So then these are all lies:
“The elephant in the newsroom is our narrowness. Too often, we wear liberalism on our sleeve and are intolerant of other lifestyles and opinions....We’re not very subtle about it at this paper: If you work here, you must be one of us. You must be liberal, progressive, a Democrat. I’ve been in communal gatherings in The Post, watching election returns, and have been flabbergasted to see my colleagues cheer unabashedly for the Democrats.”
— Washington Post “Book World” editor Marie Arana in a contribution to the Post’s “daily in-house electronic critiques,” as quoted by Post media reporter Howard Kurtz in an October 3, 2005 article.
“There is, Hugh, I agree with you, a deep anti-military bias in the media. One that begins from the premise that the military must be lying, and that American projection of power around the world must be wrong. I think that that is a hangover from Vietnam, and I think it’s very dangerous. That’s different from the media doing it’s job of challenging the exercise of power without fear or favor.”
— ABC News White House correspondent Terry Moran talking with Los Angeles-based national radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt, May 17, 2005.
“I believe it is true that a significant chunk of the press believes that Democrats are incompetent but good-hearted, and Republicans are very efficient but evil.”
— Wall Street Journal political editor John Harwood on the April 23, 2005 Inside Washington.
“I worked for the New York Times for 25 years. I could probably count on one hand, in the Washington bureau of the New York Times, people who would describe themselves as people of faith....I think one of the real built-in biases in the media is towards secularism....You want diversity in the newsroom, not because of some quota, but because you have to have diversity to cover the story well and cover all aspects of a society. And you don’t have religious people making the decisions about where coverage is focused. And I think that’s one of the faults.”
— Former New York Times reporter Steve Roberts, now a journalism professor at George Washington University, on CNN’s Reliable Sources, March 27, 2005
(see Cap, there's one that was on CNN for you.)
“Personally, I have a great affection for CBS News....But I stopped watching it some time ago. The unremitting liberal orientation finally became too much for me. I still check in, but less and less frequently. I increasingly drift to NBC News and Fox and MSNBC.”
— Former CBS News President Van Gordon Sauter in an op-ed published January 13, 2005 in the Los Angeles Times.
“Does anybody really think there wouldn’t have been more scrutiny if this [CBS’s bogus 60 Minutes National Guard story] had been about John Kerry?”
—Former 60 Minutes Executive Producer Don Hewitt at a January 10, 2005 meeting at CBS News, as quoted later that day by Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s Hardball.
“I know a lot of you believe that most people in the news business are liberal. Let me tell you, I know a lot of them, and they were almost evenly divided this time. Half of them liked Senator Kerry; the other half hated President Bush.”
— CBS’s Andy Rooney on the November 7, 2004 60 Minutes.
“There’s one other base here: the media. Let’s talk a little media bias here. The media, I think, wants Kerry to win. And I think they’re going to portray Kerry and Edwards — I’m talking about the establishment media, not Fox, but — they’re going to portray Kerry and Edwards as being young and dynamic and optimistic and all, there’s going to be this glow about them that some, is going to be worth, collectively, the two of them, that’s going to be worth maybe 15 points.”
— Newsweek’s Evan Thomas on Inside Washington, July 10, 2004.
And the follow up to that one:
The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz: “You’ve said on the program Inside Washington that because of the portrayal of Kerry and Edwards as ‘young and dynamic and optimistic,’ that that’s worth maybe 15 points.”
Newsweek’s Evan Thomas: “Stupid thing to say. It was completely wrong. But I do think that, I do think that the mainstream press, I’m not talking about the blogs and Rush and all that, but the mainstream press favors Kerry. I don’t think it’s worth 15 points. That was just a stupid thing to say.”
Kurtz: “Is it worth five points?”
Thomas: “Maybe, maybe.”
— Exchange on CNN’s Reliable Sources, October 17, 2004.
(another one for cap, Newsweek's Thomas says that the media favored Kerry, and says it on CNN, no less.)
Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham: “The work of the evening, obviously, is to connect George W. Bush to the great war leaders of the modern era. You’re going to hear about Churchill projecting power against public opinion....”
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews: “But Iraq was a popular cause when he first started it. It wasn’t like Churchill speaking against the Nazis.”
Meacham: “That’s not the way the Republican Party sees it. They think that all of us and the New York Times are against them.”
Matthews: “Well, they’re right about the New York Times, and they may be right about all of us.”
— Exchange shortly after 8:30pm EDT during MSNBC’s live convention coverage, August 30, 2004.
“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 which appeared under a headline 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.
“Where I work 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 story posted January 28, 2004.
“I thought he [former CBS News correspondent Bernard Goldberg] made some very good points. 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 60 Minutes commentator Andy Rooney on Goldberg’s book, Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News, on CNN’s Larry King Live, June 5, 2002.
(another for Cap, Andy Rooney admitting him and Dan Rather have a liberal bias, on CNN once again.)
“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 appearing on CNN’s Larry King Live, April 10, 2002
That was the late Peter Jennings being very kind to fellow journalists, and also very diplomatic, but still admiting a history of liberalism in the media, and also cautioning that it still exists today and must be checked.
On CNN.
You guys may want to piss and moan about the website's purpose (which is obviously to prove a media bias) but you can't argue against what they've compiled.
Especially not when sources are quoted, by date and even hour in one case, as either seeing a liberal bias, or being guilty of having one.
The website aside, if you wish to disprove the claims of a liberal bias, and shutup the person raising the issue here (me), then you will have to provide proof that the above instances were either taken out of context, or completely fabricated.
Until then, I think the journalists have spoken well enough for themselves.
😎