An industry battles itself

The News Virginian
Published: November 1, 2008

Cries of bias long have rung in the ears of those who make their living in the business of news. Frequently, editors and reporters take comfort in hearing the charges lodged from one partisan camp and then the other, as occasionally has been the case here at The News Virginian this political season. But as commentators’ hearts have fluttered and limbs tingled over Barack Obama, others of their kind have muttered, among them, Dan Rather. This indicates, as Rather might say it, that modern journalism is shakier than cafeteria Jell-O.

The media’s response, a shrug, to Sen. Joe Biden’s admonition that Obama would be tested in his first six months in office caught Rather’s attention. Considered by the right to be an icon of network news’ bias, Rather remarked recently on MSNBC: “[C]ertainly if Sarah Palin had said this it would be above the fold in most newspapers today ... [I]f Sarah Palin had said this, the newspapers would have jumped all over it and so would have the major television outlets.”

In an era of pigs wearing lipstick, this is something like one hog being repulsed by another’s filth, which is to say the second must be really dirty. Objectivity is prized and elusive. Journalists generally are intrigued by politics at a depth that others are not. That helps drive them into careers that beyond network television’s hallowed halls offer the material rewards of low pay and long hours. Politics, like sports, are difficult to follow without developing attachments, to the issues and the players.

It is a reality against which true journalists labor, with editors standing vanguard against the creep of prejudice. This requires a willingness to confront those of one’s own political or ideological hue, and, where appropriate, an insistence on so doing. It also necessitates abiding by rigid rules of fairness, pursuing with vigilance the other side of every story. This space and this page is one for viewpoints driven by facts. Much of the remaining space belongs to facts alone.

Those who profess to bleed ink consider themselves isolated from the bias that long has pervaded television. Neither Chris Matthews nor Sean Hannity works here, we say. But Jay Newton-Small, a longtime reporter for The Associated Press, wonders. “Is the journalism world losing its North Star, the one source that can be relied upon to supply, ‘Just the facts, ma’am,” she asked, referring to the venerable AP in a recent column for the Washington Post.

Such questions resonate against the backdrop of a new study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, which found that stories about Republican presidential nominee John McCain since the party conventions were more than three times as negative as those about Obama.

Readers frequently complain about negativity, but this misses the point. Journalists should not have been leashed in response to Sarah Palin’s entry into the national political scene. If she desired a shield from the prying eyes of scribes and microphone carriers, she should have remained in Alaska. The problem has been the want of similar scrutiny with regard to her Democratic opponents.

Americans are served best by journalists who insist on asking everyone tough questions, plunging deep beneath the surface no matter who the players are nor how likable and casting off acceptance on first glance in favor of a skeptic’s eye with a determination to look further.

Most journalists view Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein as examples of their profession at its finest, altering history’s course by the force of their persistence in unearthing truth. This is the right way for journalists to change events. This election season, the fear is growing that journalists, so-called, might affect outcomes by the power of bias gone mad. It is a dog, a retired anchor from Texas might tell us, that shouldn’t hunt.