MediaWatch: June 1996
Table of Contents:
Liberal Bias Admitted
A major media figure has conceded that liberal bias really exists. On the May 12 Inside Washington, host Gordon Peterson raised House Speaker Newt Gingrich's charge that the media are in a "passive conspiracy" to help President Clinton. NPR's Nina Totenberg shot back: "I think it's basically sour grapes....and I'm tired of politicians just sort of saying, when things go badly for them, blaming us. It's not our fault, it's their fault." But then Evan Thomas, Newsweek's Washington Bureau Chief, asserted: "They blame us, but this is true. 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. Particularly at the networks, at the lower levels, among the editors and the so-called infrastructure, there is a liberal bias. There is a liberal bias at Newsweek, the magazine I work for -- most of the people who work at Newsweek live on the upper West Side in New York and they have a liberal bias." Thomas, however, didn't make a full confession, denying any bias with those under him: "I don't think it's so much Washington. It's New York. You have to look at which city we're talking about. It's where the networks are based. It's where The New York Times is based. I think the greatest liberal bias is amongst the people who work for large, major news organizations in New York."
