Reality has a liberal bias.

my thoughts exactly. kate. But on a more serious note Jacoby isn't telling the whole story. Yes, I'll grant the NYT, Globe and MSNBC, and some other scattered newspapers are decidedly liberal. But there are a whole lots of other papers, radio stations, web news sites, etc. besides Fox and the Wall Street Journal that are decidedly conservative and even borderline extreme right. In fact, every study I've seen of newpaper endorsement records shows Republicans are endorsed more than Democrats. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What's more, there is no comparison in the Republican bias in Fox news versus supposed Democratic bias in outfits like CNN, CBS, ABC and many non-conservative newspapers and and radio networks like NPR. Righties are always constantly ripping on NPR but every study of NPR guests has shown they actually have way more more conservative and Republican ones than out and out liberals, and a whole lot of moderates. Yes, NPR was willing to give a say to very liberal/progressive figures when no one else in the corporate media was willing to until MSNBC came along, and righties can't forgive that.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I frankly approach all media (and always have) with a healthy degree of skepticism. During my lifetime the vast majority of media was generally moderate to rightleaning. It wasn't until MSNBC that progressives actually felt like they had a real ally in the mainstream media. And for a lot of us, it was about time.

If you're not bright enough to recognize the bias that exists in the NYT or the conservative bent of the Florida Times Union, the liberal leanings of the Post or the conservative leanings of the Washington Times then I'd suggest you probably are not very observant.  If you are talking about the major networks ABC etc. then I'd suggest you're really not seeing any news whatsoever. The major networks don't produce enough hard news to be biased.  This has long been a conservative whine, the media doesn't like us, academia doesn't like us, Hollywood doesn't like us.  After awhile conservatives sound like nothing more than paranoid individuals suffering from one giant conspiracy theory. 

And to illustrate his position on major news outlets, JJ cites the egregious example of...the Washington bureau chief of Yahoo News?!?!?!...Oops, make that FORMER bureau chief. /// No conservative outlets? No mention of the Wall Street Journal? Post? Herald? /// Is there a liberal bias in media? Sure, but it's a bias that comes from the experience of reality that people who are drawn to the report, people who take their blinders off and strive to see the world for what it is, posess. That comes from expierence, not some abiding evil, or lack of understanding. /// BTW - JJ, When was the last time you openly admitted to your biases? From now on could you please list them at the head of you columns in case I forget?

Jeff has made such a good point once again.  The bias that come from the news outlets is revealed in very sublte ways.  While they will not openly say whom they prefer as a candidate, they will treat their preferred candidate, or politician on the left, with ease and rarely challenge them.  Look at the questions President Obama has been asked, in both news conferences and interviews.  They reveal a desire to cozy up with their super hero.  The questions put to Mitt Romney have one goal in mind-to find a controversy.  

NEW PARAGRAPH:  Bias is with us, and always will be.  But with the free flow of news from so many sources, consumers of news can select the source which reflects their own values and bias.  Interesting that Fox News has higher ratings than any other news channel, by a wide margin.

If this isn't the pot calling the kettle black I don't know what is. I believe the term quid pro quo is applicable here. I cannot believe your use of false equivalency to backstop your assertions on media bias, coming from a man who consistently engages in exactly such bias in virtually every piece he writes. In fact, the bias you assert from the NY Times -- which admittedly tends to lean left -- certainly has its match in the Wall Street Journal or countless other newspapers Websites and magazines. Your portrayal of CNN, ABC, CBS, etc. isn't even close to the home of the Right Wing salvo at Fox News, which is unparalleled for its platform of outright impartiality. In fact, I would posit just the opposite of what you're postulating. I would say the CNN's of the world are so afraid to appear unfair that they bend over backwards to provide a platform to refute facts that are overwhelmingly in the favor of one side over the other, so as not to appear biased, doing a disservice to the public and harming their own credibility. This was clearly evidenced by CNN, ABC, NBC etc., in failing to simply report the egregious nature of the dishonest deluge that Paul Ryan espoused during the Rep National Convention as nothing more that outright lies. Instead opting to soften the facts by referring to the lies as “factual inaccuracies”, which can certainly said to be true of your article.

