“What is the criteria that op-ed articles meet in order to appear in the Other Opinions category?
Are your editors trying to achieve a balanced mix of op-eds to inform the reader or are they trying to unduly influence the reader with an overweighting of articles with a liberal bias?
It seems the questioner pretty much knows the answer, doesnt it? He was talking about the op-ed page or the one opposite the editorial page.
Indeed, Chuck Lilley of Franklin, a frequent caller, posed his question in an e-mail to the newspaper:
By my count there is a weighting in favor of both the number of liberal writers and the frequency with which they appear in your Other Opinions section over conservative counterparts.
Lilley cited the Nov. 5, 6 and 7 op-ed offerings to support his perceived liberal-leaning weighting.
Heres his assessment:
Fridays paper had two articles written by admitted liberals, [Maureen] Dowd and Nicholas Kristof , versus one article by the conservative-leaning Cal Thomas. Saturdays paper was a complete victory for the liberals with the bitter Paul Krugman and three other columnists bashing the administration (score 4 articles to 0).
Sundays paper was 2 to 1 for liberals. The conservative Bill Safire wrote … an informative, balanced article warning Republicans not to be overconfident with their new Senate majority. Edward Goldberg, a Russian business consultant, blasted the administrations failure to buy sufficient oil from, guess who, Russia.
Trudy Rubin of The Philadelphia Inquirer accused the President of not comprehending the actual terrorist threat. Total score after only three days, 8 articles written by the liberal columnists, 2 by the conservatives. This total I should point out is just days following a majority Republican Presidential victory for President Bush!
Dennis Hartig, the papers editorial page editor, took the time to write Lilley. Heres some of his reply:
If you expand your analysis, I believe youll conclude we do a pretty good job of balancing the liberals and the conservatives. Do we have days when the selections tilt too far one way or the next? Sure. But thats a result of other factors, the most frequent of which is the lack of [a] balancing column for a pro/con package on the same day. Id put our stable of regular columnists up against any other metro paper of our size.
Hartig produced a scorecard of his own, going back to the Sunday before the Nov. 2 presidential election. Heres his breakdown:
Pro-Republican, laudatory Bush, anti-liberal or anti-Democrat: Cal Thomas, three; George Will, two; Thomas Sowell, two; Susan Fields, James Lileks and William Safire. Thats 10.
Anti-Republican, anti-Bush, pro-liberal or pro-Democrat : Matthew Miller, David Broder, Nicholas Kristof, Maureen Dowd, Leonard Pitts, Paul Krugman and Garry Wills. Thats seven.
Theres no left-wing conspiracy at The Pilot editorial page any more than I believe there is a right-wing conspiracy in America, Hartig wrote Lilley.
So what was Lilleys reaction to Hartigs missive?
Although he believes a good case of Bush bias can be made against the media in general, Lilley says Hartigs response pretty much convinced me that The Pilots op-ed page does make the effort to take a balanced approach to inform the reader.
One of Hartigs major points one I like to make when readers voice a complaint similar to Lilleys is that, while we strive for balance day in and day out, it is over a period that a more accurate assessment can be made.
Theres no such thing as a straight 50-50, day by day, explains associate editorial page editor Roger Chesley, who edits the op-ed page. It doesnt work that way. You try for the best mixture of views left, right. You try to achieve some racial balance on days. Sometimes you throw in an interesting column that has nothing to do with politics.
The bottom line, Chesley says, is you just try to be fair.
Malkin’s out
Sometime back, Molly Ivins was dropped as a regular on The Pilots op-ed page for being too stridently anti-Bush, to quote Hartigs e-mail letter to Lilley.
Michelle Malkin had been added, giving another voice to the conservatives. But readers often took issue with her seemingly mean-spirited rantings and suggested that she be dropped.
Well, shes outta here, silenced for being too stridently anti-liberal, the assessment of the editorial board, Hartig said.
I was really put off by her penchant for name-calling and ad hominem attack. I think we can do much better, said editorial writer Don Luzzatto.
Says fellow editorial writer Bronwyn Lance Chester: I think she habitually mistakes shrill for thought-provoking and substitutes screaming for discussion. Shes an Asian Ann Coulter.
I also think that, like Coulter, she says outrageous things just to get TV appearances and book deals. Shes the worst of whats wrong with punditry today. She adds absolutely nothing to genuine political discourse.
So why did we add Malkin in the first place? I asked Chesley.
We wanted another conservative voice on the page, he said. Also, she was Asian American and gave a viewpoint you dont always hear from Asian Americans.
But what about her stridency?
She didnt seem to be as strident when we first got her, Chesley said.
