So, I followed a link to part of an election story that was on the WSJ and I couldn't help but notice the little editorial menu on the top of the page. Basically twelve opinion pieces bashing the President's SOTU address.
I know that WSJ is a conservative paper. But really?
5 comments:
We had a discussion, not so very long ago, where I pointed out that the NYT had endorsed the more liberal candidate for president, governor and senator in every election since 1932 and you decided at that time that editorial position didn't indicate a paper's liberal bias.
I call shenanigans.
Was that me or Liam? I accept the shenanigans, though.
Still, do you think it is odd that a newspaper would respond to a pretty decent SOTU address this way? I mean, it was basically a centrist love letter, wasn't it?
BTW, I wasn't using this as an indication that the WSJ was a conservative paper; I was just acknowledging that it is generally accepted as a conservative paper.
It might have been Liam, primarily, but both of you basically refused to accept the notion of the NYT as liberal.
But yes, in this particular case it is really strange to attack the SOTU. I don't know that I'd have called it a centrist love letter, but I do think it was not super liberal by any stretch. I mean the big light-hearted theme was that something simple was over-regulated, and some other points were that we need to concentrate on science education and job creation.
I guess the WSJ would have attacked apple pie and motherhood as well.
The funny thing about this vs. the other conversation some time ago about the NYT, is that that conversation also started with me making some other point, but in passing saying that the NYT, being liberal leaning, blah, blah, blah, and being told I was wrong. I think it's a denial of reality to say the NYT is not a liberal paper--it's a part of the fabric of reality of American culture, just as the WSJ being conservative is. The 60 years of endorsing liberal candidates is kind of a slam dunk on that argument, but even that wasn't accepted as proof. It was a weird moment for me, so I've held onto it.
But I wholly accept the WSJ as conservative, *and* I accept the attacking of this bland, centrist-leaning SOTU as a little weird.
I would re-emphasize the distinction between a paper's editorial board and the news reporting. I have never disputed that the editorial page of the NYT is left-leaning. I would describe it as center-left. The editorial page of the WSJ is famous for being hard right. However, the straight-up news of both the NYT and the WSJ is not clearly ideologically biased. I am sure you can find occasional articles in either paper that one feels are slanted one way or the other. My experience with the NYT is that they are frustratingly scrupulous in avoiding the appearance of bias in their news section (to the point of being the willing mouthpiece to right wing crazies/neocons). In the business reporting of the WSJ I haven't seen much bias either, though I am less familiar with their work since they went behind a paywall.
Since Jim was commenting on the editorials, I don't see shenanigans in this case, though I commend you on the use a wonderfully evocative word!
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