Yeah, but who cares about conservative bias?
We learn from Romenesko that the Record of Hackensack is “taking seriously” charges of liberal bias, and is requiring editors to seek out evidence of this left-wing plot.
So … will editors be required to look for incidents of conservative bias while they’re weeding out all this evil liberal bias?
Liberal bias is a meaningless phrase. For example, when the Virginian-Pilot refused to honor a high school artist because she sculpted a nude, the forums contained charges of “liberal bias.”
It’s an empty, meaningless phrase, yet publishers use it as an excuse to become ever more conservative at the same time the populace is becoming more liberal.
Papers get more conservative, liberal readers leave for the digital media, papers become even more conservative, so moderate readers leave …
I’m a sample of one, and this isn’t scientific. Yet every one of my conservative friends who complain about liberal bias subscribes to their local paper. My liberal friends complain just as loudly about conservative bias.
The difference is many of them have given up on newspapers, seeking out alternative newsweeklies and digital sources instead.
Getting even more conservative is only going to make it harder to attract young readers. It’s a suicidal business decision, yet publishers drink the Kool-Aid every day. And we wonder why papers are dying …
May 28th, 2008 at 6:40 am
I deliver flowers to the new Columbian building a couple times a week and note that most of the expensive space is vacant. AHA thinly occupies most of the sixth floor but there is not much sign of any other tenancy. My liberal friends are lately passing an urban legend that the paper is furiously trying to hype circulation in an effort to sell the paper to some chain. That line was active on and off for decades. A city council member shared it with me in hush-hush confidence the week I started working for the Campbell family in November 1975.