Ooh, Jeff Jacoby is feeling like an unwanted minority-- a conservative in an allegedly liberal newsroom. Get over this: the myth of a "liberal media" is perpetuated by the same truth bending selfish manipulators that are Republican operatives. "Supposed racism" of the Republican party? Have you not heard about what's happening in Arizona? Did you not hear Ann Romney go on and on bout ""you people"? Did you fail to notice the story about the black camerawoman pelted by peanuts by RNC racists oops I mean delegates?

This is such an old trick, the cries of leftist, biased media. First of all, media overall has been taken over by the right. Read the Republican Noise Machine for a history of how that happened. While some media still tilts left, there's been a strong, steady movement to the right as our political landscape has shifted to the far right off a cliff into crazy land. This movement was not a reflection of shifts of the general public to the right. It is instead a deliberately top-down strategic orchestration, with a goal of moving the general public to the right in service of hidden, wealthy special interests. Second, the right has a problem with the truth. We've all seen that. Lying, distortion, disinformation, and other propagandistic tricks are the norm and are well-documented far, far, FAR more on the right: just examine the atrocious media biases toward the right in coverage of climate change. The damage this right-wing bias toward hoodwinking people cannot be underestimated. Mr. Jacoby engages in a fair amount of this political malpractice right here in the Globe.

If there is a media bias to the left, it is a bias toward the truth and I'm all for it. As Colbert famously wagged, "The truth has a well-known liberal bias."

I fear for your career, Mr. Jacoby.   Evolution from political bias to religious fervor among, not only journalists, but the rest of us too, is a fact of life.  Once baptised into that mode,  non-believers must suffer exclusion, debasement and exile from what used to be a collection of American friends trying to win a debate.   Anything goes now.  No holds or words are barred and the division so deep we can no longer be friends or even relatives.    My claim to not hate those with whom I dsagree is met with hate filled expletives.   The media has become the "fifth estate".   Yet, despite my "profox" identity, I cherish the effort to engage those with whom I disagree.  As a conservative  and Tea Partier, I have never seen a Swastika at any gatherings of the "old folks" who still balance their checkbooks.   I believe it is fair and balanced that I be allowed to believe my life of hard work and family dedication testifies to my belief that those in need be helped, the hungry fed and laborers be paid fairly for their work.   George Stephanopolis is a perfect example of all that is wrong.  He exploits his position to promote his Democrat party at everyone's expense.

Comparing the liberal slant of CBS-NBC-ABC-CNN-NPR to the conservative slant of FOX reminds me a little of creationists urging high school biology departments to 'teach the controversy'. Yes, most reporters there vote Democratic in the privacy of the voting booth, and an occasional progressive spin informs their reporting, but most also bend over backward much of the time - often too far by half! - to be 'fair & balanced'. Fox News, on the other hand, presents an often dramatically biased, distorted version of the news. Only a blinkered partisan could say with a straight face that they're comparable.

Jacoby Flip-Flops more than Romney and the GOP, people who are moderates are now considered liberals by his ilk, only because they have taken their party so far right in their quest for power and control...

If the liberal side of the media admitted its bias it would lose the ability to subtly "shape the narrative" by cloaking its true agenda behind an assumed purity of a science like "objectivity". If liberals were really smart and if their ideas were really better they wouldn't have to play these games, would they? If their ideas were better they'd be open, persuasive and confident about presenting the logic, historical success and facts behind their solutions. But they don't do this, do they? Instead they insist that their ideas aren't "liberal". They even go so far as to hide their liberal orientation behind the recent adoption of the phrase "progressive" to further mask the same old liberal nostrums. Jacoby is absolutely correct; let everyone drop the mask and end the charade. But that would mean that liberals would have to compete, openly, and for whatever reason, they prefer to obfuscate their actual leanings. Why would any, smart, confident and honorable person prefer to play such games unless they knew they couldn't succeed without doing so? 

