Conservative Bias?

Earlier, I referenced an NYT story in which the content indicates that Bush’s support has dropped substantially among Hispanics–a story mysteriously titled Hispanics Back Big Government and Bush, Too. I speculated that the titles was an effort, conscious or unconscious, to avoid charges of liberal bias. To which frequent AB contributor Tom replied,

The NYT is erring conservative to avoid the label of a liberal bias?

The NYT?

Somehow I don’t buy that one…

Now the standard response is to talk about Jeff Gerth and the NYT’s role in trumpeting Whitewater, or the NYT’s hapless exploiting of Wen Ho Lee in order to attack Clinton. But now I’ve got something even better and, remarkably, it comes via Howie Kurtz. Kurtz describes a study done at the Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy (admittedly, the author is a well-known liberal, Michael Tomasky, but read the study before alleging bias). Here’s a sample of the results:

The liberal papers criticized the Clinton administration 30 percent of the time, while the conservative papers slapped around the Bush administration just 7 percent of the time.

The liberal papers [NYT, Washington Post] praised the Clintonites 36 percent of the time, while the conservative papers [WSJ Editorial, Washington Times] praised the Bushies 77 percent of the time.

One more set of numbers: The liberal papers criticized Bush 67 percent of the time; the conservative papers criticized Clinton 89 percent of the time.

AB