Sunday’s Janesville Gazette contained an op-ed written by the editor titled, ”Consider your own biases before accusing newspaper” which attempted to rebut the evidence of reasoning used in a letter writer’s criticism against the paper. Apparently, someone out there thinks the Gazette is a left-wing publication.
In it, the editor describes a caller saying “You really outdid yourself by printing the worst photo of Bush you could find and then tinting it red. Classic Gazette.” I have to agree with the editor's point of view here, seriously, anyone who accuses the Gazette of a liberal bias (pro-Liberal) is simply not paying attention, to put it mildly.
But the editor’s defensive perspective opens up the door for even more scrutiny, at least in my view, of the checks and balances the paper employs to assure that they walk down the political middle in their news columns.
On one hand he writes that they have barely the time to get stories written and edited to meet deadline, yet on the other they find the time to count stories and pictures to be sure they matched between the Democrats and Republicans. Is that a fair way to present the news? How do they decipher which stories carry the kind of content they must counter-balance with an equal and opposite one? Or whether it merits counterbalancing at all? Is a pro-Democratic article balanced with a pro-Republican one? Or with an anti-democrat one? What about all of the writer’s artwork in between, the little nuances and rebuttal some journalists apply within the articles to achieve some type of balance themselves? What about titles and how they’re created and balanced? Despite all of this, if the news week itself happens to be a really bad one for Republicans let’s say, is this reality changed to keep the political bias balanced?
Still, the editor lays out enough evidence in his op-ed to convince most people why the newspaper has a conservative bias, despite all the liberals working there. To this I agree again. But the one thing the editor concludes with hardly qualifies as proof for a balanced news presentation in the face of all of his support to the contrary. He suggests that the mere existence of those liberal bias complaints confirms they’re doing something right.
I also welcome any evidence and a clean discussion from anyone who thinks the Janesville Gazette has a liberal bias. I’ve issued an invitation like this before without any takers. On the other hand, this blog already contains dozens of examples that I believe are strong enough to support the editor's claims - the Gazette does not promote or incorporate a Liberal or Democratic slant into their product. I find myself laughing AT myself on this one, here, I’m defending the Gazette against a politically motivated accusation of bias.
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