“Of course it is....These are the social issues: gay rights, gun control, abortion and environmental regulation, among others. And if you think The Times plays it down the middle on any of them, you’ve been reading the paper with your eyes closed.”
— New York Times Public Editor Daniel Okrent in a July 25, 2004 column asking, “Is The New York Times a Liberal Newspaper?”
“Like every other institution, the Washington and political press corps operate with a good number of biases and predilections. They include, but are not limited to, a near-universal shared sense that liberal political positions on social issues like gun control, homosexuality, abortion, and religion are the default, while more conservative positions are ‘conservative positions.’...”
“The press, by and large, does not accept President Bush’s justifications for the Iraq war....It does not accept the proposition that the Bush tax cuts helped the economy....It remains fixated on the unemployment rate....The worldview of the dominant media can be seen in every frame of video and every print word choice that is currently being produced about the presidential race.”
— From the February 10, 2004 edition of ABCNews.com’s “The Note,” a daily political memo assembled by ABC News political director Mark Halperin and his staff.
Jack Cafferty: “The liberal talk radio station Air America debuts today....Does America need additional ‘liberal’ media outlet?...”
Bill Hemmer: “Why hasn’t a liberal radio station or TV network never taken off before?”
Cafferty: “We have them. Are you — did you just get off a vegetable truck from the South Bronx? They’re everywhere.... What do they call this joint? The Clinton News Network.”
— CNN’s American Morning, March 31, 2004.
“I think most claims of liberal media bias are overblown. At the same time, I do think that reporters often let their cultural predilections drive their coverage of social issues, and the coverage of the gay marriage amendment offers a perfect example....Why do reporters assume that the amendment is a fringe concern? Perhaps because nearly all live in big cities, among educated, relatively affluent peers, who hold liberal views on social matters. In Washington and New York, gay marriage is an utterly mainstream proposition. Unfortunately, in most of the country, it’s not.”
— New Republic Senior Editor Jonathan Chait, CBSNews.com, March 1, 2004.
“At ABC, people say ‘conservative’ the way people say ‘child molester.’”
— ABC 20/20 co-anchor John Stossel to CNSNews.com reporter Robert Bluey, in a January 28, 2004 story.
“There is just no question that I, among others, have a liberal bias. I mean, I’m consistently liberal in my opinions. And I think some of the, I think Dan [Rather] is transparently liberal. Now, he may not like to hear me say that. I always agree with him, too, but I think he should be more careful.”
— CBS’s Andy Rooney discussing Bernard Goldberg’s book, Bias, CNN’s Larry King Live, June 5, 2002.
“Most of the time I really think responsible journalists, of which I hope I’m counted as one, leave our bias at the side of the table. Now it is true, historically in the media, it has been more of a liberal persuasion for many years. It has taken us a long time, too long in my view, to have vigorous conservative voices heard as widely in the media as they now are. And so I think yes, on occasion, there is a liberal instinct in the media which we need to keep our eye on, if you will.”
— ABC anchor Peter Jennings on CNN’s Larry King Live, April 10, 2002.
“There is a liberal bias. It’s demonstrable. You look at some statistics. About 85 percent of the reporters who cover the White House vote Democratic, they have for a long time. There is a, particularly at the networks, at the lower levels, among the editors and the so-called infrastructure, there is a liberal bias....[Then-ABC White House reporter] Brit Hume’s bosses are liberal and they’re always quietly denouncing him as being a right-wing nut.”
— Newsweek’s Evan Thomas on Inside Washington, May 12, 1996.
“Everybody knows that there’s a liberal, that there’s a heavy liberal persuasion among correspondents.....Anybody who has to live with the people, who covers police stations, covers county courts, brought up that way, has to have a degree of humanity that people who do not have that exposure don’t have, and some people interpret that to be liberal. It’s not a liberal, it’s humanitarian and that’s a vastly different thing.”
