A response to The Myth of the Liberal Media:

On June 8, Victor Rocha, the webmaster for PECHANGA.net, received the following message:

Since I work for Victor and had posted the story in question, I responded:

The debate continues (6/16/05)

You strongly disagree that the AP is neutral? Well, here's evidence that the AP is a key player in the center-right mainstream media:

>> A survey of journalist about 4 years ago showed over 80% of them identifyed themselves as Democrats. And over 90% of them voted for Al Gore. The fact that AP ran this story doesn't change anything. <<

This is almost a non sequitur. First of all, we don't know if the survey's methodology was valid. We don't know if one of the 80% wrote the AP article. And a self-identified Democrat may be conservative on many issues.

Those are the minor caveats. The major caveats are: One, like most professionals, journalists are quite capable of putting aside their biases when they do their jobs. Two, and most important, journalists don't decide what gets published; editors and publishers do. A reporter's liberal article will get spiked by a conservative editor or publisher.

In short, unless you have some evidence connecting the political orientation of this particular AP writer, or of all AP writers, to a demonstrable slant in the AP's articles, you don't have much of an argument. Your opinion on the matter doesn't change this.

Really, this is all old hat. Conservatives claim that reporters are liberal. Liberals reply that reporters don't decide what is the news. People in the media have had this exchange many times.

>> For us DC insiders, Capital Hill Blue is well known as an unreliable leftist web site. I've heard, but can't confirm, it's run by a DNC staffer. <<

You're still missing the point. The article was an AP article, not something Capital Hill Blue originated. It also appeared in the Mississippi Clarion-Ledger, at least. Are you claiming a Mississippi newspaper is biased toward liberals? Which newspapers do you consider unbiased: the Wall Street Journal? The Washington Times?

Stories about Tom DeLay's malfeasance have run in almost every newspaper in the country. Many of these newspapers are in red states, endorsed Bush for president, and advocated war against Iraq. I suspect these factors are much better indicators of a newspaper's bias than the political orientation of its reporters.

Why have both liberal and conservative newspapers published stories about Abramoff, Reed, and Delay? Because their ethical lapses are news, not because the media is biased. The media pursued Bill Clinton's ethical lapses more doggedly than any president in history, so where's the bias?

AP = factually incorrect?
>> By running this factually incorrect story, AP was either lazy or some reporter was showing their leftist bias. <<

How was the story factually incorrect? List the particulars if you can.

And why tell us about it? PECHANGA.net makes no judgments about the accuracy of the articles we link to. We link to almost every article about Indians, gaming, or Indian gaming—period. It's not our responsibility to vet the articles for accuracy.

>> The fact that some local paper ran the story just proves newspaper editors sometimes get lazy and print dumb or wrong stories -- notice the daily number of corrections? <<

Did anyone publish corrections to this story? Or to any of the many other stories finding fault with Tom DeLay? If not, this point is irrelevant.

>> Newsweek??? <<

Fox News??? Talk radio??? Jeff Gannon??? Armstrong Williams??? Pro-administration propaganda videos paid for with taxpayers' dollars???

Newsweek made a small mistake and quickly corrected it. How is that an example of liberal bias? Answer: It isn't.

If you want bias, consider how the mainstream media—the New York Times, the Washington Post, etc.—missed the story of Bush's fraudulent WMD claims. However liberal their reporters are, these organizations are institutionally conservative. They support the status quo in myriad ways.

If you're going to question our posting of an AP article, you might as well question every posting on the site. They're almost all from news sources as reputable (or in your opinion, as disreputable) as the AP. We post a couple hundred stories a day, so feel free to e-mail Victor about all of them. But it's a waste of time to single out one AP story as if that alone deserves our attention.

>> Also, did you happen to post the Washington Post story last week referencing the large sums of money Democrats received from Indians and Jack Abramoff? I didn't see it on your site. But I very well could have missed it. <<

Yes, we posted that story June 2. You're barking up the wrong tree if you think you can detect some gross political bias in PECHANGA.net. I've read the site religiously for several years and worked on it myself a couple years. We may exclude a rant from a right-wing website or blog, but we've never excluded any article about Indians or gaming from a major news source such as the NY Times or Washington Post.

We even exclude some AP stories because they often rewrite other people's articles. In fact, I believe Victor removed the AP/Capital Hill Blue story because he didn't think it added any information—not because he thought it was biased or because you complained. Would we do that if we were pushing a left-wing agenda? No. If we were pushing a left-wing agenda, we'd leave it up there and post more articles like it.

If you think we missed a conservative-slanted article in the mainstream media, e-mail it to Victor and me. He doesn't always answer his e-mail, but I do. I'll let you know when we posted it or why we didn't post it, in the unlikely event that happens.

>> I've known Victor for some years now and enjoy the political debate. He makes it well know he's a Democrat and I try not to hide my conservative convictions. <<

He doesn't waste much time debating conservatives. I do. <grin>

Rob Schmidt

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