The New York Times, like the rest of the "liberal" media is far interested in cozying up to power than in criticizing it, so politically they lean in which ever direction will get them pats on the head from Very Important People. Remember how NYT was an out and out cheerleader in the run up to the Iraq war? Remember how so-called liberals like Chris Matthews appeared ready to bown down and worship W after "Mission Accomplished"? Remember how just a couple of months ago, Arthur Brisbane expressed doubts that the New York Times ought to challenge the lies of powerful people?

The bias of many, in not most, reporters is toward cynicism. No one is honest.  Everyone has an angle. And it is the job of the reporter to expose this sort of thing.  Editors and owners have their proclivities too.  First of all to keep their jobs, status and influence.  In the stuffy old days the Times was the Old Gray Lady.  With the Sixties came the civil rights struggle and the war in Vietnam.  If your paper reported on the civil rights struggle too sympathetically, it was a liberal bias.  If you exposed the ignorance and duplicity of the supporters of the war, yet again another sign of liberal bias.  As science revealed what we were doing to ourselves and others via Agent Orange, massive oil spills, holes in the ozone layer, global warning...well, there you go again.  Liberal bias.  If you demonstrate the very strong evidence that a carefully managed Keysian approach to economics will be beneficial to the broadest number of people, it is clear evidence that you deny the divinity of Ayn Rand and are therefore a liberal, Chi-comm-symp working for the destruction of the nation.  Trying to understand the nature of our problems requires minds as open as possible.  Jeff Jacoby is there to tell you that anything that strays from the message of Murdock, AIPAC, Andelman, Koch and company is ONCE AGAIN...evidence of liberal bias.

Could it be that, with so many highly educated readers, the NY Times couldn't survive if it was "fair and balanced" like Fox News?

Well, well, this is so hypocritical of Jacoby that I have nothing to say other than: read his work if you are interested in how bias looks in print.

Just because impartial news reporting exposes republican mendacity from time to time does not make it liberal.  Jacoby sees the world in a manichean way, but instead of right or wrong, it's republican or liberal.  Unfortunately for him and those of his ilk, there are facts and logical positions that transcend the partisan assertions that currently pass for political "debate" in this country of ours.

Here we go again.  The examples Jeffy sites are actually editorially neutral when it comes to straight news reportage. On the editorial side, they may tend to be "liberal", but will usually goves space to opposing points of view. The best examples the presence of Brooks and Shields on PBS. The fact that Jeffy has a column in the Globe as its token conservative should prove the point of a fair and balanced editorial policy. To whine about the "liberal media" while glossing over the huge influence of talk-radio is disinengious at best. The conservative paranoid world view continues to be "if you ain't with us, then you must be against us." So any form of the media that is not blatantly in the radical right-wing camp must be assumed to be their enemy. Time to refer to "The Myth of the Liberal Media" for clarification. http://makethemaccountable.com/myth/LiberalMedia.htm

well said

That quote is hardly damning. It is not surprising to me that career reporters might have opinions about the world they cover. The fact that they live in New York, function in a certain income bracket, likely have liberal arts degrees from top universities may influence their views somewhat. It is not necessary for the reporting staff of a top newspaper to accurately represent that of its readership. On balance, I'd prefer them to be better writers and be better educated. The extent to which their biases are presented as fact may or may not matter to their readership. Plainly I feel they do a much better job than outlets like Fox News. Bias is a matter of opinion. To what extent is biased media swaying the minds of their readership? To what extent does this matter? Each outlet could answer this differently. I'd like to live in a world where provocative debate of important ideas by top minds held to some standard standard (must substantiate facts, must respond to direct questions) would be sought-after and financially solvent, but I fear it may not be. But I'm not quite feeling the outrage here. I know it's Jacoby's job to get us liberals all whipped into a frenzy, but this is too easy, too dumb, too empty. Is this really the top gripe from Conservatives today?