Am I the only one unable to read the link due to a movie ad that won't go away?

There's no ad when I click it.

On this same subject, I was more intrigued by Neal Gabler's piece on the Commentary page. Gabler makes the case that "Fahrenheit 9/11" demonstrates that traditional "balanced" journalism is deeply flawed, and proving incapable of revealing information that might alienate specific ideological camps.

At the "Zocalo" forum at the Central Library last night, LAT Op-Ed Editor Nick Goldberg strongly defended the traditional journalistic ethic of objectivity and fairness and was critical of Michael Moore for his failure to play fair. It was interesting, then, to open up the paper this morning to see the Gabler piece.

I found Goldberg more persuasive than Gabler, but it's to his credit that he doesn't impose his personal views on the page he runs.

This column has it all: complaints about others practicing "yellow journalism," comparing FOX to cockfighting and their viewers to those who watch cockfighting, a Nazi reference, and, overall the irony of watching the L.A. Times complain yet again about other news sources being biased.

Anyone with high school math or physics can see the problem here: the LAT and similar outfits think they're at the center, but in reality their y-axis is shifted a few ticks to the left.

"the LAT and similar outfits think they're at the center, but in reality their y-axis is shifted a few ticks to the left."

Oh please. I know this is a debate that could be rehashed ad naseum, but I just think this argument is preposterous. The mainstream American media, including the LAT, is quite conservative. Even NPR, which people like to claim is left-leaning, gives preference to conservative voices. The only reason a corporate media conglomerate can somehow be painted as "a few ticks to the left" is that Americans are so accustomed to a steady diet of cheerleading b.s., sanitized war coverage and unalloyed p.r. that the occasional sound of critical reporting comes as a shock. ... Did you read this item (below) on Poynter yesterday? This is the reason Americans think their media is "liberal." It's because a shockingly large percentage of the population would prefer not to hear about anything but sunshine and flowers.

Two in 10 say editorials critical of war shouldn't be allowed
Chicago Tribune
A Chicago Trib poll of 1,000 adults found 20 percent believe negative reporting on the war and anti-war commentary shouldn't be allowed, and about the same number feel that the 1st Amendment itself goes too far. A little over 10 percent say the Patriot Act doesn't go far enough.
Posted at 1:16:07 PM

For what it's worth, I've met a lot of soldiers who were in the Sand Box. Few of them find any resemblance between the overall picture in Iraq and what they see on CNN or in the major papers.

The mainstream American media, including the LAT, is quite conservative.

They're "conservative" in that they're part of the Establishment and they aren't out on the barricades preparing Molotovs. However, there appear to be about 2200 posts that point to there being a general liberal bias.

I'd suggest starting your own site (socalledliberalmedia.com for instance) pointing out the conservative bias in supposedly unbiased sources (WashTimes, FOX would be excluded, LAT, NYT, WaPo would be included).

Lonewacko: I think you and Alex may be arguing semantics. In his lexicon, "conservative" is just a catch-phrase for anything he doesn't like.

NPR guests are 61 percent Republican and 38 percent Democrat according to a study released last month, which you can look at here: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0525-11.htm

This argument that "'conservative' is just a catch-phrase for anything [I don't] like," is, of course, just a way to dismiss the contention without actually addressing its merits. Lonewacko's suggestion seems like a good one to me, since a statistical study would probably be more meaningful than pointless back-and-forth on a chat board. I know I've seen studies talking about, for example, the unequal use of the adjectives "liberal" and "conservative" in the NYT, and I can understand the idea that this may reflect a liberal bias on the part of some reporters. But the language that gets used is ultimately less important than the decisions about what stories get written, what sources get treated as "credible" and so on. No amount of calling a conservative sources "conservative," for example, could possibly be more powerful than the gross distortions of Judith Miller with regard to Iraqi weapon programs and the willingness of her NYT editors to play up her lies as "scoops." If you want an example of "conservative bias in supposedly unbiased sources," I don't think it gets any clearer than the Miller case. ... But again, it probably makes more sense to look at the broad picture and see how that kind of stuff stacks up against articles that swing in the other direction.

Alex,

Agree. That someone like Kerry can be considered a member of the left only shows how far to the right the country has moved. Sure, you can't say certain things in public anymore, but aside from superficial culture war wins, the more important victories have gone to the right for a couple of decades now.

Judith Miller is a great illustration of what's true for most newspapers these days: report what the polls support, or lose subscribers that have no patience for being told something other than what they already believe.

Commondreams.org is a far left advocacy site, not one known for remotely objective, disinterested analysis of anything. Even if what they say about NPR guests is true, that says very little about NPR's programming as a whole, and less about the media generally. Every study that's been done has shown an overwhelming majority of journalists voting for Clinton in 1992 and 1996, Gore in 2000, and trust me on this, Kerry in 2004. Some issues are worse than others, of course. Gun control is among the worst, where idealistic gun control "advocates" routinely square off with the big, bad, powerful "gun lobby." Pro-abortionists are "pro-choice," while anti-abortionists are "anti-abortion." And the list goes on. And on. And on.

I seriously doubt that 20% of the population believes that the First Amendment should be abolished or that newspaper articles critical of the war should be prohibited by law. Even if that is true, one wonders how that stacks up with the percentages that say newspapers should not be permitted to say things critical of Islamic jihadists. Unless you consider the word "conservative" to be a synonym for "bad," there is nothing "liberal" about support for free speech or "conservative" about censorship. Indeed, the last major blow to free speech was McCain Feingold, which Democrats generally championed and Republicans generally opposed (though admittedly, a small number of RINOs in both houses of Congress did vote for it, and another RINO signed it into law).

Rube Goldberg notwithstanding, there is reason why the general public perceives the media as being a few ticks to its left: with the exception of those "pseudo-journalists" over at FoxNews, the media is a few ticks to its left. It's really that simple. The only people who can't see that are moderate liberals themselves, who tend to mistake their shared bias for plain old fashioned common sense, and Chomskyesque ultraliberal purists who can't fathom the possibility that anyone to their right might qualify as a liberal.

David, I'll grant you this much: if the word "liberal" is defined so narrowly as to exclude Kerry and Edwards, then it probably doesn't apply to the media, either - or to almost anyone else.

while anti-abortionists are "anti-abortion."

Damn those cultural elites!

Xriq you are so right baby! On Rutten's rant re FOX's supposed gallery of right wing "shouters", I suggest he, and the great majority of his cocoon dwelling cohorts, step back a few steps and recognize that the American political/cultural universe does not, ipso facto, revolve around the average journalists worldview. As a partisan Republican, I actually hope he and his buds keep their heads in the sand. Unfortunately for him and others, the unstoppable force of marketplace reality is starting to take its toll. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.

I find Tim Rutten to be one of the most eloquent writers on the local journalism scene. His column is always well written and thought-provoking. And, this one, in particular....