— Former CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite at the March 21, 1996 Radio & TV Correspondents Dinner.
“The old argument that the networks and other ‘media elites’ have a liberal bias is so blatantly true that it’s hardly worth discussing anymore. No, we don’t sit around in dark corners and plan strategies on how we’re going to slant the news. We don’t have to. It comes naturally to most reporters.”
— Then-CBS reporter Bernard Goldberg in a February 13, 1996 Wall Street Journal op-ed.
“As much as we try to think otherwise, when you’re covering someone like yourself, and your position in life is insecure, she’s your mascot. Something in you roots for her. You’re rooting for your team. I try to get that bias out, but for many of us it’s there.”
— Time Senior Writer Margaret Carlson talking about covering First Lady Hillary Clinton, as quoted in the Washington Post, March 7, 1994.
“I think liberalism lives — the notion that we don’t have to stay where we are as a society, we have promises to keep, and it is liberalism, whether people like it or not, which has animated all the years of my life. What on Earth did conservatism ever accomplish for our country? It was people who wanted to change things for the better.”
— Charles Kuralt talking with Morley Safer on the CBS special, One for the Road with Charles Kuralt, May 5, 1994.
“I won’t make any pretense that the ‘American Agenda’ [segments on World News Tonight] is totally neutral. We do take a position. And I think the public wants us now to take a position. If you give both sides and ‘Well, on the one hand this and on the other that’ — I think people kind of really want you to help direct their thinking on some issues.”
— ABC News reporter Carole Simpson on CNBC’s Equal Time, August 9, 1994.
“The group of people I’ll call The Press — by which I mean several dozen political journalists of my acquaintance...— was of one mind as the season’s first primary campaign shuddered toward its finish. I asked each of them, one after another, this question: If you were a New Hampshire Democrat, whom would you vote for? The answer was always the same; and the answer was always Clinton. In this group, in my experience, such unanimity is unprecedented.... Several told me they were convinced that Clinton is the most talented presidential candidate they have ever encountered, JFK included.”
— New Republic Senior Editor Hendrik Hertzberg, March 9, 1992 issue.
“Coverage of the [1992] campaign vindicated exactly what conservatives have been saying for years about liberal bias in the media. In their defense, journalists say that though they may have their personal opinions, as professionals they are able to correct for them when they write. Sounds nice, but I’m not buying any.”
— Former Newsweek reporter Jacob Weisberg in The New Republic, November 23, 1992.
“We’re unpopular because the press tends to be liberal, and I don’t think we can run away from that. And I think we’re unpopular with a lot of conservatives and Republicans this time because the White House press corps by and large detested George Bush, probably for good and sufficient reason, they certainly can cite chapter and verse. But their real contempt for him showed through in their reporting in a way that I think got up the nose of the American people.”
— Time writer William A. Henry III on the PBS November 4, 1992 election-night special The Finish Line.
“There are things written about Bill Clinton and Al Gore that I’ve never seen written [about other politicians before], even by opinion reporters. I think there has been a double standard.”
— ABC News reporter Brit Hume talking about coverage of the 1992 presidential campaign, as quoted by The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz, September 1, 1992.
“There is no such thing as objective reporting...I’ve become even more crafty about finding the voices to say the things I think are true. That’s my subversive mission.”
— Boston Globe environmental reporter Dianne Dumanoski at an Utne Reader symposium, quoted by Micah Morrison in the July 1990 American Spectator.
“I do have an axe to grind...I want to be the little subversive person in television.”
— Barbara Pyle, CNN Environmental Editor and Turner Broadcasting Vice President for Environmental Policy, as quoted by David Brooks in the July 1990 American Spectator.
“As the science editor at Time I would freely admit that on this issue we have crossed the boundary from news reporting to advocacy.”
— Time Science Editor Charles Alexander at a September 16, 1989 global warming conference, as quoted by David Brooks in an October 5, 1989 Wall Street Journal column.
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