Our Republican bias?
It didn't take long to get the first complaint about our front page today. We expected some reaction, given that Senator Kerry came to town on the same day that the death toll for American troops in Iraq hit 1,001. Both of those stories dominate the front page today. It seemed to be tailor-made for a complaint that our news judgment was pro-Kerry.
So, the first complaint? "I am absolutely outraged at the utter and total bias of your coverage of John Kerry. You are obviously a Republican. How dare you put an article on the front page starting off that somebody, if he had been a dog barking for an hour, would have voted for him? And that headline about a partisan crowd. That is unforgiveable and unbelievable.
"If people got to hear him unbiased and unedited and unfiltered, they would vote for him."
The anonymous caller went on from there, but you get the picture.
Accusations of newspaper bias come from all sides.
Comments (3)
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I was surprised at the use of the word "savaged" in the lede of the news article describing Kerry's treatment of Bush.
Kerry was certainly critical, but he was fairly substantive in his criticisms. Given the smears and nasty tactics in use in this campaign, which Kerry did not engage in, I found that verb inappropriate -- a reader who was not there (as I was) would get the wrong impression about Kerry's tone and content.
Posted on September 8, 2004 3:27 PM
I asked Eric Dyer to respond to you, Ed. Here's what he said:
"I wanted to make clear that he really was going after President Bush on a number of fronts, something he hasn?t been doing a lot of until recently. I recall being in Charlotte a few weeks ago when Kerry was there and, if my memory serves me correctly, he didn?t attack the incumbent much at all.
"I thought of 'savaged' along the lines of 'fierce' because it was a strong denunciation of the president?s record. Upon looking up the word, I see it can mean 'vicious,' which wasn?t what I intended to portray. On the other hand, it also means 'to attack without restraint or pity.' I'd say his attacks on George W. Bush were without pity and, for Mr. Kerry, without restraint."
Given that the news is filled with stories of the "new" Kerry taking it to the president, I'm not particularly bothered by the use of the term.
Posted on September 8, 2004 6:14 PM
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. A single word can make a big difference.
Jay Rosen has written a lot about the vocabulary and mindset of political reporting at his Pressthink blog.
http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/
Posted on September 9, 2004 9:18 AM