples might be an indication of exactly what we are up against.

We have one local columnist who regularly recites rightwing talking points in his work, often without attribution, which seems to be a rather common issue with Ms. Coulter's work as well. But I've heard complaints from local people (for example, an ACLU attorney) who complain the newspaper won't publish guest columns from them, even though the paper lifts guest columns rather easily from other newspapers in their chain. Be that as it may, I sent the editor a comment asking why the newspaper doesn't include a liberal columnist who can insult conservatives in the Ann Coulter style in our community - of course we already know there is no chance they are going to publish anything like that.

Anyway, here is the link to my local newspaper editorial:

http://www.southernillinoisan.com/articles/2006/06/18/opinions/columnists/bennett/16666328.txt

Do feel free to add comments, though they'll likely not appear until sometime tomorrow.


In the meantime, this Editor and Publisher piece offers a pretty good look at the use of bias in the editorial pages of newspapers. Of particular interest is this passage in the story:

Why is Coulter keeping all her subscribers? "Ann's client newspapers stick with her because she has a loyal fan base of conservative readers who look forward to reading her columns in their local newspapers," Universal Director of Communications Kathie Kerr said in a statement, after being queried today by E&P.

Kerr added that the syndicate "represents a full spectrum of editorial viewpoints, from very conservative to very liberal writers and cartoonists. Many people enjoy Ann's writing -- after all, her latest book did go to No. 1 on the best seller on Amazon within 48 hours of its publication."

In a phone interview, asked if Coulter's recent remarks went beyond political views to appalling personal remarks or hate speech, Kerr replied: "We've never felt that it is a syndicate's job to censor commentary. It is the nature of commentary that it is to inflame." She said they "leave it to editors" to run or hold certain columns or cartoons, but they are not allowed to edit them.

Editors, she pointed out, have chosen not to run certain "Doonesbury" or "Boondocks" cartoons, which come from the liberal side of the spectrum. Asked if any paper had ever decided not to run a conservative column or cartoon, she said, "If it's happened, we don't know about it."

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002689746

The story goes on to talk about how Ted Rall lost clients after publishing his cartoon about 9/11 widows, and how the response was based on CON-SERVATIVE complaints about his work.

I'd be real interested in how some DU-ers feel about this - and what we might do to combat what seems to be some newspaper's dedication to feed con-servative anger but refusing to publish anything "inflammatory" on the other side. If they believe commentary should be inflammatory (and not contain anything of value) then why shouldn't we campaign for them to publish more inflammatory commentary about con-servatives?

[rodeodance]

1. a newspaper in KS pulled out yesterday (or Fri)--art. on DU about this.

[kevinbgoode]

2. I must have missed that one. . .

do you have any idea where it might be located?

[LA lady]

3. Here you go

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=1445657